Arizona
'Therapy dogs' now allowed for children in court
PHOENIX, AZ -- Child victims in Arizona now have the right to have a dog at their side to comfort them during court testimony under a bill signed into law today by Gov. Doug Ducey.
Judges in Maricopa and Pima counties have allowed the so-called "facility dogs" or "therapy dogs" in their courtrooms for years, but now all courts will be required to under HB2375, which sailed through the Legislature on unanimous votes.
The law, which takes effect Aug. 6, also gives judges discretion in allowing the dogs during the testimony of adult victims and witnesses. To prevent unduly influence on the jury, the judge is required to explain to jurors why the dog is in the courtroom and that it's a trained animal.
Defense attorneys over the years have contested the use of the dogs in individual cases, saying they garner sympathy for the victim, and judges have refused to allow them in a small number of cases.
Appellate courts have upheld their use in other states.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has a K9 Victim Support Unit, which has three service dogs who are cared for by victim advocates in the office.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in a press release he's excited the new law allows the success of his office's program to expand to benefit victims statewide.
"Our canines have worked with victims in the most traumatic situations, and I can attest to the fact that having a therapy dog by their side truly helps these individuals find comfort and gain courage to testify before a court," Montgomery said.
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Pennsylvania
Police catch nursery-rhyming
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Sheriff's deputies say they've caught the gingerbread man, a Pittsburgh-area burglary suspect who referred to the nursery rhyme in taunting authorities who couldn't catch up to him.
Police say 25-year-old Heath Emory Miller was trying to hide in the attic of a home where police found him on Wednesday.
Emory is wanted on several warrants from burglaries in the Pittsburgh suburbs of West View and Ross Township.
On Monday, he escaped into the woods after Allegheny County deputies thought they had him cornered.
That night, Miller posted on Facebook saying, "They call me the gingerbread man. Catch me if u can. I'm running as fast as I can."
Miller remained jailed without an attorney Thursday.
The gingerbread man is a children's story about a cookie that runs away from those who try to eat him.
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Virginia
Court to consider forced medication in terror case
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A federal appeals court will consider whether a North Carolina man can be forcibly medicated in order to stand trial on a charge that he tried to join al-Qaida-linked fighters in Syria.
Basit Sheikh is charged with providing material support to a terrorist group for attempting to join militants in Syria.
A federal judge ruled in October that the Pakistan native can be forcibly treated for schizophrenia to see if that will make him competent to stand trial. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Sheikh's case Thursday.
Sheikh's attorney said in court documents that the government is trying to use the man as a "human 'guinea pig." Prosecutors say the charge he faces is serious and must be considered in court.
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Arizona
Grandpa jailed after stranding girl in the desert
PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona man has been sentenced to six months in jail after prosecutors say he left his 5-year-old granddaughter alone in the desert with a loaded handgun and stopped at a restaurant.
Authorities in Maricopa County, Arizona, say Paul Rater took his granddaughter for a ride in his new pickup truck in November and got lost in the desert. He told authorities the vehicle got stuck and they had to walk for help. Rater told them he left the girl under a tree with a gun when she couldn't walk anymore.
A helicopter later located the uninjured girl. He was later found eating and drinking at a restaurant.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery says Rater was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to felony child abuse.
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Oregon
Man has son shoot him in the leg to delay jail
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - It was a dramatic tale: A man was attacked on the side of a road and badly wounded the day before he was to report to prison in an Oregon mortgage fraud scheme.
Shannon Egeland told police he had stopped to help a pregnant motorist when he was hit in the head and shot.
That story turned out to be false, but the truth was equally bizarre.
Egeland, 41, has admitted he ordered his teenage son to shoot him in the legs so he could delay his prison term and collect on a disability insurance policy. The shooting broke a bone in one of Egeland's legs and led to the amputation of one of his feet.
On Wednesday, the former Bend developer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge that stemmed from the disability insurance policy he applied for a week before the shooting.
Egeland was vice president of the now-defunct Desert Sun Development, which orchestrated tens of millions of dollars in mortgage fraud during central Oregon's real estate boom and bust from 2004 to 2008.
He was one of 12 people indicted in the scandal, The Oregonian reported. It primarily involved two schemes, one centered on commercial development projects and the other on a home construction-flipping scheme.
Company officials falsified loan documents and secured construction loans for projects that were never completed, prosecutors alleged.
Egeland was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his role. He was wounded in the roadside shooting near Caldwell, Idaho, on July 31, 2014.
Prosecutors said besides suffering a disability in a deceitful manner, Egeland lied in the insurance application he sent across state lines from Idaho to Portland's Standard Insurance Company, prosecutors said. He told the company he had not been arrested in the past 10 years.
In late 2010, Egeland was convicted of selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school. In 2013, he was convicted of theft for stealing $9 worth of items from a store.
Egeland also pleaded guilty Wednesday to willful failure to pay child support. Beyond answering procedural questions, he did not make a statement at the hearing in Portland.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford said he planned to recommend a five-year prison sentence, tacked onto what Egeland already is serving.
U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown scheduled sentencing for Oct. 5, though it could get pushed back because it coincides with the trial she is overseeing for Ammon Bundy and others charged with occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.
Published: Fri, May 13, 2016
