Mississippi: Civil lawsuit filed by man hit with cowbell at game
STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A man involved in an incident last year in which he was hit with a cowbell at a Mississippi State football game has sued his alleged attacker and the Southeastern Conference.
Records in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court show William Matthew Brasher filed a civil lawsuit last month against Brent Morgan Vowell of Columbus and against the Southeastern Conference in connection with the Nov. 28, 2009, incident during the post-game celebration following MSU’s football win over Mississippi in Starkville.
Brasher and Vowell were Mississippi State students, according to the complaint.
Vowell was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in the incident. Vowell’s trial is scheduled for January in Starkville. He remains free on a $10,000 bond.
Brasher, whose name had not been previously released by authorities, suffered head wound in the incident. Police said the incident occurred after some verbal sparring among students, including Vowell.
Brasher’s lawsuit, filed by two Oxford attorneys, seeks unspecified damages from the SEC and commissioner Mike Slive, alleging that the league knowingly refused to enforce its 1974 rule banning artificial noisemakers at all conference athletic events.
Brasher’s lawsuit alleges that when Vowell struck him with the cowbell, he was knocked unconscious and suffered a 4-inch laceration that required staples to close the wound.
Mississippi State was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Iowa: Judge allows Iowa woman to appeal life sentence
WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman convicted of murder when she was a teenager can challenge her life sentence as cruel and unusual punishment based on her age at the time of her trial.
Ruthann Veal was 14 when she was charged as an adult in the 1993 killing of a retired librarian in Waterloo. A Black Hawk County jury found her guilty two years later, and Veal was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The Iowa Supreme Court in February said Veal can challenge her sentence as cruel and unusual punishment and sent the case back to district court.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported Thursday that Judge Bradley Harris threw out a part of Veal's appeal that argued that a judge didn’t use discretion when determining her sentence.
But Harris allowed a part of the appeal to continue that contends that “newly discovered evidence” shows that children younger than 16 are more likely than older teens to be impaired in ways that compromise their ability to serve as competent defendants.
“A growing number of psychological studies of adolescents support the idea that young adolescents, in particular, exhibit underdeveloped decision-making capabilities,” Veal’s attorney, Bryan Stevenson of Montgomery, Ala., argued in a court filing.
He said developments in MRI scans have opened a window into the differences between adolescent and adult brains.
Black Hawk County Attorney Thomas Ferguson, who’s challenging Veal’s appeal, said in court records that none of the brain studies mentioned by Stevenson had been done on Veal.
A trial is scheduled in March.
California: Prosecutors sue biotech firm over waste disposal
BURLINGAME, Calif. (AP) — San Mateo County prosecutors are suing the owners of a now-defunct biotech company, claiming they improperly disposed of potentially carcinogenic hazardous waste.
The civil suit against Nathan Hamilton and Thomas Brennan, owners of Burlingame-based Metrigen Inc., was filed Thursday in San Mateo County Superior Court.
It accuses the men of paying a moving company $200 to take away dozens of containers of hazardous chemicals after the business closed in 2008. Hamilton and Brennan allegedly balked at a $5,000 estimate to properly dispose of the items.
The containers were later found in a recycling bin in San Bruno.
The suit seeks $660,000 in civil penalties.
Karl Morthole, the men’s attorney, tells the San Mateo County Times his clients did not think the substances were hazardous and regret the mistake.
