The Chicago tribune is reporting, based on a statement from a Texas state representative about his advocacy, that Shaquanda Cotton will be freed in the near future.

Hat Tip to Howard Witt

, author of the Chicago Tribune article below, for his e-mail informing me of this development.

TRIBUNE UPDATE
Girl in Texas prison controversy to go free, lawmaker says

By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published March 30, 2007, 1:09 PM CDT

HOUSTON -- Shaquanda Cotton, the teenage black girl in the small east Texas town of Paris who was sent to prison for up to seven years for shoving a teacher's aide, will be freed soon, a senior Texas legislator confirmed today.

"She is going to be freed, I know that for a fact, either today or sometime next week," state Rep. Harold Dutton, chairman of the Texas legislature's juvenile justice committee, told the Tribune. "I told [prison officials] I wanted her out of there immediately. When I learned about this case, I thought, this case just looks so bad and smells so bad it made me hurt." Chicago Tribune