Judge delivers powerful speech before sentencing three men for deadly hate crime

Before sentencing three young white men for their roles in a horrific hate crime that claimed the life of a 47-year-old black man in Mississippi, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves gave a remarkable speech examining Mississippi’s violent racial history and the terror of lynchings in the United States.

The African-American judge cited author Anthony Walton’s Mississippi: An American Journey, which notes that out of the 40 martyrs honored by the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, 19 were killed in Mississippi.

In June 2011, James Anderson died after he was attacked by a group of white teens and run down by a pickup truck. The vicious murder was captured by a motel security camera and broadcast on CNN, sparking an SPLC lawsuit against seven teens involved in the attack. That case ended with a confidential settlement.

“How could hate, fear or whatever it was transform genteel, God-fearing, God-loving Mississippians into mindless murderers and sadistic torturers?” Reeves said. “I ask that same question about the events which bring us together on this day. Those crimes of the past, as well as these, have so damaged the psyche and reputation of this great state.”

Reeves acknowledged the destructive role of racial hatred in the 2011 attack and a series of earlier attacks during which the youths harassed and terrorized black people in Jackson.

“The simple fact is that what turned these children into criminal defendants was their joint decision to act on racial hatred,” he said. “In the eyes of these defendants (and their co-conspirators) the victims were doomed at birth. ... Their genetic makeup made them targets.”

The judge sentenced Deryl Paul Dedmon, 22, to 50 years in prison; Dylan Wade Butler, 23, to seven years; and John Aaron Rice, 21, to more than 18 years, according to CNN.

The powerful speech Reeves gave before sentencing these men can be read here in its entirety.