What the hell is wrong with Texas?

Four good ol' boys who beat up a mentally disabled black man so badly he could no longer walk without assistance or talk clearly are let off, hardly rapped on the knuckle with suspended or light sentences.

Lets see...taunting a retarded black man for sport, beating him so severely that he could have died and is left crippled, and then dumping him in a field when the fun is over. That'll get you probabtion in Texas, assuming that you're white and from a good family. Meanwhile, Gerarldo Flores got 40 years for being desperate and stupid enough to induce a miscarriage in your girlfriend rather than getting her an abortion somehow.

I guess this is what they mean by Texas Justice.

Mark Kleiman has more details.