My only objection is that this 18-year-old punk will get a shot at parole when he turns 48. Life ought to mean life -- especially since this scumbag has spent three of the last four years in jail because of race-based assaults on others.

As a fifth-grader, David Henry Tuck had punched and kicked his teacher, leaving the woman with broken glasses and a black eye. A few years later, he beat a man unconscious because of his ethnicity. When a deputy tried to arrest him for that attack, he kicked the officer in the hand.

After listening about the violent past of the 18-year-old, jurors sentenced him Friday to life in prison for beating another teen so severely that the youth still requires medical attention for internal injuries caused when Tuck kicked a plastic pipe into the youth's rectum.

On Thursday, a Harris County jury convicted Tuck of aggravated sexual assault for the April incident, in which a witness said he shouted "white power!" and racist epithets while assaulting the Hispanic youth.

The jury sentenced Tuck to the maximum under the law, including a $10,000 fine. He will be eligible for parole in 30 years. The jury deliberated for less than an hour. It declined to comment afterward, court officials said.

Why the attack? Because the Hispanic victim had allegedly kissed a white girl.

Now some want the Legislature to pass a new "hate crime" law because of this incident. I disagree. It seems pretty clear to me that the statutes that exist right now are more than adequate to deal with such offenses -- just as the legal system adequately dealt with the killers of James Byrd (two death sentences, with life in prison for the third perp for his testimony against his co-defendants). The question comes down to one of the will of prosecutors to pursue the cases with the tools they have -- tools that offer the maximum punishments available under state law for any crime.

Posted by: Greg at 04:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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