In Oliver Twist, one of Charles Dickens’ characters famously notes that, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot.”
You can easily lift that observation out of Dickens’ times, 19th-century England, and tack it onto a Florida judge’s 2007 decision to sentence two Florida A&M University students to multi-year prison terms for a fraternity hazing gone awry.
Briefly, Kappa Alpha Psi brothers Michael Morton and Jason Harris were involved in the 2005 caning of pledge Marcus Jones, whose lacerated buttocks required medical treatment and 25 stitches.
It’s asinine that Morton and Harris — one close to earning a pharmacy degree, the other weeks from an engineering degree — received two-year sentences in an incident where no one was killed or grievously injured.
Is it idiotic that Leon County Circuit Judge Kathleen Dekker made examples of the young men, as the first sentenced under a new Florida law making hazing a felony if it leads to bodily harm? Without question.
Florida is replete with instances where unduly harsh sentences have been meted out to Black males, be it in terms of disproportionate death row representation, or being strung from cypress trees under mob rule. The Sunshine State’s correctional system needs two more Black inmates — especially highly educated ones on a path to becoming productive citizens — like I need an additional orifice.
So many things are wrong with this case. Let’s start with Dekker, a jurist so drunk with power that after sentencing Morton and Harris, she ordered their attorney handcuffed on a contempt of court charge. She further commanded Morton and Harris not to speak with each other, or other Kappas, for three years after their release from prison, demonstrating a blithe ignorance of what’s contained in the First Amendment.
Sentencing guidelines in Florida’s new anti-hazing law called for one to five years. Dekker admitted that one-year sentences would have been sufficient punishment, but cavalierly added another 12 months as a “deterrent.”
