Texas: Indictment in San Angelo, inmate stabbed 19 times
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Tom Green County grand jury has indicted a 43-year-old jail inmate over an attack in which a fellow prisoner survived being stabbed 19 times.
Danny Gene Slayton was indicted on a felony charge of using a deadly weapon in a penal institution.
The San Angelo Standard-Times reports the complaint over the June 16 attack says the weapon was a sharpened steel rod, about 5 inches long.
Court documents indicate Slayton attacked 51-year-old Warren Wittcop while the two were in a jail day room. Wittcop was held on charges of producing child pornography.
Slayton has several previous cases pending, including aggravated robbery, burglary of a building and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
New York: Woman charged with adultery makes plea deal
BATAVIA, N.Y. (AP) — A married 41-year-old western New York woman charged with adultery after police said she had sex in public has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of public lewdness.
Suzanne Corona of Batavia accepted the plea deal Wednesday in city court in her hometown, midway between Buffalo and Rochester.
The rare charge of adultery was filed by Genesee County prosecutors after police say she had public sex on June 4 with man who wasn’t her husband. Authorities say the sex act occurred on a picnic table at a park in full view of several adults with children.
Corona faces a fine and possibly probation but no jail time when sentenced Oct. 20.
The man arrested, 29-year-old Justin Amend of Oakfield, has pleaded guilty to public lewdness.
Kansas : Man gets maximum sentence in death of wife
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A man who killed his wife while she was working on a house painting crew and then fled to California has been sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
Johnson County Judge Peter Ruddick sentenced 55-year-old Franklin Grammer Wednesday for the June 8, 2009, death of his wife and for trying to kill his wife’s co-worker.
Grammer pleaded guilty in June to killing Betty Grammer and no contest to attemped first-degree murder for trying to shoot her co-worker.
The Kansas City Star reports that court records say Grammer sneaked up behind his 46-year-old wife, put her in a headlock and shot her in the head as she worked with a painting crew in the city of Fairway.
He was arrested four days after the shooting after an eight-hour standoff at a motel in the California mountain town of Gorman.
South Dakota: Judge rules on evidence in 1975 case
A judge says an alleged murder confession by American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier should be allowed as evidence in a decades-old South Dakota murder case.
John Graham and Thelma Rios are scheduled for trial in state court later this year for the killing of former AIM member Annie Mae Aquash.
Judge John Delaney says Peltier’s alleged confession to Aquash that he killed two FBI agents could be relevant. Prosecutors believe AIM leaders ordered Aquash killed because they thought she was a government informant.
Peltier is serving two life sentences. He’s maintained his innocence.
The judge also ruled in favor of a defense request to keep prosecutors from introducing a note that allegedly served as an order to execute Aquash.
Vermont: Judge won’t dismiss sex counts against teacher
HYDE PARK, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont judge says the rights of a former Morristown middle school teacher were not violated when police detectives first asked him about allegations he had sexually molested young male students.
Attorneys for 29-year-old Shaun C. Bryer had argued the two state police detectives had improperly recorded the Sept. 12, 2009 interview with Bryer before he was arrested.
The Burlington Free Press says Superior Court Judge Dennis Pearson ruled Bryer made incriminating statements before he was arrested, but it was in a public, non-coercive setting.
Bryer is facing 14 charges that he sexually assaulted at least three boys over a number of years.
At the time of his arrest last year Bryer was the chairman of the Morristown select board. He is free on bail awaiting trial.
Massachusetts: State can exclude Armenian genocide questions
BOSTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that Massachusetts public school guidelines for teaching history can exclude viewpoints that dispute the mass slaying of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early part of the 20th century.
The decision Wednesday by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state did not violate free speech rights in 1999 by excluding sources that questioned the Armenian genocide.
Some say the killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians wasn’t genocide, but was driven by other factors, including World War I.
Pace University law professor Van Krikorian, who filed a brief defending the state, called the decision “a major defeat for genocide denial.”
Harvey Silverglate, who represents Turkish-American interests, told The Boston Globe the ruling was “a sad day” for First Amendment rights.
Arizona: High court resentences man to life
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court has thrown out a 57-year-old convicted murderer’s death sentence and resentenced him to life in prison.
Gary Snelling was sentenced to death in June 2008 for strangling 66-year-old Adele Curtis in Phoenix in 1996. The jury determined that the murder was especially cruel, an “aggravating factor” that cleared the way for capital punishment.
But in a unanimous decision written by Justice A. John Pelander, the high court said this week that the evidence suggested that Curtis was killed quickly and likely did not suffer the pain required to find an aggravating factor of cruelty.
The justices upheld Snelling’s conviction of first-degree murder but resentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole.
