He made a mistake. He’d never repeat it. But that doesn’t matter now. : Julian Goes to Jail

Julian Chaney, age 19, goes to jail tomorrow.

Measured against the massive number of kids who march off to the slammer each year as easily as they march to the movies, that’s no big deal. Youth is out of hand. It’s time to turn the screws.

Julian Chaney in jail is just one more kid who won’t disrupt the flow of the stream that winds through our workaday world. Julian Chaney did wrong. Julian Chaney’s got to pay.

He’s going to jail as society’s way of setting an example for others to observe. You can’t commit battery on a teacher.

But the problem here is a definition of battery, and the problem here is the kid they chose to hang before the crowd.

Julian isn’t a gang-banger, a doper or a troublemaker. He had an almost-perfect attendance record at San Fernando High and has never had a problem with cops before.

Teachers love him, with one possible exception. I’ll get to that.

Julian Chaney is a black kid living with a white family. He worked six hours a day even while going to school full time and is the absolute opposite of everything that’s wrong with the swaggering toughs we’ve churned out like dog food in a society out of sync.

He’s got drive, ambition and a glowing artistic talent. Sketches in both ink and pencil attest to that. Valencia’s prestigious CalArts is admitting him next semester on three different scholarships.

But first he’s got to go to jail, and here’s why.

In November, in an English class at San Fernando High, Chaney was trying to finish a term paper that had direct impact on a semester grade and on the scholarships he was applying for.

His regular teacher gave him permission to use classroom time for the project, but the next day, the teacher was absent and a substitute was filling in.

Being a sub in today’s high schools is no dance down a primrose path. The kids are often arrogant and occasionally violent. But half a dozen of Julian’s full-time teachers swear he’s not one of them.

“Julian is an intelligent, polite, cordial and easy-going individual,” said one.

“This boy is simply not a troublemaker,” said another.

“The whole issue has been blown way out of proportion,” said a third.

On the day in question, Chaney was writing the term paper when the substitute told him to work on the assignment she had put on the blackboard.

He tried to explain the situation, but the sub still insisted that he do the work she had assigned. She took Julian’s paper.

Conflicting accounts bear on what happened next.

The teacher says he grabbed her hand, jerked back her thumb and yelled, “Do you want your face smashed in?”

Julian says she crumpled the paper into a ball and was about to throw it into a wastebasket. He held her wrist, opened her fingers and took the paper.

He denies making any threats. At least three students seated nearby at the time heard no threats.

But that’s beside the point.

Julian Chaney was arrested, charged with battery and released on bail. He was also expelled from school but allowed to return after a student rally on his behalf and an outpouring of support from his teachers. He graduated and received his diploma this month.

But it wasn’t over.

On advice of an attorney paid for out of the money he was saving for college, Julian pleaded nolo contendere and threw himself on the mercy of the court.

Incredibly, a probation officer, urging the system to take a “dim view of classroom terrorism,” recommended that he go to jail.

Municipal Judge David A. Stephens went along with the recommendation and, tomorrow, a young man who, at worst, deserves a strong reprimand begins serving a month in a cage of animals.

“Julian Chaney’s punishment,” as one teacher said, “does not fit the crime.”

How could a kid with dreams like Julian’s end up behind bars? He doesn’t think it was racist. He just doesn’t know how it happened. He made a mistake. He’d never repeat it. But that doesn’t matter now.

Julian Chaney was caught in a trap.

Substitute teachers are angry at the dangers they face and at the failure of school administrators to support them. Administrators are frustrated by the chaos in their schools. Judges are fed up with “terrorists” who have turned classrooms into battlefronts.

Julian Chaney happened along at the wrong time.

An example was necessary and, even though the situation required no more than a trip to the dean’s office, he was swept into the same legal machinery that grinds out punishment for serial killers.

There isn’t a lot anyone can do for Julian now. He’s going to jail, that’s for sure.

I hope he rides it out with the same equanimity that he has displayed toward the short shrift he has received so far. I hope he emerges from the cage with an ability to understand what happened and to move on from there.

But the fact remains. Julian Chaney goes to jail tomorrow. And that ought to sadden us all.