Heather Ellis

The Heather Ellis case is only the most recent example of how race/racism affects our law.  If you hadn’t heard, Heather Ellis is the young African American lady who just pled guilty to disturbing the peace at a Kennett, Missouri Wal-Mart.  Had the case gone to a jury trial, she faced up to 15 years in prison for felony assault on a police officer.  We’ll look at how race was a factor in the proceedings.  If you want one incredibly biased version of this story, click here.  Here’s another.  Here, finally, is a pretty objective one.

Heather was technically the defendant.  However, her story of mistreatment by police and overwhelmingly racist attitude of the people in Kennett made her appear to be the victim.  She had much support, both in her community and from people around the country, in her claim that the town of Kennett was basically one single racist entity.  And, she had some pretty good evidence to back it up.  Calling cards allegedly from the Ku Klux Klan were found scattered around the courthouse after a pre-trial hearing, and there were rallies by American Neo Nazis and other White Power groups.  Enter the plea bargain.

This is exactly the circumstance for which plea bargains were made – trials that take place in a volatile atmosphere, where there are real threats to people’s safety and well being.  It works like this: the prosecution, usually the District Attorney, and the defense sit down with the Judge and reach some kind of settlement.  In this case, Heather plead guilty to the lesser charge of disturbing the peace rather than go to trial for assault.  Everyone exhales, washes their hands, and sets out to move on with business.  Did we forget anything?  No –

Kennett!

Kennett, Missouri is now seen by the world as a hotbed of racism.  It’s not so good for their image.  This is where a jury trial could have really helped them out of a jam.  The townspeople would have been on display, their comments and memories a matter of public record (and thus, history, which everyone seems to think we can learn from).  Of course, it could have turned out that the town really does spew racism like a geyser.  The fact that the prosecution didn’t go forth with a trial makes them suspect, though it could be that they were just trying to err on the side of physical safety given the presence of angry hate groups.  We may never know.

What do you think?  Should this case have gone to trial?

Posted by Tyler on December 7, 2009 at 12:15 pm.