Shaquanda Cotton

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Shaquanda Cotton is a 15-year-old African-American girl who was sentenced to serve up to seven years in juvenile prison for shoving a hall monitor at her high school in Paris, Texas, U.S.A.^[1]

Contents 1 The sentence 2 Prior to the incident 3 The controversy 4 Early release 5 See also 6 Notes and references 7 External links

[edit] The sentence

Shaquanda had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor, a 58-year-old teacher's aide, was not seriously injured. Nevertheless, Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted by a jury of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to the Texas Youth Commission for an indeterminate amount of time not to exceed her 21st birthday. She was sentenced when she was 14 and is currently serving her sentence at a youth detention facility in Brownwood, Texas.

The girl is in the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex, about 300 miles from her home in Paris. The facility is part of an embattled juvenile system that is the subject of state and federal investigations into allegations that staff members physically and sexually abused inmates.^[2] Approximately 90% of youthful offenders placed in Texas Youth Correctional facilities receive the same sentence that Ms. Cotton received: an indeterminate sentence not to exceed their 21st birthday.

[edit] Prior to the incident

Ms. Cotton has had multiple disciplinary issues while a student at Paris ISD prior to this incident. Some allege that it has to do with her mother being critical of the school district on numerous occasions.

Among the write-ups Shaquanda received were citations for wearing a skirt that was an inch too short, pouring too much paint into a cup during an art class and defacing a desk that school officials later conceded bore no signs of damage.^{[citation needed]} During her trial, school officials - including black teachers - testified she demonstrated a pervasive and consistent anti-authority attitude.

[edit] The controversy

Shaquanda's mother, Creola Cotton, does not dispute that her daughter can behave impulsively and was sometimes guilty of tardiness or speaking out of turn at school--behaviors that she said were manifestations of Shaquanda's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, for which the teen was taking prescription medication.

Nor does Shaquanda herself deny that she pushed the hall monitor after the teacher's aide refused her permission to enter the school before the morning bell,although Shaquanda's mother maintains that she was supposed to have been allowed to visit the school nurse to take her medication, and both Shaquanda and her mother have stated that the teacher's aide pushed her first.

Brenda Cherry, a local activist, alleges that Shaquanda's frequent disciplinary write-ups, and the insistence of school officials at her trial that she deserved prison rather than probation for the shoving incident, fits in a larger pattern of systemic discrimination against black students in the Paris Independent School District. Ms. Cherry and her group of vocal supporters have consistently demonstrated anti-white sentiments and are aligned with the New Black Panthers, who have marched in the town (Paris, Texas) on 2 occasions.

The facts surrounding this case are in dispute. Shaquanda was offered probation as a plea bargain prior to trial, but both she and her mother stated that they would not co-operate with the terms of the probation. Even after the jury adjudicated her as a delinquent (essentially finding her guilty), the mother refused to cooperate with court-ordered family and social history studies to help the judge decide if probation was the right sentence.

Her sentence was "up to 7 years" because Texas Youth Commission has jurisdiction over any juvenile in its custody until their 21st birthday. A 14-year-old white girl was sentenced to probation for burning down her family's home 3 months before she was sentenced, despite prosecutors pushing for TYC for the arsonist.

[edit] Early release

Like many of the other youths in the system, she is eligible to earn earlier release if she achieves certain social, behavioral and educational milestones while in prison.

But officials at the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex have extended Shaquanda’s sentence because she refuses to admit her guilt and because she was found with contraband in her cell–an extra pair of socks.

The sentences of many of the 4,700 delinquent youths now being held in Texas’ juvenile prisons might have been arbitrarily and unfairly extended by prison authorities and thousands could be freed in a matter of weeks as part of a sweeping overhaul of the scandal-plagued juvenile system, state officials say.

Jay Kimbrough, a special master appointed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to investigate the system after allegations surfaced that some prison officials were coercing imprisoned youths for sex, said he would assemble a committee to review the sentence of every youth in the system.

[edit] See also

• Young offender
• Racial discrimination

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Shaquanda Cotton's website
• Boycott Texas, a movement to use economic pressure to obtain Shaquanda's release and compensation for wrongful imprisonment.
• District Attorney's case summary