Over 200,000 petitioners say "Free the Jena 6"

The other defendants are Robert Bailey, 17, Theo Shaw, 17, Carwin Jones, 18, Bryant Purvis, 17, and an unidentified youth.

Faced by growing worldwide outrage, the prosecution has lowered charges against three of the defendants from attempted second degree murder and conspiracy, carrying sentences of 80 years, to aggravated second degree battery, carrying sentences as high as 22 years. That retreat has only fueled the demand that all charges be dropped.

The case was triggered a year ago when Black high school students asked the principal if they could sit in the shade of a tree on the school lawn referred to as “the white tree.” The principal told them they could and they did.

The next morning nooses were hanging from the tree, a terrifying reminder to the students of the days when “disobedient” Blacks were lynched in the South.

It escalated from there into a fistfight, during which a white student was slightly injured. After the school superintendent described the noose-hanging as only a “youthful prank,” the white student received only a slap on the wrist while the Black youths face decades in jail.