VALDOSTA – Benjamin Crump, civil rights attorney and president of the National Bar Association, is no longer involved with the Kendrick Johnson case, according to court documents filed this week.

Tallahassee attorney Benjamin Crump has appeared with Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson and their attorney, Chevene King, at several courthouse press conferences since the death of the Johnson’s son, Kendrick, in 2013.

In an Oct. 29, 2015 letter addressed to the Johnsons and filed with the Superior Court of Lowndes County this week, Crump wrote he is unable to continue representing the family. Crump first joined the Johnsons in demanding that school surveillance video be released by the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office. A judge granted the release in Oct. 2013.

“Since that time, I have not been able to participate in any meaningful way with Attorney King in the strategy, the drafting or the filing of any pleadings in your son’s wrongful death claim beyond that one initial pleading,” Crump wrote.

Crump said the State Bar of Georgia did not grant him special permission to represent the Johnsons in Georgia.

It is unclear why permission was not granted. The State Bar of Georgia did not immediately return a request for a comment on this story.

Although Crump had not been granted permission to practice law in Georgia, he was present in court with King during the January 2015 trial of the “KJ 7,” a group comprised of Johnson’s parents and family members who were charged with blocking entrance to the Lowndes County Judicial Complex during a 2013 protest. Crump sat at the defense table but did not address the court during the trial.

Kendrick Johnson’s body was found upside down in a vertically-stored athletic mat at LHS on Jan. 10, 2013. A state autopsy ruled the 17-year-old’s death accidental, but Johnson’s parents insist their son died of foul play. A federal review of the Johnson case in its third year.