Teen's rape case shows racism still stains South [Miami Herald Leonard Pitts Alert]

The Miami Herald ^ | 08 March 2004 | Leonard Pitts, Jr.

[MegaSilver]

A few words about race, justice and Marcus Dixon.

Hundreds of people rallied last week in Atlanta, hoping to persuade the Georgia Supreme Court, which is considering an appeal filed on his behalf, to set Dixon free. Meanwhile, he sits in a cell in a Georgia penitentiary, serving a 15-year sentence for statutory rape and aggravated child molestation.

Prosecutors say the crime stems from the fact that last year when he was 18, Dixon had sex with a girl who was three months shy of 16. But critics say the true ''crime,'' in the eyes of a Deep South justice system, is that Dixon is black and the girl is white.

Either way, his life has been upended. And victory has become loss.

After all, Dixon, born to a cocaine-addicted 15-year-old single mother, seemed to have beaten all the odds. Raised since age 12 in a white suburb by a white couple who regarded him as their son, he was a straight-A student and football standout with a full scholarship to Vanderbilt University.

That's all gone now. Incredibly, things could have been worse.

Dixon was originally charged with rape after the encounter, which took place in a trailer on the campus of his high school in the suburbs of Rome. Prosecutors saw him as a sexual predator; he had been suspended from school twice before, once for exposing himself to a female classmate and once for touching another girl inappropriately. Dixon said that in the first incident, he and some guys were just fooling around; he denied the second altogether.

TWO VERSIONS OF EVENTS

Jurors did not buy the rape charges, though. The girl claimed to have been bruised in the encounter, but three defense witnesses testified to having seen the bruises before the incident. She also said Dixon had pinned her arms with his hands, unfastened her jeans with his elbows and used his knees and feet to remove her clothes. Which would seem to be beyond the abilities of anybody but Plastic Man.

For his part, Dixon says the encounter was consensual, but that the girl was terrified her father might find out. Not just because he would be disappointed in her for having sex, but because he would ''kill both of us'' if he learned she'd had sex with a black man.

It was a fear that seemed particularly credible in a racially benighted community where the 21st century evidently has yet to dawn. Indeed, Kenneth Jones, the surrogate father, says his own brother stopped speaking to him after Dixon joined the household.

So jurors convicted the young man of the one thing that seemed indisputable: He'd had sex with an underage girl.

Many say they were appalled to learn that their decision would result in a sentence of 10 years in prison without parole and five on probation. The judge said that under the state's mandatory sentencing guidelines -- written for adult sexual predators -- he had no choice. ''My hands are tied,'' he said.

PROHIBITING COMMON SENSE

Take it as further proof that, in removing from judges the ability to judge, we create not uniformity of justice but miscarriages of it. No reasonable person would give a teenager 15 years for an act of consensual sex, but under mandatory guidelines, we lose the ability to reason or even to apply simple common sense.

Even so, that's not the most outrageous aspect of this episode. Put simply, it is impossible to believe that, had both Dixon and the girl been black -- or white -- this would have even gone to trial. And had he been white and the girl black? Well, as Strom Thurmond's life proves, he'd have a better chance of winding up in the Senate than a cell.

As a demonstrator said at last week's rally, ''It seems like for us, they just make up laws as they go along.'' God knows, it feels that way sometimes, as African-American lives are tossed out like garbage in the name of ``justice.''

Georgia did not punish a crime. It committed one.

[MegaSilver]

Leonard Pitts, Jr. does have one half-decent column under the belt: about The Passion of Christ. But otherwise, he rivals Molly Ivans in terms of columns that show no signs of critical thinking, objective analysis, or fundamental principles of logic. "Refuting [them]," as one FReeper wrote, "is child's play."

How such laughably bad IMO pieces make the papers is beyond me.

[MegaSilver]

Molly Ivans

Should be "Ivins."

Blah.

[sharktrager]

It does seem that this sentence is pretty steep for someone having sex with a partner just over 2 years younger than himself. Don't know if it's racism though.

[CrazyIvan]

Thanks. I want no similarity between that woman and I at all.

[steplock]

"So jurors convicted the young man of the one thing that seemed indisputable: He'd had sex with an underage girl. "

There is the entire story in one line.

The rest is all B.S. ala willie-boy clinton. boo-hoo!

[xm177e2]

Do they ever give out sentences like that to white boys accused of the same crime? I don't think so. It's incredibly wrong.

Doesn't the governor from that state have the authority to release the kid at any time, and clear his record?

Why do some FReepers care so much about some brain-dead woman in a coma but then have no sympathy at all for an innocent victim of an obviously racist legal system? There's still time left to SAVE this kid.

[Afro_conservative]

If you saw the girl who cried rape on Oprah you would be infuriated also.

[Afro_conservative]

Sometimes when I read these posts I think that if I lived in the 40's - 60's what would you guys really stand up for; what was right or just picket with the bigots against civil rights. This infuriates me that people here play like they don't know what is going on, and alot of you guys have the nerve to ask why blacks don't vote Republican. This is a clear case and if you can't see that either you have some agenda you are trying to whitewash here at freerepublic so as to make it mainstream or you are a blind asinine fool.

[steplock]

"Do they ever give out sentences like that to white boys accused of the same crime? I don't think so. It's incredibly wrong."

All the time, but it usually isn't splattered all over by the nation's news media for bleeding hearts to bemoan.

I'm waiting for the homosexual whiners to chime in here also - NAMBLA doesn't like statutory rape laws either!

[flying Elvis]

I am from Rome, Ga, and race played no role in this case, it is about mandatory sentencing and not race. If the guy had been white, he still would have recieved the same sentence. Bryant Gumball went to Rome to do a show for HBO and raised the race issue, claiming Rome still had an active Klan, which it does not.

[kiki p]

If you saw the girl who cried rape on Oprah you would be infuriated also.

What was she like?

[Husker24]

This is idiotic, if this guy belongs in jail, than so do millions of others. 15 years for something that isnt a real crime and has been going on for thousands of years is insane.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

No reasonable person would give a teenager 15 years for an act of consensual sex...

Correct. And no one did. By law, a 15 year-old girl (whether she's 15 and a day or 15 and 364 days) cannot consent to sex. Period. So an adult (18 years old) with a history of questionable behavior had sex with a girl below the age of consent on school property. Black, white, green, paisley, he would (and should) go to jail for it...

[JLS]

From what I can tell Pitts is right in this case. Two teens at school had sex. The jury found it was not rape.

The prosecutor had overcharged and the jury found due to the claimed injury while together AT SCHOOL this was child abuse which in Georgia carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years. Under know reasonable theory of the law can this be child abuse. She was not in his care.

Can you people complaining here not understand that under this theory of law, your child could injure another child in school, forget the sex it was not a crime, and get a mandatory 10 years. If your 18 year old SR in high school got in a little scrape with a Soph and gave him a black eye, 10 years???? How about if your 18 year old daughter was driving a little fast, had to hit the brakes and her neighbor child bit her lip. Yep mandatory 10 years for child abuse.

[sharktrager]

How do you know it was racism? The girl may have had racist motives for the rape charge, but the jury was faced with a man who admitted, under oath, to committing statutory rape. Legally, they had little or no choice in the matter at that point. And the sentence is defined by the law, not bu race.

I have a problem with the law and the sentence, but I am not going to pretend that I know that everyone who acted in this case did so out of racism because I do not know that to be the case, and neither do you.

[KantianBurke]

exactly. he commited stat rape. he violated the law. hope the predator enjoys prison.

[driftless]

FYI a few years ago in Wisconsin they convicted a white eighteen-year old of statutory rape for having consenting sex with his underage girl friend who incidentally he planned to marry. The guy is now residing at the state prison in Waupun.

[sarasmom]

You can either take back your noxious, insulting slur about those who fight for Terri Schiavo's right to live, or you can continue to post like a jerk.

You appear to be an ignorant, self-centered racist.
It is just fine if an out of controll legal system tries to murder a woman, who BTW is neither brain dead, nor in a coma, under color of law. After all, she is better off dead,and the courts have spoken.
Odd, poor Terri Schiavo has never even been accused of any crime, gone through any trial, and she is sentenced to death by starvation. And you dont have a single problem with that, or questionregarding the wise decision of the court system at all.
BTW, Terri is in Florida, not Georgia.
But everyone must ride to the rescue of an adult black male who had sex with an underage white female, because...just because you think the legal system is racist and screwed up for convicting him of a sex crime.
There is still time to save Terri from court ordered death.
But I guess keeping the adult "kid" out of jail after having committed a sex crime is more important to you.
After all, Terri Schiavo is just some stupid, sick white woman.
You make me sick.

[Arpege92]

So, what you're saying is that if I don't agree with your opinion on this matter of rape, then I am a bigot?

Well, I'm certainly not a bigot and I'm not quite sure this young man did indeed comit a crime of rape.

[yooper]

"She also said Dixon had pinned her arms with his hands, unfastened her jeans with his elbows and used his knees and feet to remove her clothes."

Who in their right mind would believe this? I have a hard enough time unfastening my jeans with one hand.

"The judge said that under the state's mandatory sentencing guidelines -- written for adult sexual predators -- he had no choice. ''My hands are tied,'' he said."

Now that I'd believe.

Not Guilty.