The Black Lives Matter activist was arrested at a rally in Pasadena, California, in August of 2015, when she tried to pull a woman away from the police, according to Pasadena Star News.
The protester was facing up to four years, but received a sentence of 90 days.
Now, she’s out on bail, and family and social media alike are celebrating her freedom.
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The uproar about her arrest was centered around the term “felony lynching,” which originally entered into law to prevent mobs from grabbing Black people from police custody to take justice into their own hands – or lynch them.
Using that term to then convict a BLM activist was a legislative slap in the face for the movement.
From the Pasadena Star News:
One juror in Richards’ case wrote to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu to express his “reluctance” after voting to convict her. While Richards’ crime matched the law’s description, the unidentified juror said the D.A.’s decision to charge Richards with a felony was “the true injustice” and a “political misstep.”
During the trial, Richards’ attorney Nana Gyamfi said she could not describe the law as lynching because of the change, despite the history of the law.
“Just changing the name makes it so we can’t call it what it is at trial,” Gyamfi said. “It would have been a lot different if people on the jury understood what they were looking at was ‘attempted lynching,’ instead of ‘attempted taking someone from the custody of police.’ ”
According to Democracy Now!, Richards is “due back in court next month for pretrial hearings in two other cases.”
Luckily, the equality fighter can now continue her fight.
SOURCE: Pasadena Star News, Democracy Now! | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
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Evening Minute: Black Lives Matter Activist In California Convicted For Felony Lynching
