if you look under the hood.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/18/party.attack.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
'Evil' teen jailed for savage party beating
POSTED: 8:08 a.m. EST, November 18, 2006
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HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A teenager described as a white supremacist was
sentenced Friday to life in prison for savagely beating and sodomizing
a Hispanic boy at a drug-fueled party.
David Henry Tuck, 18, was convicted Thursday of aggravated sexual
assault in the near-fatal attack. Witnesses testified that he hurled
racial insults and shouted "white power" while sodomizing the
17-year-old victim with the plastic pole of a patio umbrella.
Prosecutor Mike Trent told the jury that Tuck's history of violence
showed he is beyond rehabilitation and would commit more attacks if
released.
"He is an evil person, and he is not going to change or get better,"
Trent said. "We need protection from him. You are the only ones that
provide that."
"Even if you give him life in prison, it will be more mercy than he
showed to [the victim] that night," Trent said.
After the jury imposed the sentence, Tuck's mother, Sharon, hugged the
victim's mother in the courtroom.
"I am so sorry," Sharon Tuck said as they both cried. She also hugged
the victim, whom The Associated Press has not identified because he a
juvenile sexual assault victim.
The assault took place at a party in the Houston suburbs where several
youths had gathered to drink alcohol and take drugs, including
marijuana, cocaine and the anti-anxiety medication Xanax.
According to testimony, the attack was triggered by the victim's
drunken pass at a 12-year-old girl and his attempt to steal drugs.
Doctors did not initially expect the boy to live. He was hospitalized
for more than three months and underwent 20 to 30 operations. He
testified Wednesday that he remembered nothing of the assault.
Defense attorney Chuck Hinton appealed to the jury's religious faith,
saying that Jesus would show Tuck mercy.
"I know that justice has to be done. I know a terrible thing happened.
Justice needs to be done, but with mercy," Hinton said.
He also said Tuck had an abusive, absent father and was raised by a
single working mother. His only role model, Hinton said, was his older
brother, a skinhead who is in jail.
Teacher testifies
Prosecutors presented a chain of witnesses Friday to describe more than
a half-dozen other attacks in which Tuck assaulted people, including a
Hispanic man who was punched and kicked at a convenience store by three
skinheads.
Linda Cabbell, a special education teacher who taught Tuck in
elementary school, said he was violent when he was as young as 9 or 10,
recalling how he punched her in the eye and kicked her in the groin.
Tuck was later expelled.
Tuck will be eligible for parole in 30 years. The other teen charged in
the beating, Keith Robert Turner, 17, is set to go to trial next month.
The victim's father said Tuck should never be released from prison.
"He deserved what he got. This will be with us for the rest of our
lives. There's no healing," said the father. The AP has not identified
the parents because doing so could identify the victim.
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