Court Digest

North Carolina
Ex-Army officer in ‘Fatal Vision’ murders appeals release denial

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A former Army doctor serving life in prison for the “Fatal Vision” slayings of his wife and two young daughters in 1970 is appealing a federal court ruling this month denying his requested release due to poor health.

Court officials on Friday sent the appeal notice filed late Thursday by attorneys for Jeffrey MacDonald to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. MacDonald’s lawyers intend to challenge the April 9 order by District Judge Terrence Boyle.

The judge wrote that he lacked authority to adjust MacDonald’s prison time because a law governing compassionate release requests doesn’t apply to those who committed their crimes before a 1987 cutoff.

Serving his sentences at a Maryland prison, the 77-year-old MacDonald has chronic kidney disease, skin cancer and high blood pressure, according to court documents.

MacDonald was convicted in 1979 for the slayings of his pregnant wife, Colette; 5-year-old daughter Kimberley; and 2-year-old daughter Kristen at their family home at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. MacDonald has declared his innocence and spent years on appeals in the “Fatal Vision” case, named for a book about the investigation. The 4th Circuit refused in late 2018 to grant MacDonald a new trial.

Indiana
Court proceedings in killing of girl, 6, remain open

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Court proceedings involving a 14-year-old boy charged in the asphyxiation death of a 6-year-old northern Indiana girl will remain open to the public, a magistrate has ruled.

Attorneys for the boy had filed a motion to close public access, arguing that the high-profile nature of Grace Ross’ killing could introduce “prejudice” into their client’s case. The teen is charged in juvenile court with murder and child molestation.

St. Joseph County Probate Court Magistrate Graham Polando wrote in Wednesday night’s ruling that Indiana law is clear that juvenile court proceedings are public if the alleged offense would be murder or a felony if committed by an adult.

Polando’s ruling, however, specifies that hearings in which psychiatrists or other mental health care professionals expect to testify will be closed.

He also postponed a May 13 hearing to determine whether the boy’s case will be moved to adult court after the parties sought more time to analyze the results of the mental health evaluations.

Grace Ross was found dead March 12 in a wooded area in New Carlisle, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Chicago, around two hours after she was reported missing.

An autopsy determined her cause of death was homicide by asphyxiation.

Virginia
Man pleads not guilty by reason of insanity in hiker death

ABINGDON, Va. (AP) — A Massachusetts man pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on Thursday in the death of an Appalachian Trail hiker and attacking another hiker with a hunting knife two years ago, authorities said.

James Jordan of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, was accused of the fatal stabbing of Ronald Sanchez Jr., 43, of Oklahoma City, and wounding a female hiker in Virginia in May 2019, WDBJ reported.

Jordan will be committed indefinitely to a psychiatric facility within the Bureau of Prisons. Jordan waived his right to trial by jury and an additional evaluation. Judge James Jones accepted the plea at the federal courthouse in Abingdon.

Jordan has a history of mental illness and was originally found incompetent to stand trial until a judge reversed that ruling.

Jordan offered a brief, prepared apology in court. His attorney added that his client was “deeply remorseful for the profound sorrow he has caused. He regrets that his lifelong battle with mental illness ultimately resulted in this trauma and loss for innocent hikers and their families.”


Texas
State ends clergy, spiritual advisers ban in death chamber

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas prisons have resumed allowing clergy as well as spiritual advisers in the death chamber, reversing a two-year ban created after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of an inmate who had argued his religious freedom was being violated because his Buddhist spiritual adviser wasn’t allowed to accompany him, officials said Thursday.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s decision to not allow clergy in the death chamber was criticized by death penalty opponents as well as religious leaders and advocates of religious freedom. The ban followed the high court’s March 2019 ruling staying the execution of Patrick Murphy, a member of the “Texas 7” gang of escaped prisoners.

In his concurring opinion in Murphy’s case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “the government may not discriminate against religion generally or against particular religious denominations.”

A week after the execution stay in Murphy’s case, the TDCJ announced it would only permit prison security staff into the execution chamber. Texas previously allowed state-employed clergy to accompany inmates into the chamber, but its prison staff included only Christian and Muslim clerics.

On Wednesday, the director of the prison system’s Correctional Institutions Division signed a policy allowing an approved spiritual adviser or agency chaplain to be present in the execution chamber, said TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel.

“The agency worked closely with the Office of Attorney General and believes the revised policy will allow the TDCJ to carry out its statutory responsibility while still maintaining appropriate safeguards of the execution process,” Desel said in a statement Thursday.

Desel declined to comment on what prompted the change, only saying “it has been in the works for some time.” TDCJ’s revised policy was first made public Thursday by a reporter with The Marshall Project.
In July 2019, nearly 200 Texas faith leaders sent a letter to TDCJ asking it to reconsider its decision, saying that “placing a wall between a prisoner and clergy violates the religious liberty that has characterized our nation since its founding.”

The Rev. Rick McClatchy, field coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Texas and one of the faith leaders who signed the letter, on Thursday praised the ban’s end.

“I belong to a faith tradition which values the practice of ministering to the executed. It was Jesus who modeled this type of ministry to the men being executed with him. My American civic values also lead me to believe that even those condemned to death and the faith leaders who advise them are guaranteed the right to the free exercise of religion,” McClatchy said in a statement.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Murphy’s case followed a similar appeal in February 2019, when the court ruled Alabama could execute Dominique Ray, a Muslim inmate, without his Islamic spiritual adviser present in the chamber. The court’s decision in Ray’s case was criticized.

After the Ray case, the high court ruled to delay the executions of several inmates — including Murphy, Ruben Gutierrez, another Texas inmate, and Willie B. Smith III in Alabama — who had also been denied the presence of clergy or spiritual advisers. In Smith’s case, Alabama also later changed its procedures to allow spiritual advisers in the execution chamber.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the Supreme Court is telling states they must allow clergy or spiritual advisers in death chambers if they want to prevents problems with carrying out executions.

Most states don’t have any provision in their execution protocols for spiritual advisers to be present, said Dunham, whose group takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.

“This is something that a state can solve by simply doing the decent thing and allowing a condemned prisoner to have the religious comfort of a spiritual adviser who shares his faith,” he said.

Dunham said he thinks Texas’ change in policy was done for practical reasons as the only execution stays the Supreme Court has granted in recent years have been related to issues of religious practice or discrimination.

“I don’t think Texas was animated by a spirit of humanity. But the (prison system) clearly understood that this was a way to make executions happen,” he said.


Vermont
Board: districts must pay for 3 students to attend religious schools

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Citing a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that says states can’t cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education, the Vermont State Board of Education has decided that the school districts of three students must pay the tuition for them to attend religious schools as part of a state tuition benefit that they were denied.

The three families had appealed their school boards’ denial to the state board, which issued its decision on Wednesday.

“Based on the limited record before the Board, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controlling decision in Espinoza, the tuition denials” in the appeals “must be reversed,” the board wrote.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme court ruled 5-4 that states must give religious schools the same access to public funding that other private schools receive, preserving a Montana scholarship program that had largely benefited students at religious institutions.

The Vermont board said that the limited record available shows only that the tuition requests were denied by the school boards on the advice of counsel and does not establish that they were denied “because the schools at issue would use public funds for religious worship or instruction.”

The families live in areas where the school districts will pay tuition for a student to attend public schools operated by other districts or an approved independent school.

The families were seeking tuition to send their students to attend Mount St. Joseph Academy, a Catholic school in Rutland, Kent School in Kent, Connecticut, which is affiliated with the Episcopal Church; and New England Classical Academy, a Catholic school in Claremont, New Hampshire. The school districts are Rutland Town, Mount Ascutney and Hartland. A fourth district had denied the tuition benefit for another student to attend Mount St. Joseph but later changed its decision.


Florida
Detectives: DNA solves 1985 slaying, rape of dementia victim

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A DNA test has led to the arrest of a suspect in the April 1985 slaying, rape and kidnapping of a 78-year-old woman who had dementia and had wandered away from her home.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that it had arrested Richard C. Lange, 61, on first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault charges.

The office did not release the victim’s name, but 1985 news stories identify her as Mildred Matheny, who was found unconscious, nude and beaten along a remote dirt road, about 25 miles from where she had disappeared seven hours earlier. She died 11 days later.

State and county records show Lange has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions in 1983 and 1993 for aggravated assault, receiving probation each time. He also was convicted of weapons charges in 2006 and 2012, receiving short jail sentences.

In its press release, the sheriff’s office says its homicide cold case unit submitted DNA from the killing to the state database last month and Lange came up as a match. In 1985, Lange was 25 and living in Palm Beach County, records show.

Detectives received a warrant to obtain saliva from Lange, who was tested Thursday at his Boynton Beach home, about 10 miles from where Matheny was abuducted. His DNA again matched the sample and he was arrested, the sheriff’s office said. He denied any connection to the killing. A judge Friday ordered him held without bond.

Matheny was a widow who suffered from dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease, according to a 1985 story in the Palm Beach Post. She had recently moved from Arkansas to live with her sister in Lake Worth, Florida, and was not allowed outside alone because of fears she would wander away.

But because of some family confusion, Matheny got outside on the afternoon of April 27, 1985. Neighbors had seen her walking down the street in her pajamas, but no one reported witnessing her abduction. Her pajamas were found near her when she was discovered by a passerby hours later in Jupiter, Florida.

“It’s pretty bad when a grandmother goes outside for a walk and winds up knocked out on some dirt road,” Lake Worth police Lt. Marty Kerner said in 1985.