National Roundup

Texas
Couple indicted in slaying of 3, 2 were prosecutors 
KAUFMAN, Texas (AP) — A former North Texas justice of the peace and his wife have been indicted on capital murder charges in the slayings of three people, including two prosecutors.
A local grand jury indicted Eric and Kim Williams on Thursday.
The couple is accused of killing Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, District Attorney Mike McLelland and McLelland’s wife, Cynthia. Hasse was shot outside the county courthouse in January, while the McLellands were killed in their home in March.
Prosecutors allege Eric Williams was the gunman in both cases.
The two were arrested in April for what prosecutors allege was a meticulous plot to avenge Eric Williams’ conviction for stealing county computer monitors in 2012.
Eric Williams is being held on a $23 million bond. His wife’s bond is $10 million.

Indiana
Inmate sentenced for escape try  with bread truck
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A man who commandeered a bread delivery truck and smashed through a security gate at a northern Indiana jail has been sentenced to six years in prison on an escape charge.
A St. Joseph County judge sentenced 27-year-old Franklin Rice Jr. during a court hearing Wednesday, the South Bend Tribune reported. Rice was being held on multiple counts of burglary when he escaped on April 16.
Rice told the judge that he “panicked” at the prospect of a long jail sentence.
Police said Rice, who had worked in the jail kitchen since November, escaped about 4:30 a.m., using keys left in the truck’s ignition by the delivery driver. He then met his girlfriend and another woman who were waiting in a getaway car. The three were arrested that afternoon at a house in Bremen, about 25 miles south of South Bend.
Defense attorney Deborah Kay Hunter Hays unsuccessfully argued for a shorter sentence, saying Rice’s escape wasn’t violent and that he didn’t resist officers when he was recaptured.
“Within the context of an escape, there are much worse things that could have happened,” she said.
Superior Court Judge Jane Woodward Miller said Rice had been in trouble with the law before in both St. Joseph and Elkhart counties.
“I can’t say it was the worst of the worst in an escape,” Miller said. “It was a poorly executed plan.”
Rice also was ordered to pay about $1,600 in restitution to Alpha Baking for damage to the delivery truck.
The judge ordered that Rice’s escape sentence be added to the 16-year prison sentence he received last month on the burglary charges.

Virginia
D.C. sniper Malvo wants all his life sentences tossed
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Attorneys for convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo are asking federal judges in Virginia and Maryland to vacate his 10 life sentences for the shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks in 2002.
In petitions filed earlier this week, attorneys argue a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision that blocked mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles should be applied retroactively to Malvo. The justices ruled last year in an Alabama case that mandatory terms of life without parole for those under age 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Malvo was four months shy of his 18th birthday when he and John Allen Muhammad gunned down 13 people in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, killing 10. The pair paralyzed the nation’s capital as they shot people at random — at gas stations, shopping malls, going to school. They used a high-powered rifle, firing from the trunk of a modified Chevy Caprice until they were apprehended at a Maryland rest stop.
Malvo and Muhammad also have been linked to shootings in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.
Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Virginia in 2009. Because he was a juvenile, Malvo received life without parole sentences in separate trials in Maryland and Virginia.
Malvo is being held at Red Onion State Prison in southwest Virginia.
The petitions to toss out the sentences were filed in U.S. District Courts in Charlottesville, Va., and Greenbelt, Md.

Pennsylvania
Judge named in Paterno family’s lawsuit vs. NCAA
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A judge has been named to preside over the lawsuit filed by the family of former Penn State coach Joe Paterno and others against the NCAA over penalties imposed by the organization for the school’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
Pennsylvania judicial officials said Thursday the case was assigned to Senior Judge John B. Leete from Potter County in the state’s rural northern tier.
The assignment by Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille comes nearly a month after Centre County’s president judge requested an out-of-county jurist.
The lawsuit by Paterno’s family, several trustees, former players and others argues college sports’ governing body bypassed its own rules in taking action against Penn State. The penalties include a four-year post-season ban and a $60 million fine. Paterno died early last year.

Illinois
Transit agencies being targeted by patent lawsuits
CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois Congressman says public transit agencies nationwide are being targeted with questionable lawsuits by “patent trolls” that are squeezing settlements out of financially strapped public entities unable to mount legal defenses.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Lipinski says the firms behind the lawsuits are stifling innovation, draining badly needed resources from vital public services and costing taxpayers.
Lipinski says at least 20 public transit agencies, including the Chicago area’s Metra, have been targeted.
Critics call the firms “patent trolls.” They buy up patents and use them to demand licensing fees from companies that they accuse of infringing on the intellectual property protections.
The Chicago-area Democrat is Illinois’ senior member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
He is pressing for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into the companies behind the lawsuits.