National Roundup

Connecticut
Cops: Mom drew gun at Chuck E. Cheese’s party

NEWINGTON, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut mother has posted bail after being charged with pulling a gun and threatening another woman at a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant.
Police say 30-year-old Tawana Bourne brandished a .380-caliber handgun and chambered a round during an argument at the children’s game and pizza restaurant in Newington on Monday night. Police say both women were at the restaurant with their children.
Restaurant workers called police, who charged Bourne with reckless endangerment, risk of injury to children, threatening and breach of peace. She was freed after posting $50,000 bail and was ordered to appear in New Britain Superior Court on Feb. 19.
Bourne declined to comment.
Chuck E. Cheese’s released a statement saying weapons are banned in its restaurants and managers are evaluating security.

New York
NYC medical examiner retires; 9/11 work pivotal

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s long-serving medical examiner is retiring.
Dr. Charles Hirsch was appointed in 1989 by then-Mayor Ed Koch, who recently died.
The 75-year-old has investigated thousands of deaths, from the 2001 World Trade Center attack to the 1990 flash fire at the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx that killed 87 people.
The New York Times says a recent illness prevented Hirsch from speaking about his retirement this week.
In a statement Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Hirsch “a visionary and dedicated public servant whose work earned him world renown.”
Dr. Barbara Sampson, Hirsch’s longtime deputy, succeeds him as acting chief medical examiner.
Hirsch oversaw major advancements in DNA identification and mass-fatality response operations. His quest to identify the nearly 20,000 body parts collected after 9/11 continues.

California
3 new charges for ‘Skid Row Stabber’ man

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man awaiting retrial after two murder convictions were overturned has been charged in three other killings linked to the so-called “Skid Row Stabber.”
Bobby Joe Maxwell, 63, was charged with murder in three cases dating back to the 1970s, according to Los Angeles County grand jury indictments unsealed Tuesday. The original juries in those cases deadlocked in 1984.
Maxwell has already been awaiting retrial in two other murder cases after those convictions were overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to restore those convictions.
Maxwell was accused of killing 10 transients in Los Angeles in 1978 and 1979. Jurors convicted him of two murders, acquitted him of three and deadlocked on five of the charges. He has been in prison for more than 30 years.
But the appeals court found that he was the victim of a notorious jailhouse snitch who committed perjury in his two convictions, and overturned the verdicts in Maxwell’s trial.
His new trial on charges alleging he killed David M. Jones, 39, and Frank Garcia, 45, must proceed on other evidence.
The informant was Sidney Storch, who was at the center of a scandal involving false testimony that defense lawyers said helped convict 225 defendants. Storch has since died.
The Supreme Court refused to reinstate the two convictions and a life sentence and left it to prosecutors to decide if they wanted to retry Maxwell. Prosecutors then reinstated the charges.

Tennessee
Lawyer gets brothers’ land for nonpayment

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An attorney who represented a Roane County man in murder trials stemming from a shootout that killed a deputy and another man has gained control of the family’s estate after he was never paid for his legal representation.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported Roane County Probate Court made the ruling on Tuesday in favor of Cleveland attorney Jim Logan, who filed a petition for control of the estate of the father of Rocky Joe Houston and Leon Houston.
Clyde Houston died in March, and Logan says the family pledged part of their land for him to represent Leon Houston against double murder charges in the May 2006 shoot-out that killed Roane County deputy Bill Jones and Mike Brown, his ride-along.
The first trial ended in hung jury, and the second trial ended with an acquittal. Rocky Houston was also charged, but never convicted in the same case.
The judge granted the attorney control of the property to settle the money owed to Logan and to pay a wrongful death judgment won against the brothers last year by Brown’s family.
Immediately after the probate ruling, Logan said he began knocking down signs on the property that accuse various public officials of conspiracy and corruption.
The brothers are currently in jail after they were arrested last month by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on federal gun charges.

Ohio
Man faces charge he punched lawyer in court

CINCINNATI (AP) — A man whose lawyer helped him get acquitted on an attempted murder count now faces charges that he punched the attorney in the courtroom.
A Hamilton County Common Pleas jury convicted Dionte Lummus of felonious assault, robbery and other charges, but he was acquitted on the most serious count. He faces 34 years for the convictions.
But now he is charged with escape and assaulting an officer of the court.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Lummus hit attorney William Oswall in the face Monday after he unsuccessfully tried to fire him in mid-trial. A deputy tackled him when he tried to run.
Oswall continued to argue his case. He says if the defendant was your brother or sister, you’d want him to continue to fight as hard as possible.