Posted: Jan 11, 2019 6:58 am
laklak wrote:I saw scott's post, but am a bit baffled since the last lynching I can find is, perhaps, the 1998 murder of James Byrd, in Jasper, TX. Byrd was an African American man dragged to death behind a pick up truck. Some people contend that wasn't a lynching, but others say it was. In any case, the perpetrators were charged, tried, and convicted. Two were sentenced to death and one to life imprisonment, and one of the death sentences was carried out in 2011. The second execution is scheduled for April of this year.
Prior to that, the last one I can find is 1981, when two Klansmen in Alabama hanged a randomly selected African American. Both were arrested, tried, and convicted. One was sentenced to death and executed, I don't know what the 2nd man was sentenced to.
Matthew Shepherd was killed in 1998, I'm not sure why that isn't called a lynching. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted. Both were sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
In all three cases the perpetrators where charged and convicted under existing laws. I'm not seeing evidence that local authorities are ignoring or refusing to prosecute lynchings, though I'll admit that's a rather cursory search. If there are cases I'm unaware of I'm happy to be corrected, and will modify my opinions accordingly, but at this point I see no need for specific legislation.
Well, those were the cases that were investigated and prosecuted. Unless I am mistaken, Scott1328 is arguing that many other cases may have occurred but state level judicial systems have not pursued those cases because, well, Alabama... With a federal law covering lynchings, perhaps fewer of them fail to be acted on.
I do think a coverall federal law regarding murder generally would be a better approach, though.