West Virginia
Potential impeachment articles read against justices
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia legislative committee has heard 14 potential articles of impeachment against four state Supreme Court justices.
The articles were read Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee at the state Capitol in Charleston. The committee is holding a lengthy debate on a motion to adopt all 14 draft articles.
Suspended Justice Allen Loughry is mentioned in six of the articles. Loughry was indicted in federal court in June on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, lying to federal law enforcement, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
Other articles of impeachment involve justices Margaret Workman, Robin Davis and Beth Walker.
Justice Menis Ketchum retired last month. Last week prosecutors said Ketchum has agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of wire fraud stemming from the personal use of state-owned vehicles and fuel cards.
New Jersey
Prosecutors: Woman attacks journalist during court hearing
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) - Authorities say a Philadelphia woman attacked a reporter during a court hearing in New Jersey.
Middlesex County prosecutors say 23-year-old Trudy Smith was sitting behind the reporter, Taylor Tiamoyo Harris, when Harris stood up and started taking photos in the courtroom during a sentencing hearing Friday in New Brunswick. Prosecutors say Smith then also stood up and pulled Harris' hair and struck her in the face before sheriff's officers intervened.
The judge had previously approved of photography in the courtroom. Harris says she heard Smith sobbing and asking why she was there before she was attacked.
Smith was charged with simple assault. It wasn't known Monday if she's retained an attorney.
Prosecutors didn't say what connection Smith had to the sentencing case.
Tennessee
State high court refuses to block looming execution
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee Supreme Court has refused to stay Thursday's scheduled execution of a convicted child killer while the state's new lethal injection protocol continues to be challenged on appeal.
The order brings Tennessee within days of killing Billy Ray Irick with a three-drug mixture, barring some last-minute change. Irick, 59, would be the first inmate Tennessee has executed since 2009. He was convicted of the 1985 rape and killing of a 7-year-old Knoxville girl.
Federal public defender Kelley Henry said she will request a stay with the U.S. Supreme Court. She had asked Gov. Bill Haslam to issue a temporary reprieve while the drugs are studied further. But the governor quickly ruled it out, saying he would not intervene.
"My role is not to be the 13th juror or the judge or to impose my personal views, but to carefully review the judicial process to make sure it was full and fair," Haslam said in a statement Monday. "Because of the extremely thorough judicial review of all of the evidence and arguments at every stage in this case, clemency is not appropriate."
The Tennessee Supreme Court's majority wrote that its rules require proving that the lawsuit challenging the lethal injection drugs is likely to succeed on appeal, but Irick's attorney has failed to do so.
In a ruling late last month, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle wrote that attorneys for 33 death row inmates, including Irick, didn't prove that there is a substantially less painful means to carry out the execution or that the drugs the state plans to use would cause the inmate to be tortured to death.
The inmates' attorneys have appealed to the state Court of Appeals.
For the first time, Tennessee is planning to use midazolam as a sedative, the muscle-relaxer vecuronium bromide and then potassium chloride to stop the heart.
At question is whether midazolam actually is effective in rendering someone unconscious and unable to feel pain from the other two drugs. During the last trial, Henry cited witnesses that described some inmates who still could move, shed a tear, gasp and gulp "like a fish out of water" while being put to death.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sharon Lee added that she "will not join in the rush to execute Mr. Irick and would instead grant him a stay to prevent ending his life before his appeal can be adjudicated."
Attorneys for the state have said the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of midazolam in a three-drug series. They say inmates' attorneys have the burden of identifying an alternative and haven't.
If the state's previous drug, pentobarbital, were available, the state would use it, attorneys for the state say. But death penalty opponents have persuaded companies not to sell pentobarbital for executions, they have argued.
The advocacy group Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was planning a rally Tuesday against the execution, saying Irick has a lifelong, severe and well-documented mental illness. They also are opposing the use of midazolam.
Maine
Man playing disc golf struck by random bullet
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) - A Maine man who was grazed by a bullet while he was playing disc golf says he's lucky to be alive.
Lewiston resident Cameron Hart says he plays disc golf several times a week, and never imagined he could have been shot during a game. WGME-TV reports Hart believes he overheard rounds being shot off near the course, and says he believes he was hit by a ricocheting bullet.
Hart says the bullet grazed his upper lip, and was told if it hit anywhere else he might have been killed.
Hart's family looked over the scene with state police to try and figure out how the bullet hit him. Police are investigating the shooting.
New Jersey
College student who improperly changed grades gets probation
GLASSBORO, N.J. (AP) - A college student who broke into a school office four times so he could steal passwords and change his grades has been spared a prison term. Kaustubh Shroff instead was sentenced to two years of probation.
The 22-year-old Deptford Township man pleaded guilty earlier this year to a computer crimes charge as part of a deal with Gloucester County prosecutors.
Authorities have said the biological sciences major broke into the Rowan University registrar's office and installed software on computers there in order to steal staff login credentials. He later returned to retrieve the data, then used it to access his professors' files and change his grades in some classes.
Officials say Shroff was caught when he broke in to the office in January. He eventually was expelled from the university.
Published: Wed, Aug 08, 2018
