Regarding the Jena 6 and the over-charging issue, it was the initial charge of attempted murder that was protested and eventually reversed. Why were the Jena 6 initially charged with attempted murder and not ‘lynching’ as you have defined it? Maybe because they were black??? The Clyburn case is interesting information and very sad as well.

A common but false assertion made in connection with the Jena High School beating is that the Jena Six are being over-charged simply because they are black. However, in a 2005 case similar to the Jena Six beating, five white South Carolina teenagers who beat up a black teenager were charged an convicted of “second-degree lynching and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.” (There was no actual lynching involved. Second-degree lynching is defined by South Carolina law as any act of violence on another person by a mob when death does not occur. A mob is considered two or more people whose purpose and intent is committing an act of violence on another person.) Like the Jena Six, the white teenagers kicked the victim, 16-year-old Isaiah Clyburn, as he lay on the ground. The attack left the black youth “on the roadside bruised and bloodied from the attack.”

The white teenagers received the following sentences: One, who prosecutors said was the person most responsible for the attack, was sentenced to 18 years suspended to six years and 400 hours of public service. Two were sentenced to 15 years suspended to three years and 300 hours of public service. And one was sentenced to 15 years suspended to 30 months and 300 hours of community service. A sixth co-defendant, Amy Woody, 17, was also charged with 2nd-degree lynching even though she did not take part in the beating.