The Sentence of John Green

John Green, the man who "lobbed" the beer that provoked Ron Artest to enter the stand and escalate a brawl at the Palace at Auburn Hills, was sentenced Monday to 30 days and 2 years of probation. He plans to appeal the sentence, claiming it is unduly harsh compared to the punishment meted out on the players involved. None, including Artest, received any jail time.

Admittedly, if fees correspond even loosely to value, the athletes may have been able to acquire more able legal counsel. But however Green might disagree, he had always been presented by the prosecutors as the basic culprit in the incident. It was only in the popular media that the attention had been devoted to the images of a furious Artest storming around the Palace. It was the media, and us an audience, that created the "Ron Artest Fight" or "the Malice at the Palace."

Green's sentence merely reflects the culpability assigned to him by prosecutors, which is less than that assigned to Artest. Whether accurate or not, this assessment seems to differ dramatically from the culpability assigned to Artest in the media after the incident. As in the Duke incident, it is a question of renditions of the event in the media and during a trial. The popular story was, and appears to remain, what Green based his defense on and its failure within the legal process is the basis for his sentence.

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