National Round Up

Oklahoma: Nichols Hills man receives life in mother’s death
NICHOLS HILLS, Okla. (AP) — A 60-year-old Nichols Hills man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of his mother.

Holstein had been charged with first-degree murder after the body of 91-year-old Virginia Holstein was found in her home on Dec. 8, 2008. He entered the manslaughter plea last week in Oklahoma County District Court.

He will not be eligible for parole until he’s served more than 38 years in prison. Assistant District Attorney Cindy Truong says Holstein killed his mother because he was stressed out about money and didn’t want to take care of her.

Holstein said in a suicide note that police recovered as evidence that his mother had been having bad days mentally and that she fought him the night before her death when he tried to put her to bed. He acknowledged killing her but said “it was by accident.”

Arkansas: Hearing set for man charged in shooting death
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A court hearing is set for a 19-year-old man charged in the Christmas Eve shooting death of a Salvation Army major in North Little Rock.

Laquan Javaris Fitzpatrick, who has addresses in both Little Rock and Helena-West Helena, will appear Tuesday for the first time in Pulaski County Circuit Court before Judge Barry Sims. He faces charges of capital murder and aggravated robbery.

Fitzpatrick has been held without bail since he was arrested on March 16.

A preliminary plea of not guilty was entered for Fitzpatrick during a video arraignment in March in North Little Rock District Court.

Forty-year-old Salvation Army Maj. Philip Wise was shot to death in front of his three children on Dec. 24 after dropping off two bell ringers on the last day of the organization’s fundraising campaign. Wise was originally from Weirton, W.Va.

North Dakota: Wrongful death suit settled in roofing accident
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed in the case of a man who died in a 2008 roofing accident in Fargo has been settled out of court.

Authorities say 19-year-old Christopher Volk of Glyndon, Minn., died after he was buried in 7 feet of snow while doing roof work on a warehouse owned by Reile’s Transfer and Delivery Inc. of Fargo.

Witnesses say Volk jumped from the roof as it was caving in.

Relatives of the victim filed a wrongful death suit against Reile’s. Terms of the settlement were not released.

Nebraska: Sentencing set for convicted ex-CSI chief

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Douglas County’s former chief crime scene investigator faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced on a state conviction for evidence tampering.

Last month, Judge Randall Rehmeier of Cass County District Court delayed David Kofoed’s (KOH-fohd’s) sentencing until June 1. Kofoed said he needed the extra time to make arrangements for his daughter and mother.

Kofoed is a single father who said he intended to take his daughter to her mother in California after she finished the school year.

Rehmeier convicted Kofoed in March of tampering with evidence in a 2006 Cass County case in which two men were wrongly charged in a double murder.

Kofoed has said that he plans to appeal his conviction after sentencing.

Connecticut: Judge says high school graduations can’t be held in church
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday that two public high schools can’t hold their graduations inside a church because that would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall’s ruling followed an Enfield school board vote in April to hold graduation ceremonies for the town’s two high schools at The First Cathedral in nearby Bloomfield.

Board officials said the church, which fits 3,000 people, had enough space at the right price. Two students and three of their parents sued, claiming the decision was an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

The judge agreed, citing a visit to the church during which she viewed an environment “overwrought with religious symbols,” including large crosses on the building’s roof, over the main entrance and behind an indoor stage.

“A reasonable observer attending the 2010 Enfield graduations would perceive the message that Enfield endorsed the readily perceptible religious views of First Cathedral based upon the character of that forum which Enfield schools selected,” she wrote.

A telephone call to a listing for the head of Enfield’s board of education, Gregory Stokes, was not immediately returned Monday, Memorial Day.

Both high schools have held previous graduations at First Cathedral, and this year’s ceremonies were scheduled for June 23 and 24. Several other Hartford-area schools also have used the church since 2001.

This year, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and Americans United for Separation of Church and State warned they’d sue if Enfield didn’t stop holding graduations at the church, which is about 15 miles southwest of the town.

One of the plaintiffs, who were unnamed in the suit, was identified as an agnostic member of the Enfield High School Class of 2010 who was uncertain about attending graduation if it were held in the church. The student’s parent complained of being deprived of a “once in a lifetime” chance to celebrate graduation if the student skipped the ceremony or being “forced to submit to a religious environment that ... will make me feel extremely uncomfortable and offended” if the student attended.

The judge noted that Enfield schools agreed to cover much of the church’s imagery but said that amounted to an “intrusion into religious matters” that “constitutes an excessive entanglement by the state into religion.”

She also said some people view entering a church as a religious act, while some religions prohibit members from entering a Christian church.

“Viewed through this lens, holding graduations at First Cathedral not only can be viewed as coercing students to enter a church and ‘support or participate in religion’ but can also be viewed as coercing the violation of one’s own religious beliefs,” she wrote.