Texas Teen In Racial Controversy To Be Freed

I posted this story late last night in my del.icio.us links. I've been hearing about this story a lot and I know that I'm very late in writing this up. It's still worth mentioning.

Oh yeah hat-tip to MyUrbanReport for this!!!

So this young lady in Texas, a Shaquanda Cotton check out this blog about her because the good news is that she is to be released from custody. You can see more news here and a video.

What happened was that...

So McDonald's was the first stop for the soft-spoken black teenager, who was abruptly released by Texas officials after nationwide civil rights protests erupted over her sentence of up to 7 years for shoving a teacher's aide at her high school.
...
Three months before Cotton, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced by Paris Judge Chuck Superville in March, 2006, to up to seven years in youth prison for the shoving incident, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl convicted of the more serious crime of arson to probation. Later, when the white teenager violated her probation, Superville gave her yet another chance and declined to send her to prison. Only when the youth violated her probation a second time did the judge order her locked up.

School officials, the Paris district attorney and the judge have all strongly denied that race played a role in the prosecution and sentencing of Cotton. But her case has coincided with an ongoing investigation of the Paris school district by the U.S. Department of Education, which is examining allegations that the district systemically discriminates against black students by disciplining them more frequently and more harshly than whites.

The furor over Cotton's case caused the special conservator now in charge of the Texas Youth Commission, the state's juvenile prison system, to examine it more closely last week, at the urging of civil rights leaders.

Oh yeah, great news. On the surface what happened seemed like a technicality. She got seven years for shoving a teacher's aide and that's a crime against a public official. She got a much harsher sentence whereas another girl, a 14 year old white girl, was given nothing but breaks.

This will pose a question, is there still some form of inequality in our justice system?Even racial inequality?