Race must face black violence
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by Cynthia Tucker
The judges of a Florida appeals court could see the boy in the black man-child, the recklessness in the kid who loved TV wrestling, the testosterone-fueled stupidity in an otherwise harmless pre-teen. They didn’t see a hardened killer.
So they reversed the conviction of Lionel Tate, who was just 12 years old when he was accused of murder in the death of his 6-year-old playmate, Tiffany Eunick. Although there was no evidence that Lionel meant to kill Tiffany, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The appeals court restored a semblance of common sense to a travesty of justice.