Prometheus 6

LETTER FROM CYBERSPACE
Tribune reporter Howard Witt hasn't seen a reaction to a story quite like the one he got after writing about a controversy in the small Texas town of Paris
Published March 26, 2007, 8:57 PM CDT

Mr. Witt earned a little celebrity. He found a true injustice and reported it well.

That has now happened with a story I wrote two weeks ago, about a 14-year-old black girl from the small Texas town of Paris, who was sent to a youth prison for up to 7 years for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. A 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, was sentenced by the same Paris judge to probation.

If you had Googled the black girl's name, Shaquanda Cotton, the day before the story was published on the front page of the March 12 edition of the Tribune, you would have gotten zero results. On Monday afternoon, there were more than 35,000 hits.

That, my fellow bloggers, is because of YOU. Air and light are the best antiseptics and every post was a strong gust of clean air; every link a shaft of sunlight through the clouds

And now the story has jumped across the ethernet into the physical world:

...as was our intent. You guys pushed it hard. 

Dozens of talk-radio stations across the nation were buzzing about Shaquanda last week, protests on her behalf were held in Paris, a petition- and letter-drive aimed at Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the judge in the case, Chuck Superville, is under way, and civil rights leaders from the NAACP and the ACLU to the Rev. Al Sharpton are weighing whether to get involved.

And all you folks SHOULD get involved...though if you do, you better acknowledge the work of the local NAACP branch, and all the bloggers that raised the issue to national prominence...because we already got some results.

Now it appears all of this ferment might affect Shaquanda's case. Hers will be among the first cases to be examined by a special commission being established this week to review the sentence of every youth being held inside Texas' youth prisons, because of concerns that many inmates might have had their sentences arbitrarily extended by prison officials.

The review panel was sparked by a wide-ranging scandal currently plaguing the state's juvenile prison system in which numerous prison guards and officials are accused of coercing imprisoned youths for sex.

While that scandal does not directly involve Shaquanda, the high public profile of her case has caused the special master overseeing the investigation of the juvenile system to say he wants to review her case in particular.

Shaquanda also has an appeal pending with Texas' 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana, which has heard arguments on her case and could rule at any time.

That is banging.

So pat yourselves on the collective back, people.