After being convicted by a federal jury of a hate crime against a black neighbor, this man faced up to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of four years. But he’ll be out of jail in… wait for it... 
THREE WEEKS!
Mark Olic Porter called a seven-year-old black boy a “n—” (for riding a scooter in a public place.) Then he assaulted the boy’s father with a stun device. Then he assaulted the police who showed up in response.
(Oh, and just for good measure, he pooped in a patrol car.)
Go ahead and ask yourself whether a black man who did all of these things would have even been alive to have a trial. It’s a fair question. latimes.com/science/scienc…
Mark Olic Porter didn't just survive the experience of assaulting multiple cops. He survived in good enough shape to take a mugshot that might as well be his DMV photo.
And what sort of sentence does a white man get after screaming racial slurs at a child and assaulting the boy’s dad with a one million volt electric walking cane? Nine months—minus the eight months he served while awaiting trial.
But hey, maybe this guy was really contrite for his actions? (He wasn’t.) Maybe he begged the judge for mercy and pledged to stop being a horrible racist. (He didn't.)
Standing before the judge who was about to sentence him, Porter went on a racist rant, calling African Americans "pimps" and "drug dealers." (He’d earlier told police that “Hitler had the right idea” but gassed “the wrong people.”)
Not that ANY additional proof was needed, but Porter’s racist tirade in court firmly established that his crime was motivated by racial hatred—the very reason why the jury had convicted him not simply of the crime of assault, but of a hate crime.
I’ve been in lots of courtrooms when defendants decide to make a scene. It rarely ends well for them. So how did Judge Dee Benson respond to Porter’s racist diatribe? By noting that the defendant was “entitled to have those views.”
Benson went on to suggest the attack was really just an altercation between two people, simultaneously blaming the victim and essentially nullifying the verdict of a jury that found it was, in fact, A RACIALLY MOTIVATED HATE CRIME.
deseretnews.com/article/900019…
deseretnews.com/article/900019…
It’s not that the judge’s hands were tied. He could have chosen ANY sentence between zero days and 10 years. Prosecutors thought a little more than three additional years were fair, given the circumstances. The judge decided that three weeks was a better fit.
If you’re surprised by this, though, you’re not paying attention. Even when controlling for criminal history, age, education, and other factors, white men consistently receive lighter sentences than black men for the same crimes. ussc.gov/research/resea…
And since the mid 2000s, when the Supreme Court gave federal judges more discretion in sentencing, the difference between sentences for white and black defendants has actually INCREASED!
Judge Benson was appointed by George W. Bush. Why does that matter? Well, new research from Harvard Law demonstrates that federal judges appointed by Republican presidents are particularly lenient to white defendants/harsh to black defendants. scholar.harvard.edu/files/cyang/fi…
(Before you go blaming Republicans for sentencing disparities, though, you should know that Democrat-appointed judges also put black people in prison for longer than white people accused of the same crimes — just not quite as egregiously.)
Look, I don’t believe most judges are abjectly racist. That doesn’t change the fact that there is clear, systemic and undeniable racism in the way we sentence people.
And if this is the message we send to white perpetrators of hate crimes, the result is going to rather predictable.
