Weeks after investigators announced that FAMU drum major Robert D. Champion’s homicide was caused by hazing, the exact motive for the hazing remains unknown. This lingering question has led to a war-of-words between the Champion family’s attorney and the legal team for FAMU’s former director of bands.On the CBS Morning News, Champion family attorney Christopher Chestnut said that it was possible that the assault was motivated by the fact that Champion was gay.
Charles Hobbs, an attorney for former band director Julian E. White, said this new information could prove that his client bears no fault for what happened to Champion.
“Assuming that the assertions of the Champion family and their attorney Chris Chestnut are true, then it is entirely possible that Champion's tragic death was less about any ritualistic hazing and more tantamount to a hateful and fully conscious attempt to batter a young man because of his sexual orientation,” Hobbs said. “As such, the efforts Dr. White expended to root out and report hazing could not have predicted or prevented such deliberate barbarity.”
Chestnut fired back with a statement that said White is trying to excuse his negligence.
“It’s an attempt to exonerate the band and the band administration for their negligence, for their part in Robert’s hazing by saying because of sexual orientation, this is a hate crime,” Chestnut said in a quote published by the Washington Post. “This is not a hate crime. This is a hazing crime.”
“Robert’s being gay may have been a reason for his hazing, but it wasn’t the main reason,” Chestnut said in a statement to the New York Times.
At a news conference, Chestnut admitted that some of the witnesses he has interviewed said Champion was beaten worse than the other band members who were hazed on November 19 because he was gay. But he says the Champion family believes their son was beaten mainly in retaliation for his commitment to the university’s anti-hazing rules. They also think November 19 was the first time he was ever a victim of hazing.
Detectives and prosecutors have not stated whether they believe Champion voluntarily submitted himself to hazing or was hazed against his will. Last month, The FAMUan newspaper reported that more than one dozen Marching 100 members said they saw Champion being forced onto a bus in the hotel parking lot.
According to the New York Times: "If the death is tried as a hate crime, it could carry harsher criminal sentences. But in a civil lawsuit, it could undermine the family’s argument, allowing the university to distinguish a hate crime from a longer tradition of hazing, Mr. Chestnut said."
The dispute over the motive in the Champion case could pit Chestnut against Willie Gary, the man he calls his mentor. Gary is the co-counsel on White’s legal team. The biography Chestnut posted on his law firm website says: “Mr. Chestnut has had the rare experience of participating in multi-million dollar civil trials with his mentor, famed civil litigator, Willie Gary. At his mentor’s encouragement and following his example, at the age of 26, Christopher formed The Chestnut Law Firm, LLC, a civil litigation firm based in Florida.”