In March Alejandro Sam Gray, now 19, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twenty years in prison for two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, after he and two friends last year threw concrete blocks at patrons inside Robert’s Lafitte Bar, in Galveston, Texas, because they were believed to be gay. Gray was 17 at the time. Those charges were dropped — because Gray is dyslexic. He just plead guilty again and scored a 75 percent reduction on his sentence..
After reaching a deal with prosecutors to serve five years in prison, Gray was handed a 20-year sentence by District Judge Susan Criss, who refused to go along with the plea agreement. No wonder: Marc Bosaw, 57, “needed 12 staples to close a laceration to the back of his head, while James Troy Nickelson, 39, was struck in the jaw.” One suspect held open the bar door while the other two hurled in pieces of rock and concrete.
So Gray’s attorney appealed to Criss to nix the entire proceedings because Gray suffers from dyslexia and didn’t fully understand the court documents or what he was signing (which is, frankly, an attorney’s job — although Gray had a different attorney the first time around). Criss agreed, and allowed Gray to enter a new plea. This one carries the hate crime enhancement, which means Gray faced anywhere from five to 99 years in prison. He received a five-year sentence; after two-and-a-half years he’ll be eligible for parole.
(Gray’s co-conspirator Lawrence Henry Lewis plead guilty and received a five-year sentence. Lawrence testified against his brother Lawrneil Henry Lewis, who got off.)
How about we take this to the next level?
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It’s a case of stupid kids doing a stupid thing that had real consequences. Prison will force Gray to grow up, but not necessarily mature.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Being dyslexic has zero effect on ones intelligence………and as pointed out the attorney has a responsiblitly to review and advise their clients on all documents to be signed. So once again an anti-Gay lowlifes attorney is able to introduce arguments that have zero validity……..
Too bad the judge who did the right thing in the first sentence and then most likely caved under pressure to reduce the sentence to a lesser term. Having these vile lowlifes serve 20 years would have sent quite a strong message………
Brutus
Prison will almost certainly not help him mature.
As atrocious as his acts were, America has a disturbingly high rate of putting people behind bars for a long, long time, and sometimes for dumb things (imagine spending 6 years in federal prison for buying some mislabeled orchids). Criminological history suggests that putting this guy away for 20 years wouldn’t send any sort of deterrent message. It will just be one more young black man that we pay $50-60,000 a year to keep off the streets. Think about how settled you become after just 1 year in a job, at an apartment, etc. Now imagine 20 years in the same place, and ask yourself — even though he seriously hurt people, is it really worth ruining his entire life?
He deserves punishment, but let’s not pretend that sending him to prison will help anything. Change comes only through conversation.
YCKTR
Sending him to prison will most certainly help ensure that the only people he hurts in the next few years will be other animals and low-life cretins.
You’ve clearly never worked with kids like this; I have. This is probably not the first time he’s hurt someone and will most certainly NOT be the last. Think about the act itself. he picked up blocks of concrete in his hands – ie. he could feel how sharp/heavy they are. Then he decided that it would be OK to throw these heavy, sharp objects at the heads of other human beings. Exactly what type of conversation do you think would have changed the mind of a person like that?
I don’t like paying for these people to lounge around in prison either…but I sure as hell don’t want them around me or the people I care about either.
Bill
I hope their ready for the big black dicks they’ll be raped with in prison.
Joseph
……Yea……..don’t think he will last long in prison.
L.
@YCKTR: But we don’t know if his first time or not. You’re assuming it’s not – fair enough. But assuming it is, then five years is enough, I’d say. No-one got killed, after all.
I most certainly don’t want the people I care for – and even people I don’t care for, or even know – to get hurt in a hateful manner like this. But, again, assuming it’s his first, sending him down for 20 would only ensure it wouldn’t be his last.
YCKTR
@L Are you kidding me? You have to actually ASK whether this is his first time engaging in a violent act? Ok, you (clearly) don’t have experience with these kids, so I should be a little less critical. My apologies.
You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to hurl concrete bricks are other people’s heads. That sort of behavior is a progression. More importantly, it’s an indication of a MUCH deeper issue than just not liking gay people. At best it’s the behavior of someone with a severe conduct disorder in need of intensive mental health services…at worst it’s the baby version of the guy who’s going to hurt and kill MANY people over the course of his life.
Five years…twenty years…unless some sort of mental health miracle occurs (which I believe in) – this kid is going to hurt people no matter where he is…I’d prefer that he was away from me.
edgyguy1426
Thanks you Bill, for that misspelled and racial stereotyping
edgyguy1426
ooops typo of my own. Can a get a refill, hold the decaf, please.
Enron
Well, not only will he still be dyslexic after leaving prison 5 years from now, but he will be crippled after experiencing those big black dicks. Have fun!
Andy
@YCKTR: “Sending him to prison will most certainly help ensure that the only people he hurts in the next few years will be other animals and low-life cretins.”
And when he gets out?
L.
@YCKTR: Yes, I am asking. My neighbor works with kids sent in an institution as an alternative to detention, and he told me how he himself was surprised at what kids could come up with as a first offense.
Again, I am not saying it is his first, and neither you nor I can say for sure it’s going to be his last – all I’m saying is, should he serve 20, we can be *certain* that it indeed won’t be.
It does get complicated for me to advocate leniency (however relative, because five years is still a long time) because he is, after all, 17, and I do believe that when you get to that age you pretty much start to know what you’re doing.
But while we don’t have all the facts, we can know that 20 years away can only be counter-productive.
You say it can be the baby version of a killer, but you can’t know that for sure. I just think – again, if it’s his first serious offense, which we unfortunately don’t know – that the idea of a second chance is a good idea.
I know I’d like to be extended such a chance if I ever committed any thing, no matter heinous, when I was a teenager.
L.
(F*ck it. When I try to express emotional things, my grammar flies out the screen.)
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
I hate to get involved in clusterfucks like this one, but its a slow day so here goes………..I just can not see how a normal human being can pick up a chunk of concrete and delibratley aim and throw it at another human being. There is nothing in the story to indicate they have any mental disabiitlty that prevents knowing and acting upon what is clearly right and wrong……There is no way any person possesing normal human emotions would delibrately perpetuate such a vicious act knowing full well that it could permantly disable and or kill another human being simply because you do not like what you percieve them to be………..
There are many of the rightwing scum who wish death and a world of hurt on myself and all others posting on this thread simply for being Gay. I may hate every fiber of their being, yet I could never bring myself to hurl a concrete block in their direction. I truly think some persons are simply wired wrong. Like the nightmare captured on video recently where some students suddenly turned and beat one kid to death with 2’X4’s in the middle of the street in broad daylight……….Normal functioning persons simply do not behave that way………
There was a crotchety old talk radio host who once in a while would make a coherent statement. . If we remove a rabid dog from menacing society why should we allow similar persons to rampage on society….. One of his was that when a miscreant serves notice upon society that they are no longer fit to live among society they need to be permantely removed from society…….
ForeverGay
HATERosexuals. Do you notice how almost all these anti-gay crimes involve GROUPS of haterosexuals? Here we have three haterosexuals throwing concrete blocks into a gay club full of people. The heterosexual judge initially gave out a tough sentence then lessened the sentence because the defendant is dyslexic like that makes the crime less severe. When haterosexuals are deciding “justice” just forget about fairness. Never have haterosexuals been fair or equitable to gay people. It’s in haterosexuals nature to discriminate, anti-gay bigotry is based on haterosexuality.
Hilarious
Funny how when the criminal is black there’s always an idiotic racist comment made and plenty of anger to go around.
Do any of you even remember who Don Belton is? He was murdered by a white closet case few of you even bothered to post about let alone make a racist comment about.
Do you even know if Michael J. Griffin was ever sentenced with a punishment that fit the crime?
Oh but wait I forgot murder is less important than throwing rocks if the murder was committed by someone white and the rocks were thrown by someone who was black.
I do remember some of you blaming Don Belton for his own death though so I can’t say I really expect maturity from the total idiots who say things like “big black dicks you’ll be raped with in prison.”.
So many things wrong with these comments.
ycktr
Way to completely miss the point because you were too busy finger-fucking your own insecurities Hilarious.
Hilarious
@ycktr: Seems no one agrees with you. Pity.
L.
@Hilarious: Well, I for one agrees with you.