Another Piece
Off The Board
BY CLARENCE BARR, II
Earlier this month, Courtnee Brantley, the young woman convicted of the seldom used Misprision of a Felony charge was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison. It was the final chapter in a case that involved everything from a judicial dismissal to a mistrial.
To some, it may seem as though Ms. Brantley came out easy under the circumstances. But, when you consider the fact that she was little more than an uncooperative witness in a high profile investigation involving the death of two Tampa police officers, 366 days in prison for basically exercising a Constitutional right to remain silent is comparable to being body slammed.
The thing that stands out the most to me about the Brantley case is the fact that the feds were so aggressive with seeking this conviction. Federal trials aren’t cheap by any standard. And the idea that the feds were willing to spend so much money on a defendant who they knew would probably receive a light sentence indicates that there was another goal in play equally as important.
Being able to remove someone like Ms. Brantley from the streets was probably no big deal. For them the real victory came in the form of the long term damage they were able to inflict on her life by stamping her record with a felony conviction. Of course this isn’t uncommon. It is usually how the system operates.
Disenfranchising young Africans in America through the criminal justice system is one of most effective tools used against the Black community. Take away an individual’s ability to vote, own a gun, find a job, run for public office, sit on a jury or even secure decent housing and you create a person totally dependent, and utterly defenseless. A voiceless ghost relegated to the fringes of society, a virtual non-factor in the grand scheme of things.
When this kind of strategy is orchestrated against any one particular group it, not only, makes the group weaker as a whole, but it also makes it easier to control. A politically neutralized entity that’s basically powerless to stop any organized attack.
Though arguably unconscionable, Ms. Brantley’s crime wasn’t that she didn’t inform authorities that her boyfriend, Dante Morris, was in possession of a firearm. No, she was guilty of something the system finds a lot more dangerous.
She was a young Black woman of child bearing age who didn’t have a criminal record…. It was her future potential that made her a threat.
Any good chess player knows that even a pawn, if guided correctly, can grow to be something far greater. And when you’re playing an opponent who has mastered the game, you have to know that, with everything at stake, they’ll do anything in their power to make sure that pawn never has the opportunity.
Anyone wanting to contact Clarence Barr can reach him at: Clarence Barr, II, 43110-018; P. O. Box 7007; Marianna, FL 32447-7007. Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bulletin Publishing Company.
