Amber Guyger, the white former Dallas cop Dallas who fatally shot her black neighbor after allegedly mistaking his apartment for her own, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which makes her eligible for parole in five years. In an amazingly moving moment during the sentencing, the brother of Botham Jean, the 26-year-old accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, who was sitting on his couch eating vanilla ice cream around 10 p.m. when Guyger entered his apartment and almost immediately opened fire, asked the judge if he could give the former cop a hug, telling her that he forgave her.
However, many in the courtroom _ as well as those who later viewed the sentencing — were outraged, feeling that the sentence Guyger received was too lenient. To some extent I understand that reaction, since sentences in the United States are usually stiffer, or should I say more draconian.
While sentencing disparities are among the uglier aspects of our criminal justice system, sentencing an ex-cop like Guyger to an inappropriately long sentence would not solve the issue, it would only reinforce and perpetuate it. We should be attempting to move toward the day when everyone convicted of a crime is given a fair sentence, like the one Guyger received, not wishing for every sentence to be unfair, simply to soothe our sense of retribution.
What black folks should realize is that as long as our country metes out unjust sentences it will, in most cases, be other blacks that suffer. Perhaps some defense lawyer, at some point in the future when he is arguing for a fair sentence for a client black client, will hold up the Guyger sentence and say to the judge and jury: “This is what a fair sentence looks like.”
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.