SLJ (a returning MMW contributor!)
Just read this update to the hate mail item you posted about back in April. From CBS 4 Denver:

Clint O’Neal, 23, received a deferred sentence in exchange for the plea Friday and will have the charge struck from his record if he stays out of trouble for 18 months. He was ordered to perform 40 hours of community service, work four days on the Boulder County Jail work crew, and send letters of apology to the victims, CU and the community…

Another message was sent from the same account to cross-country athlete Stephen Pifer, a biracial friend of Castro’s, telling him to “stick with your own kind,” police said…

Zeigle, 21, pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation in March and received the same sentence as Castro. She told police she sent the messages because she felt harassed by Castro, and Pifer had humiliated her sister by breaking up with her in public…

O’Neal, of Weatherford, Texas, signed a free-agent deal with the Washington Redskins last month…

OK, so according to the article, both O’Neal and Zeigle received the same sentence of community service and apologies, and then they’ll have no criminal record in 18 months, O’Neal becomes a pro football player (with a racist name, no less), and a second student (Pifer) was harassed because he’s biracial and broke up with Zeigle’s sister?

I’m not upset about the light sentences, since fortunately no one was physically hurt and I doubt these two brain trusts would have gone through with any real attack. But I do think that a criminal act is a criminal act. Since neither were minors, these incidents should be on their criminal records as something they will have to explain to future employers, the media, and the public again… and again… and again…

*sigh* we’re so easy, it seems, as a society, on the small incidents, and then we wonder why the big stuff happens…