Wyoming
Man pleads guilty to giving wife pills that killed her
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - A Laramie man accused of providing hydrocodone to his wife before she died has pleaded guilty.
The Laramie Boomerang reports that 36-year-old Paul Harper pleaded guilty on Thursday to a single count of felony delivery of a controlled substance, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
According to court documents, Harper's wife Kaylee Harper died on July 8 due to respiratory depression created by a combination of ethanol and hydrocodone. The death was ruled accidental.
Police say Paul Harper gave his wife some of his prescribed hydrocodone tablets for back pain.
Pennsylvania
Township official acquitted in case of teenager rape
CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) - A western Pennsylvania township official has been found not guilty of rape, statutory sexual assault and related charges stemming from his allegedly sexual relationship with a girl from age 13 to 16.
Clearfield County District Attorney Bill Shaw said he brought the charges because Facebook messages confirmed the nature of the relationship involving Bigler Township supervisor Robert Myers. One message Myers allegedly wrote the girl said, "It's not rape, it's love."
But Myers' defense attorney presented evidence that the girl sent favorable Facebook posts to Myers, and that her accounts of the alleged sexual assaults to child welfare caseworkers and state police investigators varied widely.
The 36-year-old defendant testified, denying the allegations and claiming the victim and her mother concocted the allegations.
Minnesota
Mother sues child in transgender treatment case
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A Minnesota mother is suing her teenage child for transitioning from male to female without her permission.
Anmarie Calgaro is also suing the 17-year-old's doctors and public health and school officials in the lawsuit filed in Minneapolis federal court Wednesday.
Calgaro says in the lawsuit that her child has been treated at a Minneapolis health clinic and given medication for transgender issues without her consent. Calgaro says the St. Louis County school district, where the teen is a student, has taken away her parental rights and refused to release records to her.
The lawsuit includes a copy of a letter of emancipation the teen obtained from a lawyer, but notes that the letter doesn't constitute a court order. Calgaro is asking the court to halt all medical services.
Both the clinic and the school district declined comment.
Virginia
Execution date to be set for man who killed family
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - An execution date will soon be set for a man convicted of killing a family of four in Richmond.
A hearing in Ricky Gray's case will be held via teleconference with Richmond Circuit Court Judge Beverly Snuckals on Monday.
The Attorney General's Office has recommended the execution take place Jan. 17 or 18, giving Gov. Terry McAuliffe time to consider any clemency request.
Gray was convicted in the New Year's Day 2006 stabbing and bludgeoning deaths of Bryan Harvey, Kathryn Harvey and their daughters, 9-year-old Stella and 4-year-old Ruby. Gray was sentenced to death for the girls' deaths. An accomplice, Ray Dandridge, was sentenced to life.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a rehearing to Gray last week.
Pennsylvania
Judge handling Sandusky's appeal recuses himself
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The judge who has presided over Jerry Sandusky's criminal case for five years issued a sternly worded order on Friday removing himself from the former Penn State assistant coach's appeal.
Judge John Cleland said he was taking himself off the case because Sandusky's lawyers have raised objections to Cleland's role in a December 2011 meeting in a hotel the night before Sandusky waived a preliminary hearing.
"The defendant's attorneys have impugned the competence and integrity of essentially everyone associated with the grand jury's investigation into the defendant's conduct, the defendant's trial and conviction, and these post-conviction proceedings," Cleland wrote . "Now they have chosen to impugn the integrity of the court itself."
Cleland said the accusations against attorneys, judges, jurors, investigators and victims were outside the bounds of the legal profession and should be reviewed by the state board that handles matters of lawyer discipline. Sandusky's appeals lawyer, Al Lindsay, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the state attorney general's office.
Sandusky, 72, was convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of child sexual abuse and is serving up to 60 years in prison. He has previously lost a round of appeals to the state Superior and Supreme courts and is currently seeking a new trial under the state's Post-Conviction Relief Act, which is limited to claims of constitutional violations, newly discovered evidence or ineffective counsel. His appeal involves all three types of claims.
At issue is a meeting held at the Hilton Garden Inn in State College the night of Dec. 12, 2011. It was attended by Cleland, Sandusky lawyer Joe Amendola, state prosecutors Joe McGettigan and Jonelle Eshbach, and District Judge Robert Scott, who had been appointed to preside at the preliminary hearing scheduled for the next day.
In an account he issued in May , Cleland wrote that his appointment to handle the matter as a common pleas court judge, made after all the Centre County jurists had recused themselves, included administrative oversight for the site of the preliminary hearing. He said he was having dinner in the hotel when Amendola and prosecutors asked to meet with him and Scott.
It surprised him, Cleland wrote, to find out the topic was an agreement to waive the hearing if prosecutors would not seek higher bail if more charges were filed. Sandusky did waive the hearing, which he now argues was a mistake because his lawyers lost a chance to pin down witnesses and learn details about their version of events.
Cleland said neither he nor Scott had any role in negotiating the agreement made between Amendola and the prosecutors. Amendola has recently testified that he proposed the deal to McGettigan to keep his client out of jail and that "it was explained" to Cleland and Scott rather than submitted to them.
Cleland pointedly objected to a characterization by Sandusky's lawyers in a recent filing that it was "an off-the-record night time meeting" and that Sandusky's absence from the hotel conference violated his due process rights.
"Counsel has argued not only that the meeting between the lawyers and Judge Scott and me was unethical, but has also cast it in tones that would lead one to believe it was somehow sinister," Cleland wrote.
He also said, in a footnote, that he's studied the 34 issues Sandusky has raised and concluded that "no grounds raised in the petition merit relief."
Published: Mon, Nov 21, 2016
