It stunned America in 1973 - the execution of a New Jersey State Trooper during a Turnpike pullover that send Clark Edward Squire to prison along with Joanne Chesimard and led to her jailbreak and flight to Cuba.

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A New Jersey appellate court has ordered the state Parole Board to release Squire, now known as Sunidata Acoli, citing the Board's reliance on incidents that predated the crime and oversight of favorable evidence in the years since.

The office of acting New Jersey Attorney General John H. Hoffman says that the decision would be appealed.

Acoli was convicted in 1974, and Chesimard in 1977, relative to the shooting death of Trooper Werner Foerster. He began serving life plus 30 years consecutive in Trenton State Prison and also served time in a federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

They and a third suspect, Zayd Shakur, claimed membership in the Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party. Acoli's past includes detention for two years starting in 1969 and ultimate acquittal in the Panther 21 conspiracy case.

Acoli was denied parole in 2011, according to the Associated Press. The Sundiata Acoli web site, which calls his trial and sentence "highly sensationalized and prejudicial," said that the Parole Board relied on his attachment to the Black Liberation Army and Black Panthers.

Chesimard, now Assata Shakur, remains in Cuba with a $2,000,000 reward for her capture and return still in effect.

Shore Assemblyman Sean Kean (R-30), who pushed several resolutions calling for Shakur's extradition, said he's "extremely disappointed" with the ruling.

"Time will not heal the wounds felt by the Foerster family and his many friends,"  Kean said in a prepared statement. "Expressing remorse does not change that a husband and father was lost. Life in prison without parole is a justified sentence. I intend on working on legislation that will prevent parole under these circumstances from happening again."

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