Hate Crime, Trespassing Case Between Booker, Purdy, And Cox Resolved Through Restorative Justice
INDIANAPOLIS — It’s a first for the justice system in Indiana: a case being resolved through a process called “restorative justice.”
You may remember when Vauhxx Booker got into a scuffle with Sean Purdy and Jerry Cox on the shores of Lake Monroe during the summer of 2020. Booker accused the two men of assaulting him and even trying to lynch him, which had him pursuing hate crime charges.
However, a special prosecutor ended up charging Booker with criminal trespassing.
Booker was initially offered a plan for restorative justice in the case by the Center for Community Justice when soon after the incident happened, but he declined. Now two years later, it is restorative justice that has put the case to bed.
“It’s kind of a grown-up way of just handling a case and taking it out of the court system,” said Judge Lance Hamner, who was presiding over the case. “They explained it to me as a new and innovative way to resolve cases that achieve all the goals of the criminal justice system, but it doesn’t have to go through the full judicial process.”
In short, both parties in the case sat down with a mediator, in this case with the Center for Community Justice, and talked out the incident and settled things in a way that results in all the charges related to the case being dropped.
Hamner is a big fan of the way this case was resolved and says it’s a great avenue that will save courts on expenses when certain crimes can be resolved out of court.
