Kansas: Ex-priest to be extradited from Kansas to Texas
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A former Catholic priest wanted on sex crime charges in Texas has agreed to be extradited from Kansas.
John M. Fiala, 51, said Tuesday during a Douglas County Court hearing that he was willing to be sent to Texas.
Fiala is wanted in Edwards County, Texas, on four counts of sex crimes against children. He was arrested Sept. 3 in Lawrence and was being held in the Douglas County jail on $100,000 bond.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Fiala was removed from the priesthood in 2008 after the allegations in Texas surfaced.
Fiala had served as a priest in Shawnee and Holton, Kan., and also worked in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., from 1998 to 2001.
No sexual abuse charges have been filed against Fiala in Kansas or Missouri.
Missouri: Veteran police officer pleads not guilty
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 52-year-old Kansas City police officer has pleaded not guilty to a sexual assault charge involving a friend of his son.
James R. Silke entered the plea Monday to one count of deviate sexual assault.
Silke, who has been a Kansas City police officer for 25 years, is suspended without pay. He remains in the Clay County Detention Center after failing to post $100,000 bond.
Court records indicate that a 19-year-old friend of Silke’s son accused him of making sexual advances and sexual assault at Sikle’s home.
The Kansas City Star reports that during police questioning, Silke said none of the acts would have occurred if he had not been drinking.
Indiana: Teen could face life for brother’s strangling
RISING SUN, Ind. (AP) — A judge will decide whether a southern Indiana teenager who police say strangled his 10-year-old brother to satisfy an urge to kill spends the rest of his life in prison.
Andrew Conley’s sentencing hearing was set to begin Wednesday morning in Ohio Circuit Court in the small Ohio River town of Rising Sun. Defense attorney Gary Sorge told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Conley will testify.
The 18-year-old pleaded guilty to murder on Monday, avoiding a jury trial. He was to be tried as an adult but couldn’t face the death penalty because he was 17 when his brother, Conner, was killed last November.
Conley faces a minimum sentence of 45 years in prison. Prosecutors have requested a sentence of life without parole.
Mississippi: DNA hearing to consider tossing convictions
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A Forrest County judge will hold a hearing Thursday on whether DNA clears three men of raping and killing a Hattiesburg woman in 1979.
The Innocence Project says DNA proves Phillip Bevins, Bobby Ray Dixon and Larry Donnell Ruffin are innocent of the attack on Eva Gail Patterson.
Ruffin died in prison in 2002 after 23 years behind bars.
Phillip Bevins remains behind in prison, serving a life sentence.
Bobby Ray Dixon served 32 years and was given a medical release in August because he has lung cancer and a brain tumor.
Crime scene DNA matches Andrew Harris, who already is serving a life sentence in Parchman for another rape in Forrest County two years after Patterson’s, the Innocence Project contends in court papers.
Emily Maw, project director for the Innocence Project in New Orleans, told The Clarion-Ledger that during an interview with Harris, he did not admit his guilt but said he had never met Ruffin, Dixon or Bivens. In addition, the one eyewitness — Patterson’s 4-year-old son — told authorities there was one assailant, not three, Maw said.
In their motion, filed in July, attorneys for Dixon and Bivens are asking the court to take the first step to end “this tragedy by ordering their immediate release so they can live out the days they have left as free men.”
Ohio: Supreme Court hears university bus crash suit
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Lawyers have clashed before Ohio’s Supreme Court on whether a university’s insurers should be liable for a 2007 bus crash that killed seven people, including five student baseball players.
An attorney for the estate of one of the victims argued Tuesday that families should bring claims under Bluffton University’s insurance policies because the northwest Ohio school hired the bus. It plunged off a highway overpass in Atlanta on the way to a tournament.
The Columbus Dispatch reports an opposing view came from an attorney for one of the insurance carriers. He argued that the charter bus company bears sole responsibility because the university had not hired a bus any more than he would hire a taxi to take him to his hotel.
A decision is expected within months.
Missouri: IHOP sues prayer center over use of same name
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The IHOP restaurant is suing a Kansas City-based religious group that uses the same name.
The International House of Pancakes has sued the International House of Prayer in federal court for trademark dilution and infringement.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, says the restaurant chain has six registered trademarks for the IHOP acronym.
The religious group started 10 years ago in south Kansas City. It has drawn thousands of people from around the world and broadcasts globally through a live stream in Jerusalem.
The restaurant chain says the religious group’s use of the IHOP logo causes confusion for the public.
Alaska: Judge to decide if man competent to stand trial
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A judge will decide if a mentally ill man is competent to stand trial for murder.
Fifty-three-year-old Brian Galbraith is charged in the 2007 stabbing death of a 32-year-old mental health worker at a South Fairbanks mental health housing facility.
The case has been working its way through the Alaskan court system for more than three years.
A Fairbanks judge will decide next week if Galbraith, who is a paranoid schizophrenic, is competent to stand trial in the death of Genine Holznagel-Leary.
Public defender Michael Biderman says if the case goes to trial he will present an insanity defense.
Galbraith remains incarcerated at the Fairbanks Correctional Center.
