http://www.wapt.com/news/central-mi...3-in-racial-beatings-that-killed-man/31190124
A federal judge who sentenced three men to charges from a hate crime investigation compared the death of James Craig Anderson to a modern-day lynching.
Anderson, 49, was beaten and run over by a truck outside Metro Inn on Ellis Avenue on June 26, 2011. The inquiry that followed revealed a group of young white people had been coming to Jackson to harass and assault African-Americans.
Deryl Paul Dedmon, 22, John Aaron Rice, 21, and Dylan Wade Butler, 23, each pleaded guilty in March 2012 to one count of conspiracy and one count of committing a hate crime.
During a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves sentenced Dedmon to 50 years, Rice to 18-and-a-half years and Butler to seven years in prison.
"The defendants targeted African-American people they perceived as vulnerable for heinous and violent assaults -- hate crimes, motivated solely by race, that shook an entire community and claimed the life of an innocent man," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "These sentences bring a fitting end to the case against these three men. Although nothing can erase the grievous harms inflicted, or ease the grief of the victim's friends and loved ones, this outcome holds those responsible for these horrific crimes fully to account."
Dedmon, who was driving the truck that ran over Anderson, pleaded guilty in 2012 to a murder charge in Hinds County Circuit Court and was sentenced to two life sentences under Mississippi's hate crime statute.
The defendants all apologized to Anderson's family during Tuesday's hearing.
Brenda Anderson Young, the victim's sister, said Dedmon, Rice and Butler are evil, white men who dredged up the state's civil rights history.
Seven defendants involved in related cases are awaiting sentencing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
