Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Student Who Shot Morehouse Classmate Gets Sentenced to Graduate While Victim Recovers. RYS Crimebeat.



Story for CNN's AC360 by Gary Tuchman and Ismael Estrada

About 500 students will graduate this weekend from Atlanta's prestigious Morehouse College. One person who won't be there is Rashad Johnson, shot three times by a fellow student. But the shooter will receive his diploma -- part of a plea deal that spared him up to 20 years in prison.

Joshua Brandon Norris was given a plea deal that avoided jail time and mandated he stay in college.

It's a puzzling case that raises a huge question: How can this be?

Even Atlanta's chief district attorney, Paul Howard, is outraged by the generous plea deal, an offer that was made by a prosecutor under his command.

"First of all, for the victim and his family, they deserved a better resolution," said Howard, a Morehouse graduate himself. "It seems like the wrong person got the right benefit."

For the rest of the article.