U.S. & World News

JENA, La. (CBS News) ― A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here was released on bail Thursday.

Mychal Bell's release came hours after a prosecutor confirmed that he will no longer seek an adult trial for the teen.

Bell, one of the six teenagers now known as the "Jena 6," walked out of the LaSalle Parish courthouse Thursday afternoon, still facing trial as a juvenile in the December beating.

The prosecutor in the case, LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, confirmed Thursday that he will no longer seek an adult trial for Mychal Bell, a black teenager who once faced an attempted murder charge in the beating of a white classmate.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters' announcement had been expected. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, with Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Al Sharpton at her side, had announced on Wednesday that Walters had agreed to move the case to juvenile court.

Walters said Bell faces juvenile court charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime.

Bell is among six black Jena High School students arrested in December after a fight that left white student Justin Barker unconscious. Four were 17 at the time, and legally adults under Louisiana law.

Those four and Bell, who was 16, all were initially charged with attempted murder -- a charge that is on the list for which juveniles over the age of 14 may be charged as adults -- but the charge has been dropped to aggravated second-degree battery. One has yet to be arraigned. The sixth case is sealed in juvenile court.

Bell, the only one of the six tried so far, was convicted of the battery charge. But the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal said he should not have been tried as an adult on that particular charge.

Walters had said he would appeal that decision. On Thursday, he said he still believes there was legal merit to that decision but he decided it was in the best interest of the victim and his family to let the juvenile court handle the case.

"They are on board with what I decided," Walters said of the Barkers.

Publicity surrounding the case led an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 protesters to converge on the town last week in one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in recent years. Walters said the demonstration had no influence on his decision.

Critics accuse local officials of prosecuting blacks more harshly than whites. They note that no charges were filed against three white teens suspended from the high school for allegedly hanging nooses in a tree on campus -- an incident that was followed by fights between blacks and whites, including the attack on Barker, often described as a schoolyard fight.

The Congressional Black Caucus is asking the Justice Department to investigate possible civil rights violations in the Jena Six case that sparked the massive protest in Louisiana last week.

"This shocking case has focused national and international attention on what appears to be an unbelievable example of the separate and unequal justice that was once commonplace in the Deep South," the group of 43 lawmakers said in a letter to Acting Attorney General Peter Keisler.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department has been closely monitoring the case of six black high school teens arrested for beating a white classmate in Jena, La. He said the department also is investigating allegations of threats made against the students and their families.

Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay, a member of the caucus from St. Louis, called the Jena case "a prime example of the residual racism that still permeates the judicial system."

"We cannot permit prosecutors to routinely abuse their power by overcharging minority suspects," said Clay, a Democrat.

The caucus also sent a separate letter asking Blanco to pardon Bell.

Both Walters and Schools Superintendent Ray Breithaupt said that the attack was no ordinary schoolyard fight.

"It was a premeditated ambush and attack by six students against one," the superintendent said in a press release. "The victim attacked was beaten and kicked into a state of bloody unconsciousness."

Walters' description, in an op-ed piece published Wednesday in the New York Times, was more detailed. A schoolyard fight would be punching and wrestling, he wrote. As Barker walked through a door, Walters wrote, he "was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people."
They also defended their actions after nooses were found hanging from a tree on the high school grounds -- something critics say should have been prosecuted as a hate crime.

"I cannot overemphasize how abhorrent and stupid I find the placing of the nooses on the schoolyard tree in late August 2006," Walters wrote.

He said that "deserves the condemnation of all decent people.

"But it broke no law," he continued. "I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none."

Breithaupt said the expulsion committee found the three students who hung the nooses had no history of behavior problems "and no violent act was intended when the nooses were hung."

He said the youths were sent to alternative school for nine days, served a two-week, in-school suspension, had Saturday detentions and had to attend Discipline Court and be evaluated by a social worker before returning to school.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)