A Mighty White Verdict

Another internet hoax has ended in tragedy. This one has the stench of a teenage Ku Klux Klan rally supported by a cast of "Twelve Angry Men" characters.

On December 23, 2007, The New York Post reported that John White was convicted of manslaughter in the August 2006 shooting death of 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro. The incident took place in an upscale neighborhood of Suffolk County, New York. White faces up to 15 years in prison.

Mr. White, 54, is black. Ciccario was white. The killing stemmed from an internet chat room message that appeared to have come from Mr. White's son, Aaron, now 20. The message contained a threat to rape Ciccario's female friend. It turned out to be a hoax.

That hoax set in motion a series of events ending in Ciccario's death. Aaron, who was also a friend of Ciccario's, arrived at a party on that fateful August evening. When the female friend told Ciccario about the message, Aaron was asked to leave. He did. A short time later, Ciccario and four other young white men arrived at Mr. White's driveway shouting racial epithets. Aaron told his father that the group was going to kill him. Mr. White, a slender man, confronted the teens with a handgun. When Ciccario challenged him, the gun somehow went off, killing the 17-year-old.

The key issue in this case involves the right of a man to defend his life and property from trespassers. But because of the racial makeup of the parties, the nearly all-white jury, and the epithets employed, it has become yet another black-white cause celebre.

The jurors--at least most of them--apparently believed that Mr. White was reckless in approaching the young men with a gun and that he should have stayed inside until police arrived. That would probably have been prudent, but in the heat of the moment, people don't always do the most rational thing, especially when they're afraid of dying. What if, before the police arrived, the teens threw a brick or molotov cocktail through Mr. White's window? Or burned a cross on his lawn? Should he have also turned the cheek then?