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FinalCall.com News
National News
Jena 6 Update: News groups demand access
By Jesse Muhammad
Updated Nov 7, 2007 - 11:33:00 PM
News groups demand access to Mychal Bell’s case
(FinalCall.com) - “I am just trying to encourage Mychal to stay focused and stay positive,” stated Marcus Jones, Mychal Bell’s father, to The Final Call in a recent phone conversation about his son’s case. “We are waiting to see if the Governor will intervene. We’re waiting to see if the Justice Department will do something.” Mychal Bell was sent back to jail after being released in order to serve an 18-month sentence for revoking his probation from a previous charge that occurred before the December 4, 2006 fight at Jena High School.
Mr. Jones was recently invited to attend a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Conference in St. Louis to speak on the plight of his son. Back in Jena, a host of news organizations joined forces to demand that the judge unseal the juvenile court proceedings of Mychal Bell by filing a court petition. The petition, filed by their lawyers in the 28th Judicial District Court in LaSalle Parish, challenges the judge’s decision to keep Mychal’s case secret since his case has been so public up to this point.
The news organizations are requesting permission to attend any of Mychal’s upcoming hearings in the case, to review transcripts of previous hearings and other court records and to lift a gag order against participants in the case. The petition in part states that “State District Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr.’s restrictions substantially limit the [media’s] ability to report to the public the facts about this significant case and unconstitutionally stifle the flow of information to the public.”
The group of media outlets on the petition includes The Associated Press, The New York Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC News, and several major television and radio networks throughout Louisiana and Texas.
