DA Ends Bid to Try 'Jena 6' Teen as Adult

Move could hasten release of key player in Louisiana race case
By Caroline Zimmerman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 27, 2007 4:39 PM CDT
DA Ends Bid to Try 'Jena 6' Teen as Adult
Melissa Bell, second from left, and Marcus Jones, second from right, parents of one of the Jena Six defendants Mychal Bell, attend a news conference with Martin Luther King III, left, and Rep. John Conyers, right, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)   (Associated Press)

A prosecutor has given up attempts to have one of the Louisiana teenagers at the center of a civil-rights furor tried as an adult, Reuters reports. Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in June of battery in the beating of a white classmate, but an appeals court overturned the verdict on grounds that Bell couldn't be tried as an adult.

A spokewoman for civil-rights activist Al Sharpton, who led recent protests in Jena, La., said today's move could hasten Bell's release. Bell was among six black students who beat a white classmate last year. The group was first tried with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced amid accusations that the charges were excessive racially motivated. (More racial inequality stories.)

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