'Quetions of Justice'?

A New York Times article in the Sunday edition is headed "Charge Against a Player Raises Questions of Justice." Obviously we have a serious miscarriage of justice brewing here, according to the headline.

In fact, what you have is an allegation of child molestation handled in as gentle a way imaginable. Seems that a football player at Oklahoma State was accused of molesting a 12 year old girl.

Okay, a person is innocent until proven guilty and all that. But what's the "question of justice?" If you read down through the article, you see that the defendant is black and the victim is white, and then the following:

Benjamin Dennis, president of the N.A.A.C.P. in Texarkana — whose population is roughly 60 percent white and 37 percent black — said that some of the city’s black residents were concerned about the handling of the case, particularly the delay in trying the four men.

“If they were guilty, then the evidence should have been presented in a timely fashion,” he said. “They should have been tried, and if convicted, sentenced. Justice should have been administered at least.”

Huh? That's it?

Interesting to compare the Times's handling of this case with its famously misguided handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case, where it branded the defendants guilty before they were tried. Here a defendant has been pronounced railroaded without a scintilla of evidence.