Ohio
Man pleads in slaying of rural man and daughter
CELINA, Ohio (AP) — A teenager pleaded guilty to participating in the shooting deaths of a disabled man and his daughter, who had been bound with duct tape during a robbery at their farmhouse in western Ohio near the Indiana state line.
A second man charged in the slayings has pleaded not guilty and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Trevin Sanders, 19, pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and other charges Thursday in Mercer County, north of Dayton, as part of an agreement with prosecutors. His sentencing is scheduled for April 15, and he faces up to life without parole.
Colleen Grube, 47, and her father, 70-year-old Robert Grube, were found dead in November 2011 by a relative in the ransacked home on a lonely country road surrounded by farm fields outside the village of Fort Recovery.
The farmhouse slayings stunned residents in the rural communities of west-central Ohio where violent crimes are rare. In the days afterward, parents wouldn’t allow their children to be dropped off at empty homes after school and neighbors were asked to look out for one another.
Sanders, who had been in prison in Indiana since October 2012 on unrelated theft charges, and 23-year-old Bryant Rhoades were charged last March in the slayings. Rhoades has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges.
Both are from Union City, a town that straddles Indiana and Ohio.
Mercer County prosecutor Matt Fox said in court Thursday that Sanders said he shot Colleen Grube several times and that Rhoades then shot the woman’s father, who was found in his wheelchair.
“They were killed to prevent a group of subjects from being identified,” Fox said, according to The (Celina) Daily Standard.
Messages seeking comment were left with Rhoades’ attorneys on Friday.
Investigators said the big break came in January 2012 when Indiana authorities contacted a sheriff’s department in Ohio and said they made an arrest in an unrelated case and were curious whether there was a connection to the farmhouse slayings.
Colleen Grube’s sister-in-law found the bodies after she didn’t show up to babysit her niece. She said she found Robert Grube dead in his wheelchair and his daughter’s body on a couch.
California
Cemetery settles lawsuit alleging body dumping
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles cemetery has agreed to an estimated $80.5 million settlement of a lawsuit that claimed it dumped human remains from hundreds of graves.
Owners of Eden Memorial Park agreed to the deal about a week ago in the midst of a jury trial, and a Superior Court judge granted preliminary approval Thursday, said Michael Avenatti, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the class-action suit.
Final approval is expected in May, he said.
The cemetery’s owner, Houston-based Service Corporation International, denied wrongdoing.
“While we certainly understand that our clients wanted to avoid prolonged litigation, I am disappointed that we did not try this case to a conclusion,” said Steve Gurnee, the company’s lead attorney in the case. “I am confident that the facts would have established that Eden Memorial Park did not do anything wrong and would have been fully vindicated.”
The company agreed to settle a similar lawsuit in Florida in 2003 for $100 million.
The Eden lawsuit, filed in 2009, claimed that for about 25 years, management at the Jewish cemetery ordered employees to make new graves fit “even if it required breaking outer burial containers in adjacent graves,” according to a settlement notice.
“The groundskeepers testified that on hundreds of occasions, they broke into adjacent vaults and discarded remains,” which included those of a baby, Avenatti said.
Pieces of caskets and remains were buried in the cemetery’s dump section, which was buried by later cemetery development, and they won’t be disinterred, Avenatti said.
After consulting with rabbis, “we collectively decided that they were better left where they were,” he said.
The settlement involves about 25,000 families. It sets up a $35.25 million reimbursement fund for people who want to remove their loved ones from the cemetery or bought services such as prepaid gravesites.
The company also agreed to pay $250,000 to notify people of the settlement, and it will make changes to correct problems and prevent future misconduct that could cost it an additional $45 million, including loss of future business.
Service Corporation International is the world’s largest funeral services company.
“We are very pleased to put this litigation behind us,” said company spokeswoman Lisa Marshall. “While we do not believe the allegations represent the standard of care and service our professionals provide, it is in the best interest of our customer families, our shareholders and our associates that we move forward and focus on the work we do every day, serving families with respect, compassion and transparency.”
In 2003, the company agreed to a $100 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit involving about 700 families. The suit alleged that Menorah Gardens cemeteries in Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida buried people in the wrong places, broke open vaults to squeeze in other remains and, in some instances, tossed bones into the woods.
The company also settled a lawsuit by the state of Florida for $14 million.
California
Court: School ban of US flag shirts allowed
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Northern California high school’s decision to order students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during a celebration of the holiday Cinco de Mayo was appropriate, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the school officials’ concerns of racial violence outweighed students’ freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day.
The unanimous three-judge panel said past problems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable reasons for their actions. The court said schools have wide latitude in curbing certain civil rights to ensure campus safety.
“Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. The past events “made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real,” she wrote.
The case garnered national attention as many expressed outrage that students were barred from wearing patriotic clothing. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based American Freedom Law Center, a politically conservative legal aid foundation, and other similar organizations took up the students’ case and sued the high school and the school district.
William Becker, one of the lawyers representing the students, said he plans to ask a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court to rehear the case. Becker said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses again.
“The 9th Circuit upheld the rights of Mexican students celebrating a holiday of another country over U.S. student proudly supporting this country,” Becker said.
Cinco de Mayo marks the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, when Mexican troops defeated a French army of Napoleon III, then considered the mightiest military in the world. It is considered a bigger holiday in the U.S., celebrating Mexican heritage with parades and revelry in many major cities.
