Court Throws Out Sentence in Cross (burning) Case (actually good news)

[Khephra]

RICHMOND, Va. -- A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a probation sentence given to a North Carolina man convicted of burning a cross near the home of an interracial couple while brandishing a gun, agreeing with prosecutors who said the penalty was too light.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Robert Nelson May to return to a lower court for resentencing. He pleaded guilty last year to racial intimidation for threats made against Anthony Sanders, who is black, and Jacquelette Paige Williams, who is white.

May was given a one-month jail sentence, with credit for time served, plus two years of probation.

A lower-court judge determined that May deserved a sentence less than the guidelines of 18 months to two years in prison because he had been provoked when one of the victims made an obscene gesture.

more...........


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-cross-burning-sentence,0,585701.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[TacticalPeek]

1. But aWol shoe-horns Charles Pickering on to the bench! What a uniter!

"A crime of intimidation loaded with a history of racial terror is not a proportional response to a gesture -- admittedly tasteless -- made daily on the highways at rush hour," the appellate judges wrote.