Becky Thorne Tin, a white North Carolina judge far more experienced at litigating domestic violence issues than members of the media (and FANS - my addition), chose not to send Hardy to prison. Tin, Mecklenburg County district attorney Andrew Murray (white) and assistant district attorney Jamie Adams (black female) saw pictures of the victim’s and Hardy’s injuries, reviewed the pertinent statements and testimony and deemed the crime a misdemeanor.
Why?
Did a white woman, a white man and a black woman with deep knowledge of our criminal justice system scheme to let a hulking black man escape prison for beating “the hell” out of a white woman?
This seems unlikely inside Judge Tin’s courtroom. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, Judge Tin is the co-chair of her alma mater’s battered women’s advocacy project. In 2007, Judge Tin was involved in a controversial case related to domestic violence that left her, by her own admission, “traumatized.” Over the objections of 32-year-old Sonia Long, Judge Tin issued a less-restrictive restraining order against Long’s estranged husband, Anthony Long. One week later, Anthony Long murdered his wife.
Domestic violence is an issue Judge Tin likely takes more seriously than the sports writers pontificating about what Jerry Jones and the Cowboys should do with Greg Hardy.
So why did the system that specializes in handling these issues go far easier on Hardy than Roger Goodell and the NFL?
Probably because our criminal justice system deals with thousands of domestic issues annually, has a more mature perspective and doesn’t – at the moment – have to answer to the outrage media.
