California removes 'lynching' language from state law

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a bill striking the word "lynching" from a 1933 law that used the term to describe the crime of trying to take someone from police custody.

The bill, which passed unanimously in the state legislature last week, followed outrage over the arrest of African-American activist Maile Hampton on a charge of felony lynching during a "Black Lives Matter" demonstration in Sacramento in January.

The bill keeps the same punishment for the crime while only removing the term "lynching." It was one of several bills Brown signed on Thursday, his office said.

Hampton's attorney, lawmakers and other supporters rallied behind her at court and on social media, saying it was ironic that she had been charged under a decades-old law originally enacted to protect black detainees from white lynch mobs.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/california-removes-lynching-language-state-law-004202065.html

[Igel]

1. Yeah, that wasn't lynching.

You don't have to take the person from police custody for a lynching. That happened from time to time, but not always. The person lynched does have to be killed, usually by hanging, without the benefit of a proper trial.

That's how Judge Lynch did it. Of course, his victims were Tories.

The origin of this law in 1933 appears to be the lynching of two men accused of killing a 22-year-old woman. (Both killed and alleged killers were white.) Still, they sort of got the common use of the word a bit wrong.