DALLAS — A 15-year-old black girl whose yearlong incarceration for pushing a teacher's aide roiled civil rights activists nationwide won her freedom yesterday, a Texas state lawmaker said.Rep. Harold Dutton, a Democrat who chairs the House juvenile justice committee, said a Texas Youth Commission official told him Shaquanda Cotton was being freed after 12 months in a Brownwood facility.

She will be released today to her mother, who was unable to pick her up yesterday because of bad weather, Dutton said.

"This is one of those cases that is the poster child of everything wrong with the criminal justice system," Dutton said.

Dutton said he was informed of Cotton's pending release by Jay Kimbrough, whom Gov. Rick Perry named to temporarily lead the embattled commission this week. Commission spokesman Jim Hurley said he could not talk about specific cases.

Cotton was sentenced on a felony count of shoving the teacher's aide before the morning bell at Paris High School in 2005. The aide was not seriously injured.

Activists say the fact that the same judge sentenced a white 14-year-old girl to probation for arson signalled evidence of racial bias in the East Texas town on the Oklahoma border.

Prosecutors in Cotton's case expressed surprise at Dutton's news, saying they were told yesterday morning by the commission that the girl had not met the agency's standards for release.

"Apparently now, cases that get the most attention from screaming activists can grab the ear of state legislators who can simply order people to be freed from incarceration," said Allan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Lamar County district attorney's office. "That could be dangerous."

Cotton was eligible to be released on March 17, but had not met the agency's standards for release governing academics, behaviour and "correctional therapy," Hubbard said.

Creola Cotton, the girl's mother, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Prosecutors say they offered Shaquanda a plea agreement that would have reduced the felony charge to a misdemeanour and given her two years' probation. But Creola Cotton rejected the plea on behalf of her daughter, prosecutors said.

They have also downplayed the similarity of Shaquanda's case with the white arsonist who burned down her house, saying a family member stepped forward and was willing to meet terms of probation. The girl later violated her probation and also was sent to a commission facility, Hubbard said.

Judge Chuck Superville, who sentenced both teenagers, has said witness testimony indicated that Creola Cotton would not co-operate with probation requirements if her daughter was released back into her custody.

Superville gave Shaquanda an indefinite sentence, but she had to stay at least 12 months given the severity of her offence.

Cotton's stay at the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex in Brownwood, about 300 miles from her Paris home, drew national attention following a Chicago Tribune story earlier this month. Supporters have held two protests at the county courthouse in as many weeks, and Hubbard said a prominent civil rights activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton, was scheduled to come to the city Tuesday.

Also fanning the racial flames in Paris, a city of about 26,000, are eight federal investigations into the city's school district for civil rights violations. The US Department of Education found no evidence of discrimination in three cases, and the five others remain open.

The Texas Youth Commission, which houses thousands of juvenile offenders considered especially dangerous, incorrigible or chronic, has been in upheaval following allegations that officials ignored claims that young inmates were sexually and physically abused.