On Thursday, the Justice Department announced three white men pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes in connection with the 2011 beating death of an African-American man in Jackson, Mississippi. Deryl Dedmon, John Aaron Rice, and Dylan Butler confessed to conspiracy and violating the 2009 federal hate-crimes law in last June’s murder of James Craig Anderson. Federal prosecutors reported that the men face sentences of up to life in prison and $250,000 in fines. Dedmon, 19, had already pleaded guilty on Wednesday to state murder and hate-crime charges in a state court and was sentenced to life in prison. Rice, 19, and Butler, 20, made their initial appearances in federal court on Thursday morning.
In a statement on Thursday’s pleas, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, reported that the young men are among the first defendants that will be prosecuted under the federal hate-crime statute President Barack Obama signed in 2009 and also the first who will be prosecuted in a fatal attack. “The Department of Justice will vigorously pursue those who commit racially motivated assaults and will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that those who commit such acts are brought to justice. And I note that our investigation in this matter is ongoing.” All three young men admitted in court on Thursday to harassing and assaulting African-Americans on several occasions in the weeks prior to Anderson’s death, throwing beer bottles, firing slingshots, and driving at them with cars, prosecutors reported. The men said they targeted people they believed were drunk or homeless, believing these people less likely to report the attacks.
