A 62-year-old white man convicted of attempting to run down six Black men at the site of the Rosewood massacre has been sentenced to a single year in prison.
David Allen Emanuel appeared solemn and reserved on Thursday as federal Judge Allen Winsor delivered the sentence on six counts of hate crimes for attempting to run over Historian Marvin Dunn, his son and four other Black men who were surveying Dunn’s Rosewood property to build a memorial for the massacre.
The judge’s sentence called for 12 months plus one day in federal prison for each of the six charges, which he allowed to run concurrently. The Justice Department had sought a “substantial” prison term of between five and six years.
I agree that forgiveness is the more compelling aspect of the story. Obviously, the very lenient sentence jumps out and it doesn’t seem like appropriate punishment. On the other hand, this guy has a year to sit in prison and think about why the victims chose to forgive him. It’s possible that’s more likely to change him than being locked up for 5 or 6 years. If you want some old, racist loser to die a racist loser then you lock him up for a long time. Instead, he’s getting an opportunity at redemption that could possibly have a greater effect than just locking up some old bastard until he dies. I mean, we eventually have to change these people. This could be a much more interesting story than rage bait.
A year long stint in a place that’s segregated by racist gangs where he gets to be a protected hero is not going to reform him, unfortunately. He should have received a sentence commensurate with his danger to the public, given his capacity to randomly decide to run people over with his truck.
You may be right. Nobody knows. Plenty of people come out with a harder heart than when they went in but not all. That’s the biggest failure of our justice system. It’s sort of a unique situation when the victims are advocating for the perpetrator of a hate crime. I feel like if this guy has a shot at changing then this is it. And if someone this bad can be changed then there’s hope for others too. I hope it works out.
While I like the sound of your redemption arc, and agree that it would be the ideal outcome, he drove to his court date flying the confederate flag, I don’t think he’s about to be reformed.
Ok, I take it back. That’s just sad. I’m still hoping for the best, but it just got a lot harder to have any optimism about this.