Lionel Tate, now 19, gets 30 Year Sentence

Lionel Tate Gets 30 Years in Prison for Gun Possession
Thursday, May 18, 2006

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lionel Tate was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for violating probation, the latest twist in the case of the teenager convicted of murdering a 6-year-old girl in what his attorneys initially claimed was a pro-wrestling move.

Tate, now 19, was 12 when he was convicted in the 1999 beating death of Tiffany Eunick.

His murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2004 after the panel found it wasn't clear whether Tate understood the charges. He was freed from prison under a deal in which he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years' probation.

Under the latest charge, Tate had faced between 10 and 30 years in prison for violating his probation by having a gun and allegedly robbing a pizza delivery man last year.





http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196010,00.html

Cuz I'm not. he was given a gift by not being sentenced for decades for what he did to that little girl, and he squandered it by continuing his violence on others.

for what would, to be brutally honest, have been considered an accident, if he had been a 12 year old white boy.

Remember those psychological studies that showed that if a group of students in a classroom were randomly divided into a "smart" group and a "dumb" group, and the teacher instructed to treat the members of each group accordingly, the "smart" students actually performed as though they were smart and the "dumb" group actually performed as though they were dumb. It's all about living up to the expectations that the adult world places on you.

This boy was called a monster, a criminal and a murderer at age 12 -- not to mention being thrown into the brutal, dehumanizing world of the juvenile prison system. It is not surprising, although it is tragic, that he has internalized those labels and become exactly what he was expected to become. Not unlike millions of black boys on the streets of American cities who are treated as though they are criminals from about the same age that Tate was so treated.

Tate was convicted of killing Eunick by stomping on her so forcefully that her liver lacerated. Her other injuries included a fractured skull, fractured rib and swollen brain. These injuries were characterized by the prosecution as "similar to those she would have sustained by falling from a three-story building."

He was "criminalized" because he continue to beat a 46 pound girl and bang her head against a metal staircase until her SKULL FRACTURED.

And the State of Florida HAS charged anglo children as young as 12 with murder in the first degree and sought the death penalty for them (Alex King). Racism is all too alive and well in the USA but I'm not sure it played a role in Tate's sentencing.

Every crime includes both an act and a mental state -- that is, the level of intent with which the act was done. I could list horrible injuries done to a person as a result of an automobile accident, but that would not make it a crime, if the driver had no intention of causing the injury.

By all accounts, no matter how foolish Tate's behavior was, or how horrific the girl's injuries were, Tate did not intend to cause those injuries, and in most cases, this would have been considered an extremely reckless accident.

Because crimes require some level of mental intention, historically, juveniles have been considered not to have the mental capacity to be charged as adults.

It is part of the overall racists backlash against black youths that has caused the criminalization of youths in the first place, of which Tate is a victim -- yes, a victim.

And it is strange that you should compare Tate to Alex King, as you put it, an anglo child charged with first degree murder. King and his brother intentionally beat their father to death and then committed arson in order to cover up the crime -- a clear indication that they had the mental state of intentionally committing a crime.

Yet the court system bent over backwards, in an unprecedented way, to throw out the conviction of these white boys, force the prosecutor to engage in unprecedented "mediation" with the boys lawyers, and come up with a lenient sentence. Tate was sentenced to life in prison for what was obviously an accident; the court system bent over backwards to give King a seven year sentence for an intentional crime that he in addition tried to cover up. That's a pretty damning contrast.

The comparison between Tate and Alex King proves my point.

...to undo Tate's initial conviction. The prosecution even participated in the pleas for leniency.

It was his mother who turned down a "soft" three year sentence for what he did to that girl, and bet on acquital. Considering that the kid openly admitted to causing the girl's death, that was a pretty fair plea bargain.

Tate got a 2nd chance, and blew it.

He had changed the story he gave to police. First he told them he had banged her head on a table -- I think this shows that he DID know immediately that what he had done was criminal. People testified that Tate was a "school yard bully" who preyed on smaller children. Tate's mother turned down the plea deal and expected him to be acquited. I have to lay part of the blame for this child's sociopathic behavior at her feet.

I cited the King case only as an example of how aggressively the State of Florida charges under-aged felons. Courts reviewing the trials didn't have to bend over backwards to find problems with the King trials.

Here is the only victim in the Tate case:

that "allegedly" is an accurate description of his robbing the pizza delivery man. I believe that he had pled guilty to the charge.

His case history is sad indeed. It involves a number of difficult issues that go beyond Tate as an individuals.

on the larger issue is as follows:

The voting age in a given state should be indexed to the youngest age at which an offender can be tried as an adult.

If you can try a 12-year old as an adult in state X, then the voting age in that state should be 12. It is the only policy that would have any consistency as to the state's position on mental capability.