Shaquanda Cotton To Be Freed

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Texas Teen In Racial Controversy To Be Freed(AP) DALLAS Shaquanda Cotton, the black teenager whose sentence to a juvenile prison for pushing a teacher's aide roiled civil rights activists nationwide and set off accusations of bias, was to be released Friday, a state lawmaker said.

Rep. Harold Dutton, the Houston Democrat who chairs the House juvenile justice committee, said the newly appointed conservator of the embattled Texas Youth Commission told him Cotton was being freed after 12 months in a Brownwood facility.

"This is one of those cases that is the poster child of everything wrong with the criminal justice system," Dutton said.

Dutton said he was informed of Cotton's pending release by Jay Kimbrough, who Gov. Rick Perry appointed to investigate the agency accused of ignoring multiple allegations of sexual and physical abuse of young inmates.

Texas Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley said he could not talk about specific cases.

Cotton, 15, was sentenced on a felony count of shoving the teacher's aide, who is classified as a public servant, before the morning bell at Paris High School in 2005. Activists say the fact that the same judge sentenced a white 14-year-old girl to probation for arson signaled evidence of racial bias in the East Texas town on the Oklahoma border.

Prosecutors in Cotton's case, who said they were told Friday morning by the TYC that Shaquanda had not met the agency's standards for release, expressed surprise at Dutton's news.

"Apparently now, cases that get the most attention from screaming activists can grab the ear of state legislators who can simply order people to be freed from incarceration," said Allan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Lamar County district attorney's office. "That could be dangerous."

Cotton was eligible to be released on March 17, but had not met the agency's standards for release governing academics, behavior and "correctional therapy," Hubbard said.

Creola Cotton, Shaquanda's mother, could not be immediately reached for comment.

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