NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A judge has thrown out the criminal charge filed against a guard on duty when a 15-year-old killed himself in the New Orleans jail.

  

Twenty-seven-year-old Keriana Alexcee was arrested last year on a malfeasance charge.

  

An affidavit alleged she failed to make required security checks every 15 minutes the night Jaquin (jah-KWAHN') Thomas hanged himself with a mattress cover. Thomas was being held on a murder charge when he died in October 2016.

  

Judge Camille Buras threw out the charge Wednesday, a month after a hearing where a jail official testified that Alexcee had never been sworn in as a deputy, and hadn't been trained for work on the jail's youth tier.

  

Prosecutors plan to appeal. A defense attorney says Alexcee was unfairly blamed for systemic problems at the jail.