Racist KO’d In Bayview Gets 3 Years

• Also: David Cole’s Coeur d’Alene Press story on sentencing today

An Idaho judge today sentenced a racist skinhead to up to five years in prison for maliciously harassing a black man who, it turned out, was a former boxer who defended himself last summer with a one-punch knockout. Daren C. Abbey, who has been free on bond, appeared surprised as he was led from a courtroom in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in handcuffs after 1st District Judge Benjamin Simpson imposed a three-year “fixed sentence” to be followed by a two-year indeterminate sentence. Abbey’s defense attorney had argued that the 29-year-old, who has a lengthy criminal record, should be placed on unsupervised probation and allowed to return to Ferndale, Mont., near Kalispell , where he was working in construction/ Bill Morlin , Southern Poverty Law Center HateWatch. More here.

Question: Proper sentence?