Louisiana Appeal Court Overturns Conviction in 'Jena Six' Case

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A state appeals court Friday tossed out the aggravated battery conviction that could have sent a Black teenager to prison for 15 years in last year's beating of a White classmate in the racially tense north Louisiana town of Jena.

Mychal Bell, who was 16 at the time of the December beating, should not have been tried as an adult on the battery charge, the state Third Circuit Court of Appeal in Lake Charles said in a five-sentence, three-paragraph ruling.

"There is no substitute for victory. Giddy is the right word,'' said defense attorney Bob Noel, announcing the decision at a news conference in Monroe.

Bell is one of six Black Jena High School students charged in an attack on fellow student Justin Barker, and one of five originally charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder.

The charges brought widespread criticism that Blacks were being treated more harshly than Whites after racial confrontations and fights at their school.

In a statement delivered to the weekly Jena Times, District Attorney Reed Walters said he will appeal the ruling to the Louisiana Supreme Court "after I review the decision thoroughly.''

He has two weeks to appeal. Bell, whose bond was set at $90,000, cannot be released from the LaSalle Parish jail unless Walters lets that period lapse without an appeal or the Louisiana Supreme Court rules in Bell's favor, Sheriff Carl Smith said.

Bell had been scheduled for sentencing Thursday in a case that has brought international attention to Jena. Civil rights leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have been planning a rally in support of the teens that day.

"Although there will not be a court hearing, we still intend to have a major rally for the Jena Six and now hopefully Mychal Bell will join us,'' Sharpton said in an e-mailed statement.

"Mychal Bell's parents will still join me in Chicago tomorrow and we will still continue mobilization on this miscarriage of justice.''

Jackson said, "The pressure must continue until all six boys are set free and sent to school, not to jail.''

Jena is a mostly White town where racial animosity flared about a year ago when a Black student sat under a tree that was a traditional gathering place for Whites. A day later, three nooses were found hanging from the tree, evoking for some the image of lynchings in the old South. There followed reports of racial fights and confrontations at the school, culminating in the December attack on Barker.

"I think this is a great day in Louisiana justice. In American justice,'' said attorney George Tucker of Hammond, who represented one of Bell's co-defendants until Friday. He applauded "the courage displayed by these parents and these children to refuse to take all these public defenders' advice to take a plea, and go ahead and fight for what they believe in.''

He said the reversal of Bell's conviction will not affect four other teenagers also charged as adults, because they were 17 years old at the time of the fight and, legally, no longer juveniles in Louisiana.

Bell was 16 at the time of the fight, making him a juvenile under Louisiana law.

Tucker, who had represented Theo Shaw, said the boy whose case is in juvenile court will benefit, and Bell will be tried by a judge in juvenile court.

Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr., who heard Bell's case, noted that the district attorney also could recharge the youth.

Tucker said he believed the only way Walter could return the case to adult court would be to charge Bell again with attempted murder, "which would defy logic.''

Mauffray had thrown out a conspiracy conviction on which Bell also was convicted, saying it was not a charge on which a juvenile may be tried as an adult. But he had let the battery conviction stand, saying Bell could be tried in adult court because the charge was among lesser charges included in the original attempted murder charge against him.

He was wrong, the Third Circuit ruled.

While teenagers can be tried as adults in Louisiana for some violent crimes, including attempted murder, aggravated battery is not one of those crimes. Defense lawyers had argued that the aggravated battery case should not have been tried in adult court once the attempted murder charge was reduced.

"The defendant was not tried on an offense which could have subjected him to the jurisdiction of the criminal court,'' the three-paragraph ruling said.

The case "remains exclusively in juvenile court,'' the Third Circuit ruled.

"I think the wheels of justice are starting to turn. And the longer this goes, the faster they're turning,'' Tucker said. "I think these kids will be vindicated.''

About 90 minutes before the Third Circuit ruled, Walter had given the Jena Times a longer written statement defending the charges against Bell and the other teens and the decision not to charge the White students who hung the nooses.

Federal prosecutors found nothing to charge those students with, he said, and he found nothing in state law that would apply.

Louisiana's hate crime law covers a multitude of violent crimes as well as criminal damage to property and "institutional vandalism.'' His statement did not explain why the nooses would not be considered vandalism.

He also wrote that race was never considered, and the fight was not "just a schoolyard fight,'' as the boys' defenders have called it. "The victim was `sucker punched' and knocked immediately unconscious before being stomped and kicked,'' he wrote. "There was no credible evidence before or during the trial that the victim had provoked the attack by word or gesture. The evidence showed that this was an attack, not a fight.''

Associated Press reporters Kevin McGill and Todd Lewan contributed to this report.

News conference information from KNOE-TV www.knoe.com.