Missouri
Pleas withdrawn in malnourished child/closet case
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge has withdrawn all pleas entered by a Missouri woman who is accused of locking her severely malnourished daughter in a closet, after ruling that she did not voluntarily agree to the pleas.
In January, the mother entered Alford pleas to felony child abuse and assault charges and pleaded guilty to child endangerment in the abuse of her 10-year-old daughter. The girl weighed just 32 pounds when she was found in a filthy closet in the family’s Kansas City apartment in June 2012.
Under the Alford plea, the mother maintains her innocence but acknowledges that a jury could find her guilty.
The Associated Press is not naming the woman to protect the child’s identity.
On Monday, Jackson County Circuit Judge John Torrence withdrew the woman’s pleas, noting that she had contacted him and The Kansas City Star in January to argue that her public defender forced her to accept the plea deal. Torrence said her comments to him were similar to those she made in a 42-page letter to The Star about the same time.
The judge said he decided the postcard “should be treated as a request to withdraw” her guilty pleas and the case would be put back on the docket for a jury trial.
In the hearing last month, the woman showed signs of being either confused by or disagreeing with the plea deal. When the judge first asked whether she accepted the deal, she said no. After a brief recess, she returned with her attorney and said she would accept her pleas.
The Star reported on Sunday that the woman said in the letter that her public defender, Curtis Winegarner, was “not doing everything he can for me,” and the plea wasn’t what she wanted. She denied striking her daughter, starving her or intentionally hurting her. She also said she tried to feed the girl but that she couldn’t eat a lot.
Winegarner has consistently refused to comment on the case.
Two of the woman’s daughters were removed from the home after she was arrested. In the letter to the newspaper, the woman wrote that she loved her girls and missed them every day.
“I never meant for any of this to happen,” she said.
Mike Mansur, spokesman for the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, said: “We stand ready to proceed to trial.”
Montana
Stolen medals back to brother of Vietnam vet
KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — Law enforcement officers in Kalispell and Flathead County went above and beyond the call of duty to recover stolen military medals that belonged to a Vietnam War veteran.
“I know everyone’s done way more than they normally do on this and it’s super,” Greg Smith said Tuesday. Smith reported a shadow box containing his late brother’s military uniform and medals was stolen from his frame shop in Kalispell on Jan. 9. Court records say the suspected thief tried to pawn some of the medals and scattered others around town.
Flathead County Sheriff’s Deputy Colten O’Connell found James Smith’s Purple Heart by searching a snow bank with a metal detector.
The recovered medals were sent to Northwest Territorial Mint in Texas, which reconditioned them at no charge, Officer Dave Massie said.
“They look better than they ever have,” Greg Smith told officers who gathered Tuesday to return the medals.
“I don’t have words for it, really,” Smith said. “It’s so great to have this stuff back.”
Police Chief Roger Nasset said officers undertook a “concerted team effort” to locate the medals.
Some of the items had to be replaced, including James Smith’s dog tags. Officers were unable to recover his uniform or the shadow box, The Daily Inter Lake reported.
Nasset said the work wasn’t a burden, “it was an honor.”
The suspect in the case, Sean Smith, 25, of Kalispell, is charged with misdemeanor theft in Kalispell Municipal Court. He also faces other theft, forgery and drug charges. He is not related to Greg Smith.
North Dakota
Settlement talks under way in ND abortion lawsuit
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s sole abortion clinic in Fargo has entered into settlement talks on a lawsuit it filed against a new law that requires doctors who perform abortions to obtain hospital-admitting privileges.
New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which is helping the Red River Women’s Clinic, filed a lawsuit in state court last year challenging the law. The case was slated for trial this week.
Attorney Autumn Katz with the Center for Reproductive Rights says settlement negotiations are underway. A spokeswoman for North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem says he will not comment on the case.
A state judge in July granted a preliminary injunction that prevents the law from taking effect.
Pennsylvania
Biotech joins fight against tobacco decision
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s cancer research institutions and several biotech groups are protesting an arbitration panel’s decision in favor of cigarette makers that would cost the state about $170 million.
The universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania BIO and others say in a court filing that the decision will hurt their research and the fight against cancer.
Friday’s filing was in a Philadelphia case in which the state attorney general’s office is seeking to reverse the decision. Arguments are scheduled for March 7.
The panel found that Pennsylvania didn’t appropriately collect money based on 2003 sales by tobacco companies that don’t pay states for the costs of health care for smokers.
The attorney general’s office previously declined a settlement offer by tobacco companies that 22 other states accepted.
Texas
Appeal from murder-for-hire convict rejected
HOUSTON (AP) — A former suburban Houston police officer sent to death row for hiring two hit men to kill his estranged wife has lost an appeal at Texas’ highest appeals court.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed Wednesday with the Harris County trial judge in the case of 56-year-old Robert Fratta who rejected Fratta’s challenges to his conviction and death sentence.
Fratta is a former Missouri City officer convicted twice of masterminding the 1994 shooting death of his wife, Farah. His first conviction in 1996 was thrown out by a federal judge. Fratta was retried and convicted again in 2009.
Two other men, Joseph Prystash, the middleman Fratta hired to find someone to do the killing, and triggerman Howard Guidry, also are on death row for Farah Fratta’s slaying.
