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Panelists Ponder Porter Case

By CHRIS ECHEGARAY cechegaray@tampatrib.com

Published: Nov 27, 2005

TAMPA -- Painful questions and a longing for answers emerged from a candid conversation among nine people, black and white, about the outcome of the Jennifer Porter case.

Why, for example, do we even call it the Jennifer Porter case, asked one participant, University of South Florida student Avi-Anne Richardson. She wondered why white members of the group identified more closely with the white driver in the hit-and-run accident than with Lisa Wilkins, the black mother who lost two children.

The panel, brought together by The Tampa Tribune for a roundtable discussion Tuesday, included people well-versed in studies suggesting disparities in sentencing among offenders of different races. Panel members said many black people find evidence of injustice in the Porter case.

"It looks really blatant when you see two dead kids who are poor, black and a woman who is going on with the rest of her life," said Carolyn Lighty, who heads a marketing firm.

But an acquaintance of Porter's who testified at her sentencing, John Feeney, told the group that the law is the only standard to consider. Feeney saw her sentence of house arrest followed by probation and community service as fair.

"She did not commit a vehicular homicide. She left the scene of an accident. Those are two different things," he said.

Porter, a former dance teacher at Muller Elementary School who lives with her parents in Land O' Lakes, drove her car into four of Wilkins' children the evening of March 31, 2004. They were crossing North 22nd Street, coming home from a basketball game at the University Area Community Center. Brothers Bryant Wilkins, 13, and Durontae Caldwell, 3, were killed.

Porter fled the scene. She stepped forward five days later, in the office of her attorney, Barry Cohen, and admitted she was the driver.

On April 28, 2004, nearly a month after the accident, Porter turned herself in at Orient Road Jail to face a charge of leaving the scene of an accident that involved death, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

More than a year later, on Aug. 30, after previously refusing to accept a plea agreement, Porter pleaded guilty to the charge, accepting a deal that could include three years in prison.

At her sentencing, preceded by a hearing that spanned more than 12 hours, several psychological experts testified that Porter was so distraught at the accident that she lost control of her mind and actions.

In the wee hours of Nov. 5, Judge Lamar Battles sentenced Porter to two years of house arrest followed by three years' probation and 500 hours of community service

The Forgotten Victims

The deaths were accidental, agreed all those who gathered for the wide-ranging discussion last week. But most expressed concerns about what happened after the accident.

Here are excerpts from their discussion, moderated by Timothy E. Bajkiewicz, of the USF School of Mass Communications.

The youngest member of the group, 21-year-old Avi-Anne Richardson, pointed out that the discussion was focusing on Porter and not on Lisa Wilkins or her children. Richardson suggested that they put themselves in Wilkins' position.

Sara Simpson: "I can see so clearly both sides because just this morning I was driving through the parking lot at school, and one of the students stepped out from behind her parent's car all of a sudden and I almost hit her. I didn't see her. And I stopped and I about had a heart attack and I was like, 'You OK?' I was frustrated that she hadn't been more careful but I was also chiding myself that I hadn't been more careful driving. I just think about that every day when I leave and I see the kids walking by the side of the road. I think it could have been anyone. What would I have done in that situation? I don't know what I would have done."

Avi-Anne Richardson: "It's just so funny how everyone is siding with Jennifer Porter, and not the mother of these children. It's like, 'Oh, we could all have hit these children.' In this conversation, how you all said, 'If this were me, if I had done this.' You're siding with Jennifer Porter. It's like, not siding, but you're putting yourself in her shoes. People are just disregarding the mother. No one is saying, 'How would I have felt for the mother of these children?' Not to say that Jennifer Porter is not in some aspect a victim of her upbringing."

Erin O'Brien: "It's just what I focused on."

Richardson: "Your first instinct is that could have been any one of us as far as hitting the children, but it's not how it could have been any one of us as far as our children are gone."

O'Brien: "I'm also saying, too, that Jennifer Porter belongs in prison."

Justice For All?

Most participants see different standards in the nation's justice system based on race. Still, even the harshest critics expressed a desire to help the system work better.

Domini Rainey: "I think more weight should have been given to the victim. She said she forgave Jennifer Porter, but she said she wanted her to be punished. She did not know what the judge was going to hand down. But she just got probation."

Ann Porter (no relation to Jennifer Porter): "There were a lot of us in the community sort of sitting back and watching this case to see if there were racial overtones. Some of us did come out of civil rights. We had our civil rights flags up ... that's why you didn't see Tampa burn again. And that's because of trust. You want to believe in the judicial system and the various institutions. You've been taught to believe that what is right is going to stand. And I think that is why most of us in the room thought she would probably be given at least a minute in jail."

John Feeney: "She would never have survived any time in jail."

Porter: "That's not for us to decide. If you do the crime, you do the time. That's the way life is."

Feeney: "Retributive justice is not justice."

Porter: "It wasn't my job to go there and ensure that justice would prevail. It wasn't your job. But it was somebody's. I think that's the citizens of Hillsborough County. No matter whether they are black, no matter whether they are white. You want to see justice prevail. Most of us were nonchalant because we believe in the system."

Feeney: "I believe it was fair. Considering the nature of the act, which was not a vehicular homicide case but a leaving the scene of an accident case. That's an important distinction. She did not commit a vehicular homicide. She left the scene of an accident. Those are two different things."

Carolyn Lighty: "That's what she was charged with."

Feeney: "The state couldn't come up with a prima facie case on the other side."

Porter: "Exactly."

Feeney: "The other issue is I don't think people have an understanding of post-traumatic shock. I know a little something of it. A person can't make ethical judgments in a traumatic situation."

Rainey: "What happened with the four days at home?"

Maurice Jeoffroy: "Whenever I talk to some of my peers, they use this as an example of how we have not reached a state of equality as far as the value of black children or black people in this country. Everyone has said if this had been white children, it would have been different, or if the person in the car had been black. We're still trying to reach that point of equality."

Porter: "Regardless of whether you're the victim Jennifer Porter or the victim Mrs. Wilkins, it's still the system that needs to be straightened."

Lighty: "And that's where understanding the legal system is something we all need to do more of. The question came up as to why the parents were not charged. There is a law on the books that says you do not have to turn in a defendant if it's one of those people in the family. But nobody knows that. In the black neighborhoods, police come and knock on the door, and they say, 'If you don't give me JoJo, we'll put you in jail.' "

A Sheltered Life

Jennifer Porter was viewed by members of the group as an adult heavily influenced by her parents. One panelist questioned Porter's ability to deal with her guilt about the accident. Feeney bolted from the room at her comments, after he had noted he felt personal involvement.

O'Brien: "She lived a sheltered life. Perhaps she just obeyed her parents' wishes. I'm not defending this. It just took so long. How does somebody idle their time in that way even if it was her mental instability or her shock? Her family helped her just coddle that illegality. If it were my family, the police would have been there."

Simpson: "If you truly love your child, you don't try to shelter them from the consequences of their actions."

O'Brien: "I hate to say it, if it were anyone else -- I don't know why she was so special in this situation. .... She was soulless."

Feeney: "That's enough. I'm leaving."

Rainey: "I wouldn't go so far as to say she was soulless. I know it was an accident, yes. There was something wrong with her. Anybody who could sit there and watch for four days as these people are a wreck over these children. I don't know how I would handle it. I hit a bird once and I had to stop for a minute. Kids, I couldn't even imagine."

Sharon Hogan: As a teacher, I stress daily there are consequences for your behavior. You make positive choices, you make poor choices. Any time you make a poor choice you take the consequences and you learn from those. But within that learning you have to admit that you made a mistake and you take your punishment. Then you move on. But until you accept responsibility, I don't see how she can get better. She should have known better."

THE PARTICIPANTS

•Ann Porter, 67, former president of Tampa's NAACP branch, retired Hillsborough County employee

•John Feeney, technician at Tampa General Hospital, testified at Porter's sentencing

•Sara Simpson, 28, sixth-grade teacher at Williams Middle Magnet School

•Carolyn Lighty, 47, president of Collateral Marketing Concepts

•Erin O'Brien, 37, marketing coordinator for an engineering company

•Maurice Jeoffroy, 25, owner of Motown Maurice Productions Inc., representative for the National Black United Front

•Avi-Anne Richardson, 21, junior finance major, USF

•Sharon Hogan, 59, second-grade teacher at Egypt Lake Elementary School and Fulbright scholar

•Domini Rainey, 30, paralegal student