I read the story yesterday on my lunch break and was appalled. I see the story this morning on Drudge, and I’m just getting angrier.

Brian Hooks, William Ammons, and Thomas Daugherty decided to go out and attack homeless people with bats and golf clubs (and shooting them with paintball guns during the beatings). The precise role that each of the boys took in the beatings is unclear, but the fact that they did, indeed, attack defenseless men is unquestioned. Neither is it in question that they made this same decision at least three times on the same night, possibly in five other reported attacks. This was no one time event spurred on by a chance encounter with someone; this was a crime that was repeated, that they sought out opportunity to commit.

What is also not in question is that one of the men died as a direct result of the attack. Norris Gaynor was sleeping on a park bench when these boys viciously beat him. He didn’t survive.

These are brutal, vicious assaults for no other reason that the personal gratification of these little cowards. ‘Cause, you know, it takes a real man to attack a sleeping homeless guy with nothing other than a baseball bat.

And then the lawyers step in and prove that I could never, ever be a lawyer. I could never, ever defend any of these boys.

In court, the teens’ attorneys described each youth as contrite and upset about what had happened.

“He’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders,” said Daugherty’s attorney, Michael Gottlieb. “He definitely feels bad.”

Hooks’ lawyer, Jeremy Kroll, said his client was “obviously disturbed by what happened” and that evidence would show Hooks was present but did not actively take part in the beatings.

Doesn’t it seem like something is missing from this? Let’s try it this way.

In court, the teens’ attorneys described each youth as contrite and upset about what had happened. Because they killed a man.

“He’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders,” said Daugherty’s attorney, Michael Gottlieb. “He definitely feels bad.” Because he helped to murder a defenseless man.

Hooks’ lawyer, Jeremy Kroll, said his client was “obviously disturbed by what happened” and that evidence would show Hooks was present but did not actively take part in the beatings. He just shot paintballs at the victims while his friends brutally assaulted a series of homeless men.

See, context is everything. These boys aren’t deserving of our sympathy, although they are deserving of the full force of Florida’s law.

Read the story.