Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor’s case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

“Shame on you,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana’s western district and the first black person to hold that position.

“As a parent, I’m on the verge of tears,” Jackson Lee said.

“Why didn’t you intervene?” she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.

Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called for quiet before Washington spoke.

“I was also offended, I too am an African-American,” Washington told the panel. “I did intervene, I did engage the district attorney. At the end of the day, there are only certain things that the United States attorney can do.”

Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, “subpoena him!”

Since the Jena case made headlines, there have been a number of other nooses found in high-profile incidents around the country in a black Coast Guard cadet’s bag, on a Maryland college campus, and, last week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.

Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing with federal officials and community activists examining the case of the six black teenagers charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus there a symbol of the lynching violence of the segregation era.

Black lawmakers and activists said more forceful action by the Bush administration was needed to squelch what they called a sharp rise in racism in the United States.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based civil rights activist, said that decision shows unfairness in a criminal justice system that declined to charge white students for a hate crime because they are minors, but initially chose to charge the six teens in the beating case as adults.

“These nooses were hung over a year ago sir. So I know that the wheels of justice turn slow, but they seem to be at a standstill,” said Sharpton. “That’s why we’re seeing nooses all over America.”

The senior Republican on the panel, Lamar Smith of Texas, said, “more than anything what we need is an effort to reduce racial tension… What we do not need is stoking racial resentment.”

Several other Republicans on the panel questioned whether the white beating victim, Justin Barker, had been forgotten in all the uproar, but Rev. Brian Moran, president of the Jena NAACP chapter, said that the most pressing issue is justice for the six teens facing criminal charges.

More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered recently in Jena to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects were treated, but the cases against the Jena Six remain unresolved.

Last week, a judge sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail after a judge determined he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

Racial tensions began rising in Jena in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted.

NEW ORLEANS —  A state appeals court on Friday threw out the only remaining conviction against one of the black teenagers accused in the beating of a white schoolmate in the racially tense north Louisiana town of Jena.

Mychal Bell, 17, should not have been tried as an adult, the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal said in tossing his conviction on aggravated battery, for which he was to have been sentenced Thursday. His conspiracy conviction in the December beating of student Justin Barker was already thrown out by another court.

Bell, who was 16 at the time of the beating, and four others were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder. Those charges brought widespread criticism that blacks were being treated more harshly than whites following racial altercations involving Jena High.

Civil rights leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, had been planning a rally in support of the teens for the day Bell was to have been sentenced.

Teenagers can be tried as adults in Louisiana for some violent crimes, including attempted murder, but aggravated battery is not one of those crimes, the court said.

Defense lawyers had argued that the aggravated battery case should not have been tried in adult court once the attempted murder charge was reduced.

The case “remains exclusively in juvenile court,” the Third Circuit ruled.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Rev. Al Sharpton called for an investigation of the district attorney prosecuting a group of black teenagers on serious criminal charges stemming from a Louisiana school fight involving a white classmate. In a telephone interview Sunday from New York, Sharpton also said he would join thousands of people in Jena on Sept. 20 — the day one of the teens is scheduled to be sentenced on an aggravated second-degree battery conviction. Mychal Bell faces up to 15 years in prison. “After that, if we need to, we’ll go to Baton Rouge and see the governor and the Legislature,” Sharpton said. Sharpton said he wants the state attorney general and judicial oversight agencies to investigate the actions of LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters. A telephone message left at Walters’ residence was not returned Sunday. He has previously said he cannot comment because of the pending cases. Today in Americas On 9/11 anniversary, looking inward to explain terrorist attacks Petraeus sees partial pullout by 2008 Interest grows in limiting life tenure in Supreme Court The case drew protests after five of the six teens, dubbed the “Jena Six,” were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, carrying sentences of up to 80 years in prison. The sixth was charged in juvenile court. The beating victim, who is white, was treated for injuries at a hospital and released the same day, and a motive for the alleged Dec. 4 attack at Jena High School was never established. The beating came amid tense race relations in Jena, a mostly white town of 3,000 in north-central Louisiana. After a black student sat under a tree on the school campus where white students traditionally congregated, three nooses were hung in the tree. Students accused of placing the nooses were suspended from school for a short period. In Jena on Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson urged residents to come together to demand equal justice. “Why be fighting when we can turn to each other and find common ground?” Jackson said. “Jena is too small not to move together.”