A superior court judge will announce Thursday whether Newark school documents about a slain Newark Memorial High School student can be disclosed to the defendant’s attorney.
The about 18-year-old Osana Futi came from attorney Thomas Knutsen, who is representing a Fremont man charged with murder in connection with Futi’s stabbing death.
Abraham Ibrahim Hade, 18, faces one count of in connection Futi’s killing and pleaded not guilty at his last court appearance on May 23 at the Fremont Hall of Justice.
At that court appearance, Knutsen declined to go into detail about the case and why the school documents were requested.
However, last March, the Newark Unified School Board of Education voted to after it was reported that he got into a verbal argument with another student over the December 2011 murder of his best friend, 17-year-old Justice Afoa. Afoa was fatally stabbed on Cedar Boulevard near Birch Street in Newark.
Parents and school staff, including Newark Memorial athletic director and football coach Rich Swift, protested Futi’s expulsion, noting that the teenager had just been distraught over Afoa's death. After months of litigations, Futi was reinstated at Newark Memorial in spring 2011, according to Stacy Kelly, president of Newark Memorial's athletic's boosters.
Hade was and booked into Santa Rita Jail on April 29 – several hours after Futi was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Futi was found around 11:20 p.m. April 28 during a house party near a Fremont home by Hyde Park and Yellow Stone Park drives, close to Auto Mall Parkway. He died two hours later.
