NO CIVIL RIGHTS CHARGES IN DEATH FEDS AGREE FIGHT WASN'T ABOUT RACE.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer PALMDALE - The U.S. Attorney's Office will not conduct a civil rights investigation into the death of Stephan Corson, the Juniper Intermediate School student killed in a fistfight with a classmate. After reviewing sheriff's investigators' reports, federal prosecutors said there was not sufficient evidence to show racial motivation in the boy's death on Nov. 19, 1999, officials said Wednesday. ``I reviewed the reports generated by the sheriff's investigation and the resulting D.A. review. Based on that material, it didn't meet the threshold we need to conduct an investigation,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gennaco, chief of the office's civil rights section. ``Based on the information available, it failed to show it was a federal hate crime.'' Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic HOPE, had last year called for the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the fight, which Ali said was racially motivated. Ali and the Corson family attorney, Melanie Lomax Melanie E. Lomax (April 12, 1950 – September 10, 2006), was a civil rights lawyer and former head of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Lomax was the daughter of Lucius Lomax, an attorney, and Almena Davis Lomax, a civil rights activist and publisher of the , have said the other student called Stephan a racial slur prior to the fight. Ali and Lomax could not be reached Wednesday for comment. A judge in February ruled that Corson's mother cannot sue the Palmdale School District The Palmdale School District is a school district that serves a major part of the city of Palmdale, California (USA). The Palmdale School District was first formed in 1888. Approximately 28,000 students are enrolled in the Palmdale School District. for racial discrimination. Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Michael Farrell For the Australian cricketer, see . For the American screen actor, see . Michael Farrell (born 1944) is an Irish civil rights activist and former leader of People's Democracy. also ruled that other portions of Mary Corson's $10 million wrongful-death lawsuit alleging negligence against the district were insufficient but allowed Lomax to file an amended complaint amended complaint n. what results when the party suing (plaintiff or petitioner) changes the complaint he/she has filed. It must be in writing, and can be done before the complaint is served on any defendant, by agreement between the parties (usually their lawyers), . The case was transferred to the Van Nuys court after Lomax argued that Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley jurors might be tainted by pretrial publicity The right of a criminal defendant to receive a fair trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The right of the press (print and electronic media) to publish information about the defendant and the alleged criminal acts is guaranteed by the First Amendment. . Los Angeles County prosecutors declined last April to file charges against the 14-year-old classmate, saying he acted in self-defense in what was termed an ``excusable homicide EXCUSABLE HOMICIDE, crim. law. The killing of a human being, when the party killing is not altogether free from blame, but the necessity which renders it excusable, may be said to be partly induce by his own act. 1 East, P. C. 220. .'' In their report, prosecutors said 11 witnesses said Stephan started the fight, and that a teacher told investigators that after she separated the boys, Stephan reached around her and punched the other boy, who then struck back. Stephan fell, hitting his head on a concrete surface, the report said. Other witnesses and the boy's family have disputed that account. |
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