Court Roundup

Indiana
Murder defense claims conflict by court psychiatrist
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — The murder trial of a southern Indiana man who police say confessed to stabbing his estranged wife has been postponed after his attorney raised questions about the objectivity of a court-appointed psychiatrist who determined he was sane.
Edward Dale Bagshaw, 47, is on trial in a Clark County court for the November 2011 slaying of 30-year-old Kelly Bagshaw in a parking lot outside his Jeffersonville apartment. Prosecutors say Bagshaw used a pocketknife to stab his 30-year-old wife dozens of times inside her car after she came to pick up their two young children.
Bagshaw is using an insanity defense, but none of the three court-appointed mental health experts who examined Bagshaw believed he was insane, The Courier-Journal of nearly Louisville, Ky., reports.
One of the experts, psychiatrist Dr. Steven Shelton, testified Wednesday that he determined Bagshaw was depressed but not insane. Another psychiatrist said Bagshaw likely had dissociative amnesia, a mental disorder where someone can’t recall traumatic events.
Under questioning by Bagshaw’s attorney, Perry McCall, Shelton acknowledged that he had treated Bagshaw in jail about a week before he performed the court-ordered mental evaluation. Shelton has a contract to treat inmates the Clark County Jail. Some of Shelton’s initial findings were included in his final report to the court.
McCall objected to Shelton’s testimony, claiming the evaluation was not an independent assessment if it was performed by someone who had prior knowledge.
Shelton said he sees how it “could be perceived as a conflict of interest,” but said he remained impartial.
But Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeremy Mull argued that Shelton’s findings have been available for more than a year. McCall said he didn’t learn of the possibility of a conflict of interest until Tuesday, when one of the other doctors brought it to his attention.
The trial was recessed until Friday while the court looks for another psychiatrist to evaluate Bagshaw.
“We are, after all, trying to get a true sense of his mental status. ... This is a truth-finding process,” Mull said.

Rhode Island
Man accused of killing wife with hammer gets life
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A 47-year-old man accused of bludgeoning his wife to death with a hammer has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to life in prison.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin says Constantino Nardolillo pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Wednesday in Superior Court. The judge sentenced him to life for the January 2010 killing of Ann Marie Nardolillo.
Prosecutors say Constantino Nardolillo beat his wife with a hammer and left her body for a relative to discover. He then fled in a stolen vehicle with her debit card, which he used at multiple locations.
Nardolillo was remanded to the state prison. He has been held there without bail since his arrest several days after the killing.
Authorities say Nardolillo’s last known address was in Newport.

Montana
Jury convicts woman of killing husband, his lover
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A Lewis and Clark County jury has convicted a 49-year-old Maryland woman of sneaking into her estranged husband’s Helena residence and killing him and his lover in October 2011.
Michelle Coller Gable was convicted Wednesday of two counts of deliberate homicide in the shooting deaths of 48-year-old Joseph Gable and 50-year-old Sunday Cooley Bennett.
Prosecutors argued Michelle Gable was jealous of Bennett and feared losing her husband’s financial support in a divorce so she sneaked into his house with two guns on Oct. 13, 2011 and surprised the victims in bed just before dawn.
Defense attorneys argued Joe Gable attacked Michelle Gable when she awakened him and pistol whipped her. Michele Gable said the gun went off during a struggle, hitting Joe. She testified she shot Bennett because she was coming at her.

Illinois
Judge: Secret court hearing over sheriff wrong
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A supervisory judge in southwestern Illinois says it wasn’t appropriate for a colleague to exclude the media from a hearing in which public indecency charges against a sheriff were dropped.
St. Clair County Associate Judge Julie Katz threw out the case against Perry County Sheriff Keith Kellerman after meeting Tuesday in her chambers with attorneys for both sides as reporters waited in the courtroom.
Kellerman was accused of a sex act with a man outside a Caseyville tavern in 2011.
Chief Judge John Baricevic tells the Belleville News-Democrat reporters should have been allowed in Katz’s chambers during the hearing. He says he’s talked to Katz, “and it won’t happen again.”
An Illinois Press Association attorney says the case’s private resolution may violate constitutional rights of openness to reporters.

Massachusetts
Lawyer avoids charges for drinking party
HINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — A prominent Boston-area defense attorney accused of being at home the night her teenage daughter hosted a drinking party will not face charges as long as she stays out of trouble.
A clerk magistrate in Hingham District Court on Wednesday took Tracy Miner’s case under advisement after a 90-minute closed-door hearing and decided not to issue a criminal complaint.
If Miner avoids any legal trouble for six months, the case will be dropped.
Miner could have faced charges of furnishing alcohol to minors.
Police responding to her Scituate home early on Jan. 1 say they saw teens scatter from the home. Upon entering, police say they saw beer cans, liquor bottles and pizza boxes and smelled marijuana.
Miner said outside court: “I trust the justice system. I work in it.”

Ohio
Settlements negotiated in alleged abuse case
WARREN, Ohio (AP) — Undisclosed financial settlements have been negotiated for 11 men who say they were sexually abused by a Franciscan brother who taught and coached at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian said Wednesday the settlements involved allegations against Brother Stephen Baker at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren from 1986-90.
Because of statute of limitation issues, the cases were resolved without charges or lawsuits.
Mediation settlements involved the school, Third Order Regular Franciscans and Youngstown Catholic Diocese, which said it was unaware of the allegations until nearly 20 years after the alleged abuse.
Franciscans say they responded compassionately when notified. Baker has been removed from public ministry.
A message seeking comment from Baker was left Thursday at his Newry, Pa., monastery.

Washington
$40K to family of teen in barracks overdose
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A lawsuit settlement means the family of a Lakewood, Wash., teenager who died from a drug overdose in 2009 in a Fort Lewis barracks will receive $40,000 from the U.S. government and a security contractor.
The New Tribune reports that lawyers for 16-year-old Leah King’s mother determined they had a limited chance of winning the lawsuit after an August decision from a federal judge who dismissed the security firm from the case.
The agreement calls on the government to pay Katherine King $35,000 and former Fort Lewis security contractor Doyon to contribute another $5,000.
A Doyon lawyer says the company agreed to participate in the settlement to avoid an appeal.
In 2010, Pvt. Timothy Bennitt was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for “aiding and abetting” his girlfriend’s use of the painkiller oxymorphone and anxiety pill Xanax. He was sentenced to nearly six years.