THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Here's a story about a few good ol' boys doing a little drinking in the field. The party consisted of young white men and a black man, Billy Ray Johnson, well-known around town as a friendly but "slow" character who loved dancing and was lured to an all-white pasture party where underage drinkers fed him alcohol and picked on him.

"I feel like he was invited to be taunted because of his limited mental capacity, not so much his race," said District Attorney Randal Lee, who is white. "He was the entertainment for the night."

Then the entertainment waned and the fun began.

Owens and Stone, who pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony charge of injury to a disabled person by omission, testified that Amox and Johnson were arguing about country versus rap music when Amox told Johnson to leave.

Then Amox swung at Johnson, who fell and began vomiting and gagging, according to testimony. The men loaded Johnson into a truck and drove to an old tire dump, where they left him on an ant hill.

Doctors soon determined he had suffered a concussion that, without medical attention, could have killed him, Lee said. Johnson was hospitalized for weeks. He now resides in a nursing home, undergoes rehabilitation and is unable to walk without help or speak clearly.

So, two guys who helped dump a seriously injured man on a fire ant hill plead guilty to " third-degree felony charge of injury to a disabled person by omission" And the other two guys are tried by different juries for the same felony charge. We should be getting some jail time here, right?

Amox, facing the same felony charge as Owens and Stone, was convicted of misdemeanor assault in March. The jury recommended a suspended one-year jail sentence, meaning no time behind bars.

This month, a different jury found Hicks guilty of the felony charge, which carries a penalty of two to 10 years in prison. That jury recommended that Hicks' three-year prison sentence also be suspended.

Owens and Stone agreed in their plea deals to 30 days in the county jail and a $2,000 fine.

And you might ask, what does the DA think of this outcome?

"This is not that horrible of an outcome. They were all convicted, they'll all be on probation, they'll all have a criminal record, they'll all be watched," he said. "They didn't get off scot-free."

No sirree Bob, they sure didn't get off scot free. Why two of them even got 30 days! And their victim. Well he is in a nice comfortable nursing home. And if he can't walk or talk too good, well he weren't the brightest bulb in the chandelier anyway. And the good folks in town, how do they feel?

But R.C. Taylor, a white retired heavy equipment operator and barber, said the boys didn't deserve harsh punishment.

"It's been handled good as far as I'm concerned. They ought not to have been tried at all," Taylor said. "I think they should be turned loose, set free, with a slap on the wrist. It was just one of those things."

Others say that's the kind of attitude that led to the assault of Johnson.

"Whites stay with whites, blacks stay with blacks and the American flag still flies like a rebel flag," said Donovan Epps, a black 22-year-old hanging out with friends at Dairy Queen. "Getting probation is just like not getting tried at all. You leave a person for dead, that's like murder."