Apartheid. USA 1988

February 6, 1988:

Scott Kern (19) one of the white teenagers in the Howard Beach case in the death of black Michael Griffith (23) was sentenced to 6-18 years in prison. In imposing the less than maximum sentence in State Supreme Court in Queens, Justice Thomas A Demakos compared Mr Kern with Jon Lester, another of the three teenagers convicted of manslaughter and assault in the racially volatile case. The judge recently sentenced Mr Lester (18) to the maximum 10 to 30 years. ‘While Lester was the instigator, the one who recruited all the others, the leader, who exhibited the most hate and thirst for violence, this defendant was a follower,’ Justice Demakos said of Mr Kern.^213.

213. The New York Times, from a report by Joseph P Fried