(CNN) -- A Louisiana appeals court Friday vacated the remaining conviction of a teenager accused in a violent, racially charged incident in Jena, Louisiana, his attorney said.
Mychal Bell's defense team will be filing a motion to get him out of prison.
Bob Noel said the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Lake Charles threw out the conviction for second degree battery against Mychal Bell, saying the charges should have been brought in juvenile court.
The future of the case against Bell is up to the district attorney, who must decide whether to refile the charges in juvenile court, Noel said.
Bell, who is now 17, was 16 at the time of the fight in December 2006.
Earlier this month, a district court judge vacated a conviction for conspiracy to commit second degree battery, saying that charge should have been brought in juvenile court.
He left standing the second degree battery conviction, however.
Bell's defense team would be filing a motion to get him out of prison, where he has been since his arrest in December, Noel said.
A sentencing hearing that had been scheduled for September 20 is now off, he said.
(Continue reading at CNN.com)
Finally the justice system got something right (even though it should have never gotten this far). Hopefully the district attorney will not be stupid enough to try and pursue this matter in juvenile court. This young man (Mychal Bell) has already lost nine months of his life that he will never be able to get that back because of the systemic racism that is inherent in this country. Just because they (the justice system, white America, or whoever you want to call them) finally got this right doesn't mean it won't happen again. We can't be foolish enough to believe that something like this won't happen again. Look how long it took for this case to get national attention. That young man had been in jail since December of last year. This entire thing is unacceptable. How do you explain this to young black kids? It seems as though the Civil Rights' Movement was for nothing because instead of moving forward we are constantly moving backwards. In the famous words of Fannie Lou Hamer "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." This foolishness has to end.
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