*Well, this is surely a case that shows how people who commit horrible crimes are dealt with differently according to race.
While the incident happened nearly four years ago, the sentencing just occurred on Thursday and two young white women received the maximum sentence for their role in a Mississippi hate crime that left James Craig Anderson, a black man, dead.
The women belonged to a gang recognized for hunting, harassing and killing African Americans for sport.
During a reading of their sentence by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate, Sara Adelia Graves and Shelbie Brooke Richards were given five years and eight years respectively.
Those were the maximum sentences available under the women’s plea agreements. But Wingate said he wished he could send the women away for longer prison terms, and did not even want to entertain the reading of letters he received from supporters of the two women portraying their presence as an accident or one-time incident.
“I feel this defendant, as well as the other one, could have been charged with a much more serious count than the one that they are pleading guilty to,” Wingate said after rejecting a call from Richards’ attorney to sentence her to only the five years that Graves received.
Richards, the youngest of the two, claimed, “It was the worst decision of my life and pleaded guilty to both conspiracy and concealing a crime (she lied to police). “I followed a lot of people with hate in their hearts.”
They ‘Hunted Black People’ For Fun Now They’re in Prison for Murder was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
