The case of the two McMinnville schoolboys who are facing juvenile charges for slapping the rears of their female classmates has sparked a fair amount of discussion. Some think that the school, not the court, should be handling the matter; others think that the serious adult response is the right one.
It's instructive to compare McMinnville's decision with a recent case in Paris, Texas, in which a 14-year-old girl was accused of shoving a hall monitor when she wanted to get into the school building before the school day started. Although the good people of Paris were known for being soft on crime outside the schoolhouse -- a man convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the deaths of two persons got probation, and a 14-year-old who burnt down the family home also got probation -- the same Lamar County judge, Chuck Superville, who handed down those two sentences of probation gave the 14-year-old who shoved the hall monitor 7 years in prison. She'll be locked up until she's 21.
Why do the arsonist and the killer get probation while the hall monitor shover gets 7 years in prison? Oh -- I forgot to mention that the arsonist and the killer are white (the killer's victims were black), and the shover (whose name is Shaquanda Cotton) is black. But that couldn't have had anything to do with Judge Superville's decision in these three cases, could it? Of course not -- not even in Texas.