Maybe Megan Will Get Justice After All...

This article klept'd from AJ's blog.

Hate-Crime Count in W.Va. Torture Case AP

(megan's mom, megan )
(megan after b'ng rescued, and mom)
(megan's mom, megan l-r)
(perverts, b'low)
(don't count megan out just yet!)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — One of several white people charged in the suspected kidnapping, torture and sexual assault of a black woman has been indicted on a hate crime count, and two others have entered guilty pleas in the case.

Six people arrested after Megan Williams was rescued in September had been charged with counts that carry maximum life sentences, but until Tuesday's indictments no one had been charged with a hate crime. The issue has been a sore point among many of Williams' supporters.

Karen Burton, 46, of Chapmanville, was indicted Tuesday on charges of committing a hate crime, kidnapping and malicious wounding. Three others were indicted on counts including kidnapping, sexual assault and conspiracy.

Prosecutors say Williams, 20, was held captive for days at a trailer in Big Creek, where she was forced to eat animal feces, sexually assaulted and stabbed. She was rescued Sept. 8 after an anonymous caller alerted Logan County sheriff's deputies.

Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham said Burton stabbed Williams in the ankle while saying, "This is what we do to n------ down here."

Karen Burton was "a little surprised" by the hate crime charge but was relieved that an earlier sexual assault count was not included in the indictment, said her attorney, Betty Gregory.

"She didn't want her children to think anything like that about her," Gregory said.

While noting that Burton has two biracial grandchildren in North Carolina whom "she dearly loves," Gregory said part of Burton's defense will be that she "has a significant history of child abuse from her own childhood."

Two other defendants — Burton's daughter, 23-year-old Alisha Burton, and 27-year-old George A. Messer — each pleaded guilty Friday and have agreed to testify against the others.

Messer and Alisha Burton, both of Chapmanville, were each sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 10 years for kidnapping and two to 10 years for assault during the commission of a felony, Abraham said. Williams and her family were consulted before plea deals were offered, he said.

The state hate crime count against Karen Burton is the first one legal scholars can remember being prosecuted in West Virginia.

"This one particular charge in this one particular case is winnable, and you can send the message that this type of behavior is not going to be tolerated," said West Virginia University sociology professor Jim Nolan, who teaches a course on hate crimes.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and groups including Washington, D.C.-based Black Lawyers for Justice had pushed for hate-crime charges. Sharpton, who led a hate crimes rally in Charleston in December, said Wednesday that it was good one such charge was filed but added that there should have been more.

"They all engaged in hate crimes because they aided and abetted a hate crime," Sharpton said.

Abraham said other defendants used the same slur Karen Burton did, but the fact that Burton used it while stabbing Williams made her act more clearly a hate crime.

"The distinction was that we think that there was an affirmative statement as to Karen Burton's motivation when she allegedly said that to Megan Williams," Abraham said.

Abraham previously had refrained from filing hate-crime charges, saying they would be difficult because there was a pre-existing relationship. Williams filed domestic assault charges against one of the defendants, Bobby Brewster, in July.

Abraham also had noted that the 10-year maximum prison sentence for a hate crime conviction was low compared with the life term a kidnapping conviction could bring.

Indicted on felony counts with Karen Burton and Brewster were Danny Combs and Brewster's mother, Frankie Brewster. Another man not previously arrested was indicted Tuesday on a misdemeanor battery charge.

The defendants have denied the charges. Aside from Gregory, their lawyers did not immediately return phone calls on Wednesday.

The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother, Carmen, agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams has said she wanted people to know what her daughter endured.

Megan Williams has taped a segment of Montel Williams' talk show that is to be broadcast Thursday.

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I'm not goin to comment too much on this story, bcuz focusing on it will make me want to take it out on all of the wonderful non-black people I know. And I would never want to hurt or offend my co-workers, blog family, family members etc in that way. Also, I just don't have the anger, time nor the energy to be prejudiced (anymore). I must remember these people are perverts who happen to be white. Not perverts becuz they're white.

I pray that Megan (and her mom) is able to bounce back 100%, God is able-and I hope the suspects are tried in court and reap what they have sown-and one day they'll understand the detriment of their acts and become remorseful and repentant. No person deserves to be treated as Megan (or any other crime, torture victim) have.

God bless.

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Amerikkka The Beautiful!

I'm glad we're not like those 3rd world ghetto countries who doesn't look out for the elderly, how could we live w/ourselves??


Army pays $725 to WWII vet for unfair trial, imprisonment
source edited by Ivent

LEESBURG, Florida (CNN) -- Samuel Snow thought when he got a check from the Pentagon that the Army was finally ready to give him the apology and the compensation he'd been denied for 63 years. He was wrong.

Samuel Snow, 83, wants medical benefits and retirement pay from the Army since his conviction was overturned.

The Army imprisoned Snow in 1944 for a crime he says he couldn't have committed. The military overturned his conviction this year and sent him his back pay for the 15 months he spent in prison: $725.

Snow is one of just two defendants still alive from one of the biggest military trials of World War II.

Twenty-eight black soldiers were sent to prison after an Italian prisoner of war, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged to death following a night of brawling at Fort Lawton in Seattle, Washington.

At a time when the military forces were segregated, 41 black soldiers were tried in one large group and were provided two attorneys to defend them all.

According to the Army, 28 of the soldiers were convicted of rioting, including Pvt. Samuel Snow, who spent 15 months behind bars.

Two of those soldiers also were convicted of manslaughter in the death of the POW and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Thirteen of the men were acquitted.

After being released from prison, Snow returned to the segregated South. He arrived home with a criminal record, a bad conduct discharge and no benefits such as those provided by the GI Bill of Rights. He became a janitor.

In October, the Army Board for Corrections of Military Records determined the defendants were denied a fair trial. The board said the prosecutor refused to give defense attorneys access to confidential evidence.

As a result of the findings, the Army overturned the convictions -- but stopped short of finding the defendants "not guilty."

"What it is saying is that they didn't receive their fair day in court," said Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio.

The Army wrote checks to the surviving defendants as compensation for the back pay they were denied while in prison. Snow assumed that figure would be a substantial amount of money -- until the $725 check arrived at his home in central Florida.

If the payment had been adjusted for inflation, Snow would have received $7,768.13, according to the inflation calculator on the Labor Department's Web site.

If the $725 had been invested in 1946, when Snow was discharged from the Army, at 8 percent interest, compounded annually, it would have been worth more than $82,000 by now.

The Army said there are no legal provisions that allow it to consider adding accrued interest, adjustments for inflation or compensation for lost benefits.

Snow said the size of the check didn't surprise him. "I didn't think it was no kind of mistake," he told CNN. "They don't care."

The case might have been buried in history if not for the work of Seattle author Jack Hamann.

Hamann, a former CNN correspondent, spent years detailing the riot and flawed prosecution of the black American soldiers for his 2005 book, "On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of WWII."

Fort Lawton is now a public park, and most of the buildings have been torn down. But Hamann was able to pinpoint the very spot where Snow says he was knocked unconscious as he left his barracks. The author said it proves Snow was innocent, because he never made it to the Italian POW barracks to join the fight.

"He never had a chance to be involved in the riot," Hamann said. "He was just responding quickly to what he thought was an attack, and he was knocked out of it almost immediately."

The revived story of how Snow and 27 others were convicted on little evidence caught the attention of Congress. U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, asked the Army to review the nearly forgotten case.

"A real injustice had been done to a whole lot of black guys who were serving their country, and somebody had to speak up for them," McDermott said.

McDermott told CNN he does not blame the Army for going by the book but said he will look for ways Congress can help. Snow said he wants his name cleared, medical benefits and retirement pay.

But at age 83 and in poor health, he said he wonders if he will live long enough to see it happen. E-mail to a friend source