A judge recently decided to make Mychal Bell’s upcoming trial public, a move that may come back to bite him in the ass if only a quarter of the people who showed up in Jena in protest back in September do so again.

If anyone heads down there, please bring a camera, I’d love to see that judge’s face.

Now before you hang your head in shame at a black man getting an extra chance at life and fucking it up, hear out the whole story:

A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy was back in jail Thursday after a judge decided the fight that put him in the national spotlight violated terms of his probation for a previous conviction, his attorney said.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

He had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear.

“He’s locked up again,” Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. “No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.”

After the attack on Barker, Bell was originally charged with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced and he was convicted of battery. An appeals court threw that conviction out, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that charge.

For those illiterate or too lazy to read, let me break it down for you.

Bell went free, and based on events surrounding that, we can assume the local authorities weren’t too happy about that. Well, when Bell went in for what he thought was a routine hearing, a judge put him in jail stating that the incident (the beating of the white student that sparked this whole controversy in the first place) violated Bell’s probation (he was apparently on probation when the incident occurred).

So now, the poor kid’s sitting back behind bars. Just can’t catch a break in this country.

Today (Thursday, September 20th, 2007), thousands of protesters flocked to Jena, LA to march in protest of the infamous and racially charged “Jena 6″ case. CNN reports that bus loads of people arrived in the town, effectively shutting it down.

Hundreds of college students from historically black schools such as Howard University in Washington traveled to Jena, along with civil rights activists such as Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who helped organize the event. Martin Luther King III also attended, saying, “This is about justice for the six young men.”

…the part of the town he was in was ill-prepared for the crowds — no water or toilets were available.

The demonstrations shut down the town of 3,000 in central Louisiana. Many residents left for the day, and government agencies, businesses and schools were closed.

Sgt. Tim Ledet of the Louisiana State Police said protesters in buses were still bringing people to town at midday because of the gridlock, but many protesters got off and walked into town on foot.

“There is just no room to maneuver in this small town,” he said.

Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, stated that he, the FBI and other investigators also believed that the incident that sparked all of this controversy bore the tell-tale signs of a hate crime, but because of various reasons, it was not treated as such.

In response to today’s protests, a court has ordered a hearing into whether or not Mychal Bell will be released from jail. He’s the only member of the “Jena 6″ that is still behind bars

Last week, people were elated to learn that Mychal Bell’s conviction in the infamous Jena 6 case was overturned. Today however, I’m sure poor Mychal was feeling less than stellar once he appeared in court hoping to be set free, only to learn that the Judge was a no-show. The Judge’s assistant claims there were no appointments on his calendar.

So this raises two issues: 1) if one of us were not to show up for a court appointment, would we not be punished? and 2) How, as a judge, do you not have ANY cases ALL DAY? They must get little crime down there in Jena — that or they just jail everyone without trials or hearings.

…the saga continues.