Arizona
Prosecutor: Grad student accused of professor’s murder in 2022 planned the crime
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A former University of Arizona graduate student accused of killing a professor on campus two years ago was in the midst of a psychotic episode at the time of the shooting, his attorney said Monday.
But a prosecutor said in his closing argument that the crime was premeditated and that Murad Dervish planned the killing of Thomas Meixner, who was fatally shot near his office and pronounced dead at a Tucson hospital.
Jury deliberations began Tuesday morning.
Dervish, 48, faces seven felony charges including first-degree murder in the death of Meixner, 52.
“This was not a one-shot deal. He shot him 11 times. He emptied that gun,” Pima County prosecutor Mark Hotchkiss said, adding that evidence showed Dervish bought a 9 mm handgun a month before the October 2022 shooting.
“Does the evidence prove that this was a premeditated murder. The answer is ‘absolutely,’’’ Hotchkiss told jurors.
Defense attorney Leo Masursky said jurors that the killing wasn’t premeditated and Dervish is “guilty except insane to second-degree murder” — which could confine him to a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison cell if convicted.
“Murad Dervish lost his mind on Oct. 5, 2022,” Masursky said in his closing argument. “He had severe mental health issues. He did not know right from wrong.”
But Hotchkiss said Dervish “is not guilty but insane. He’s just guilty.”
Meixner headed the university’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and was an expert on desert water issues.
Dervish was in the master’s degree program in atmospheric sciences, which is within the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.
Authorities said Dervish was banned from the school in January 2022 and later expelled for ongoing issues with professors after he received a bad grade.
According to a criminal complaint, a flyer with a photograph of Dervish had been circulated to university staff in February 2022 with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the John W. Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.
The complaint also said Dervish was barred from school property and had been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger.
Witnesses testified that Dervish was wearing a surgical mask and baseball cap as a disguise when he showed up outside Meixner’s office and shot the professor.
Dervish fled and was arrested hours later after Arizona state troopers stopped his car on a highway more than 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of Tucson.
Authorities said a loaded handgun was found in the vehicle and that the ammunition was consistent with the shell casings found at the shooting scene.
Gavin Baker, a psychologist, evaluated Dervish after the shooting and testified that he diagnosed him with various disorders including schizophrenia and major depression. He also said Dervish was paranoid and delusional.
During his nine-day trial, Dervish asked for different defense attorneys, wanted to be treated as co-counsel and also moved for a mistrial. All were denied by Pima County Superior Court Judge Howard Fell.
Pennsylvania
Woman pleads guilty to shooting rural prosecutor, sentenced to 4-8 years in prison
A Pennsylvania woman pleaded guilty Monday to shooting a county prosecutor after a confrontation about a property transfer and was sentenced to several years in prison.
Porice Diamond Mincy pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting Cameron County District Attorney Paul J. Malizia in the leg at Malizia’s law office last June.
The 32-year-old Brookville woman was sentenced to four to eight years in prison.
Malizia was released from a hospital the day he was shot.
Attorney General Michelle Henry, whose office prosecuted Mincy, called it a “brazen act of violence,” and noted Malizia has remained in office since the attack.
Henry’s office said in a statement that Mincy showed up without an appointment at Malizia’s office in rural Emporium, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Erie, and made some sort of demands concerning a property transfer, a matter he handled as a private practice lawyer, not as district attorney.
Mincy “became belligerent,” Henry’s office said, and shot him in the leg before leaving in a vehicle. She was arrested shortly afterward.
Her lawyer, Lonny Fish, said Monday that the other charges against her were dismissed.
“She showed up in the office, she wasn’t happy with the answers that the secretary gave,” Fish said. “So she went and trashed one of the other offices, and then he approached her in the waiting room. And he hit her. To be honest, I think he was probably within his rights to do that — she was a trespasser.”
Fish said Mincy did not have a license to carry a concealed weapon “so she was going to, most likely, be convicted of that, regardless.”
He described Mincy as a mother of small children who had not been in trouble before. She had moved to the area from New York and was home schooling her kids.
Malizia said in a phone interview Monday that after Mincy confronted his office worker and threw office material on the ground, she sucker punched him, breaking his nose.
He said he took a swing at her but missed.
Fish produced a cellphone video that Mincy recorded that he argued shows Malizia did actually punch Mincy.
Malizia, currently 70 years old and in his fourth term in office, said he grabbed Mincy around the waist and tried to get her down some stairs and out of the office.
“She stopped for a second and she turned her head and bit me on the thigh, on my left thigh,” he said. The bite did not tear through his jeans but was strong enough that it caused a wound.
After that, she pulled a .25 caliber automatic handgun out of, he thinks, a fanny pack, and shot him in the other leg, Malizia said.
The barrel was against his leg and the bullet passed through the outside of his leg, ricocheted off a wall and landed about 35 feet (11 meters) down a hallway.
Malizia was treated at a hospital and released that night and did not miss any work as a result.
Mincy was upset about which names had been put on a deed when ownership was transferred, Malizia said.
“I wish her the best of luck,” Malizia said. “I mean that very sincerely.”
Prosecutor: Grad student accused of professor’s murder in 2022 planned the crime
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A former University of Arizona graduate student accused of killing a professor on campus two years ago was in the midst of a psychotic episode at the time of the shooting, his attorney said Monday.
But a prosecutor said in his closing argument that the crime was premeditated and that Murad Dervish planned the killing of Thomas Meixner, who was fatally shot near his office and pronounced dead at a Tucson hospital.
Jury deliberations began Tuesday morning.
Dervish, 48, faces seven felony charges including first-degree murder in the death of Meixner, 52.
“This was not a one-shot deal. He shot him 11 times. He emptied that gun,” Pima County prosecutor Mark Hotchkiss said, adding that evidence showed Dervish bought a 9 mm handgun a month before the October 2022 shooting.
“Does the evidence prove that this was a premeditated murder. The answer is ‘absolutely,’’’ Hotchkiss told jurors.
Defense attorney Leo Masursky said jurors that the killing wasn’t premeditated and Dervish is “guilty except insane to second-degree murder” — which could confine him to a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison cell if convicted.
“Murad Dervish lost his mind on Oct. 5, 2022,” Masursky said in his closing argument. “He had severe mental health issues. He did not know right from wrong.”
But Hotchkiss said Dervish “is not guilty but insane. He’s just guilty.”
Meixner headed the university’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and was an expert on desert water issues.
Dervish was in the master’s degree program in atmospheric sciences, which is within the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.
Authorities said Dervish was banned from the school in January 2022 and later expelled for ongoing issues with professors after he received a bad grade.
According to a criminal complaint, a flyer with a photograph of Dervish had been circulated to university staff in February 2022 with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the John W. Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.
The complaint also said Dervish was barred from school property and had been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger.
Witnesses testified that Dervish was wearing a surgical mask and baseball cap as a disguise when he showed up outside Meixner’s office and shot the professor.
Dervish fled and was arrested hours later after Arizona state troopers stopped his car on a highway more than 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of Tucson.
Authorities said a loaded handgun was found in the vehicle and that the ammunition was consistent with the shell casings found at the shooting scene.
Gavin Baker, a psychologist, evaluated Dervish after the shooting and testified that he diagnosed him with various disorders including schizophrenia and major depression. He also said Dervish was paranoid and delusional.
During his nine-day trial, Dervish asked for different defense attorneys, wanted to be treated as co-counsel and also moved for a mistrial. All were denied by Pima County Superior Court Judge Howard Fell.
Pennsylvania
Woman pleads guilty to shooting rural prosecutor, sentenced to 4-8 years in prison
A Pennsylvania woman pleaded guilty Monday to shooting a county prosecutor after a confrontation about a property transfer and was sentenced to several years in prison.
Porice Diamond Mincy pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting Cameron County District Attorney Paul J. Malizia in the leg at Malizia’s law office last June.
The 32-year-old Brookville woman was sentenced to four to eight years in prison.
Malizia was released from a hospital the day he was shot.
Attorney General Michelle Henry, whose office prosecuted Mincy, called it a “brazen act of violence,” and noted Malizia has remained in office since the attack.
Henry’s office said in a statement that Mincy showed up without an appointment at Malizia’s office in rural Emporium, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Erie, and made some sort of demands concerning a property transfer, a matter he handled as a private practice lawyer, not as district attorney.
Mincy “became belligerent,” Henry’s office said, and shot him in the leg before leaving in a vehicle. She was arrested shortly afterward.
Her lawyer, Lonny Fish, said Monday that the other charges against her were dismissed.
“She showed up in the office, she wasn’t happy with the answers that the secretary gave,” Fish said. “So she went and trashed one of the other offices, and then he approached her in the waiting room. And he hit her. To be honest, I think he was probably within his rights to do that — she was a trespasser.”
Fish said Mincy did not have a license to carry a concealed weapon “so she was going to, most likely, be convicted of that, regardless.”
He described Mincy as a mother of small children who had not been in trouble before. She had moved to the area from New York and was home schooling her kids.
Malizia said in a phone interview Monday that after Mincy confronted his office worker and threw office material on the ground, she sucker punched him, breaking his nose.
He said he took a swing at her but missed.
Fish produced a cellphone video that Mincy recorded that he argued shows Malizia did actually punch Mincy.
Malizia, currently 70 years old and in his fourth term in office, said he grabbed Mincy around the waist and tried to get her down some stairs and out of the office.
“She stopped for a second and she turned her head and bit me on the thigh, on my left thigh,” he said. The bite did not tear through his jeans but was strong enough that it caused a wound.
After that, she pulled a .25 caliber automatic handgun out of, he thinks, a fanny pack, and shot him in the other leg, Malizia said.
The barrel was against his leg and the bullet passed through the outside of his leg, ricocheted off a wall and landed about 35 feet (11 meters) down a hallway.
Malizia was treated at a hospital and released that night and did not miss any work as a result.
Mincy was upset about which names had been put on a deed when ownership was transferred, Malizia said.
“I wish her the best of luck,” Malizia said. “I mean that very sincerely.”
