| Thursday, October 04, 2007 |
| The Martin Anderson trial begins today |
The trial for the seven guards and the useless nurse who watched those guards beat, kick, stomp and elbow for 30 minutes at a Bay County boot camp last January began yesterday on charges of aggravated manslaughter. The eight are being tried before an all-white jury, in a town where Martin's family had to go underground during the nearly year-long ordeal before indictments were handed down, due to racist taunts and death threats. Ain't that a kick in the head.
On trial and charged with felony aggravated manslaughter of a child are former drill instructors Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., Joseph Walsh II and camp nurse, Kristin Schmidt. They face up to 30 years in prison, if convicted. Overstreet said he will allow the jury to consider a lesser non-homicidal verdict also.
Two of the defendants are black, one Asian and five are white. Defense attorneys have said some of the former drill instructors will testify. Here we go.
By the way, we talked this morning about the Emmett Till case. The town where his killers were acquitted back in 1955 is now planning to issue an apology, in hopes of bringing tourists to their dying municipality. Fascinating backgrounder on the players in the Till tragedy here.
For some reason, the two cases resonated in parallel fashion for me this morning.
Labels: Martin Anderson |
posted by JReid @ 9:41 AM   |
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