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MyspaceGood to hear from Melinda Burns. I don’t know how it works that the DC appeals court is so conservative, but it is. Some years back, there was a young high school-age African-American woman who was arrested for eating while on the Metro in DC. Arrested and then convicted for a criminal misdemeanor. The crime was actually eating one french fry. She became known as French Fry Girl. Anyway, she turned away from a life of crime and was an A student, got accepted to a good college with a scholarship, but was then turned down for the federal scholarship (I think it as a Pell grant) because of her criminal record. The ACLU took her case pro-bono to the same DC appeals court, asking them to void her conviction so she could get the scholarship. The requisite judge in the case turned down the appeal, stating that while it it would help in her case that it was important that rules be followed to deter crime in others, so French Fry Girl remained a criminal. So who was that judge? A guy named John Roberts, now Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
French Fry Girl
Monday, January 7, 2013
Previous Month
Comments
Did FrenchFry Girl think the no eating on the metro rules were for someone else? Is it the intentional commission of the illegal act, or the volume of the illegal consumption at stake here?
Oblati (anonymous profile)
January 7, 2013 at 12:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I wanna bet every news outlet in America received this very same letter?
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
January 7, 2013 at 1:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ken, no they didn't. John Cloud is a former Santa Barbaran who keeps in touch with goings-on here. Oh, wait ... How much did you want to bet?
martha (Martha Sadler)
January 7, 2013 at 2:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hahaha I bet dinner!
Thanks for the info :)
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
January 7, 2013 at 2:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
politics is so confusing, I mean, you're for limited govt, you're against abortion, you're for unlimited freedoms, you're for war on the other side of the world. hypocritical at all? Hey, let's ruin somebody's prospects for a prosperous future because they ate a french fry in the no eating zone. So say we all? Gotta love the law.
spacey (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 1:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It is petty for sure.
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 1:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
OK, let me ask the taboo question: What does her race have to do with this?
billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 3:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Rather than give a half truth here, insinuating that the blame falls on Judge Roberts, why don't you tell the whole truth! A judge cannot override or nullify statute. In order to remove the arrest and conviction from her record, she must - by statute - be factually innocent, which she was not. The real blame lies at the asinine law to begin with, the police for arresting her, the district for prosecuting her and the federal government for the black and white rules regarding student scholarships.
truth_seeker (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 1:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Instead, blame French Fry Girl for ever wanting or needing federal money for college scholarship. Oblati here would just demand she simply ask her parents for the money.
John_Adams (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 2:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And why does the author bring up her race?...
billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 8, 2013 at 3:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Bill, it's a "Black and White" issue in their mind and not an issue with law breaking with a punishment outcome.
dou4now (anonymous profile)
January 9, 2013 at 6:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dou4now: We know what the answer is. When they get angry with political conservatives, (even if their anger is justified) they like to throw in unsupported charges of white racism in order to appeals to people's emotions. It's like those people/politicians who invoke "the children" to garner sympathy.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
January 11, 2013 at 3:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
@billclausen
"...they like to throw in unsupported charges of white racism...."
That's *your* focus on the "racism". No, the added descriptor of "African-American" is not necessarily relative to her infraction, but I also don't read it into an implication of racism.
Do you think the use of the adjective "young", constitutes an "unsupported charge" of ageism?
equus_posteriori (anonymous profile)
January 15, 2013 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)