While this may not be HBCU related news, as an AFrican American male, I had to share this appalling decision by the Louisiana court system to keep a man in jail with a life sentence for such a petty crime.
A Louisiana man will continue to spend his life in prison for stealing a pair of hedge clippers, after the state’s Supreme Court denied his request to review a lower court’s sentence.
Fair Wayne Bryant was convicted in 1997 of stealing the hedge clippers. Prosecutors pursued and won a life sentence in the case, a penalty permissible under the state’s habitual offender law. Bryant appealed the life sentence as too severe.
Chief Justice Bernette Johnson was the sole dissenter in the court’s decision last week, writing that Bryant’s sentence is “excessive and disproportionate to the offense” — and that it was costing the state a lot of money to keep him imprisoned.
“Since his conviction in 1997, Mr. Bryant’s incarceration has cost Louisiana taxpayers approximately $518,667,” she wrote. “Arrested at 38, Mr. Bryant has already spent nearly 23 years in prison and is now over 60 years old. If he lives another 20 years, Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost one million dollars to punish Mr. Bryant for his failed effort to steal a set of hedge clippers.”
Bryant, who is Black, had four prior convictions. Only the first was ****: an attempted armed robbery in 1979, for which he was sentenced to 10 years hard labor.
His subsequent convictions were for possession of stolen property in 1987, attempted forgery of a $150 check in 1989 and burglary of a house in 1992.
“Each of these crimes was an effort to steal something. Such petty theft is frequently driven by the ravages of poverty or addiction, and often both,” Johnson wrote in her dissent. “It is cruel and unusual to impose a sentence of life in prison at hard labor for the criminal behavior which is most often caused by poverty or addiction.”
Johnson is the court’s second female African American justice and its first African American chief justice. The court’s other justices are all white men. None offered written rulings explaining their decisions.
The court’s decision was first reported by The Lens, a nonprofit news site in New Orleans. The Lens’ Nicholas Chrastil reports: “Louisiana’s habitual offender laws … have long been criticized for sanctioning excessively punitive sentences and driving mass incarceration in the state. Nearly 80 percent of people incarcerated in Louisiana prisons under the habitual offender laws … are Black.”
In her dissent, Johnson connected Bryant’s sentence to the “Pig Laws” and Black Codes in the years after Reconstruction, which enacted harsh penalties for theft and other petty crimes.
“Pig Laws were largely designed to re-enslave African Americans,” she wrote. Bryant’s case, the chief justice said, demonstrates a “modern manifestation” of Pig Laws: “This man’s life sentence for a failed attempt to steal a set of hedge clippers is grossly out of proportion to the crime and serves no legitimate penal purpose.”
Source: HBCUConnect
Louisiana Supreme Court upholds Black man’s life sentence for stealing hedge clippers more than 20 years ago
A life sentence handed down to a Black man for stealing a pair of hedge clippers more than two decades ago was upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court last week.
Fair Wayne Bryant, 62, was convicted in 1997 for stealing the clippers and was subsequently given a life sentence, which was sanctioned under the state’s habitual offender law. He appealed and the case eventually made its way to Louisiana’s high court.
The panel — composed of five White men and a Black woman — upheld the punishment, 5-1.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson was the lone dissenter. In her dissent, Johnson called Bryant’s sentence “excessive and disproportionate to the offense” while noting the high cost of keeping Bryant imprisoned.
The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for a Black man conviction more than two decades for stealing a pair of hedge clippers.
“Arrested at 38, Mr. Bryant has already spent nearly 23 years in prison and is now over 60 years old,” she wrote. “If he lives another 20 years, Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost one million dollars to punish Mr. Bryant for his failed effort to steal a set of hedge clippers.”
Bryant had four prior convictions. He was convicted in 1979 for armed robbery in which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His other convictions were for possession of stolen items in 1987, check forgery for $150 in 1989 and a 1992 home burglary.
Johnson called Bryant’s sentence a “modern manifestation” of “pig laws,” which were created following Reconstruction to severely criminalize African-Americans for petty theft.
“Pig Laws were largely designed to re-enslave African Americans,” Johnson wrote. “And this case demonstrates their modern manifestation: harsh habitual offender laws that permit a life sentence for a Black man convicted of property crimes. This man’s life sentence for a failed attempt to steal a set of 3 hedge clippers is grossly out of proportion to the crime and serves no legitimate penal purpose.”
Calls to Bryant’s appellate attorney from Fox News were not returned.
Source: FoxNews
