Court Roundup

Delaware Court weighs dismissal of death sentence DOVER, Del. (AP) -- The attorney general's office is asking the Delaware Supreme Court to overturn a judge's ruling throwing out the conviction of a man sentenced to death for killing a Wilmington liquor store clerk in 1991. Prosecutors argued Thursday that the judge erred in ruling that Jermaine Wright's confession to police was defective because he had not been properly advised of his rights against self-incrimination and to have an attorney appointed to represent him. Prosecutors also said the judge erred in ruling that Wright's attorneys were never given information suggesting that the victim may have been murdered by two other men who committed a similar robbery earlier that night. Wright spent more time on death row than any other Delaware inmate currently facing execution before his death sentence was overturned in January. South Dakota Man acquitted of kidnapping mother GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) -- A Cascade County jury has acquitted a South Dakota man of charges he kidnapped his mother from an assisted living facility in Montana. James Wainscoat was arrested last August in California after he took his 93-year-old mother from Renaissance Senior Care in Great Falls. Prosecutors argued the woman was kidnapped because he could not legally make decisions for his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Wainscoat told the Great Falls Tribune on Wednesday he was acting on his mother's wishes and wasn't aware of the legal guardianship or Alzheimer's diagnosis until later. Wainscoat's mother, Troy Wainscoat, now lives with one of her daughters in California. A charge of accountability to kidnapping filed against James Wainscoat's daughter, Ishaya, was dropped earlier this year. Virginia State high court hears appeal in police GPS case RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A lawyer for a sex offender asked the Virginia Supreme Court to reverse his client's conviction, arguing that evidence in the case was inadmissible because police illegally used an electronic tracking device to monitor the man's movements without first obtaining a search warrant. Christopher Leibig told the court Thursday that the Virginia Court of Appeals wrongly upheld David Foltz's conviction in Fairfax County in 2008 of abduction with intent to defile. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this January that police cannot install GPS technology to track suspects without a warrant. Virginia Theisen, a lawyer with the state attorney general's office, argued the crime was separate from Foltz's actions that were illegally tracked by GPS. She said that police gathered evidence by conventional means and that the conviction should stand. Kentucky EPA sues India-based firm mining coal in Kentucky LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says coal companies owned by a massive India conglomerate ran illegal surface mines in eastern Kentucky that polluted waterways. The EPA is alleging in a federal lawsuit that mountaintop removal mines in three counties dumped pollutants into tributaries of the Levisa Fork River in 2005 and 2007. The mines were run by Trinity Coal Corporation and its subsidiaries, all based in Scott Depot, W. Va. Trinity has been owned since 2010 by Mumbai-based Essar Group, which owns coal reserves around the world. Its Essar Minerals is named as a defendant in the suit filed Wednesday in Pikeville federal court. The suit says the companies did not obtain federal permits before mining. A message to a spokesman for Essar was not returned on Thursday. Published: Fri, Jun 8, 2012