California: Victorville mom ordered to stand trial for murder
VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A Victorville mother has been ordered to stand trial for murder in the 2008 starving death of her 5-year-old son, who had cerebral palsy.
During a preliminary hearing Wednesday in San Bernardino County, a judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to support a murder charge against 29-year-old Rosondra Clay.
Investigators who spent two years interviewing witnesses and going through Kevin Baldwin’s medical records said he died because his mother did not feed him. He died on July 3, 2008.
Clay was ordered to return to court June 10 to enter a formal plea. She is being held at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on $1 million bail.
Clay faces 25 years to life in state prison if convicted.
Victorville is about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
New York: Sentencing for NY man after murder retrial
LOCKPORT, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man is scheduled to be sentenced after being convicted a second time of killing a teenage couple in a barrage of gunfire when they all were high school students in 1981.
Robie Drake was tried again in March after an appeals court took issue with a key witness from his 1982 trial.
But the outcome in Niagara County Court was the same 28 years later. A jury found Drake guilty of murder in the killing 18-year-old Steven Rosenthal and 16-year-old Amy Smith.
The couple were inside Rosenthal’s parked car in a darkened North Tonawanda factory parking lot when Drake opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle. Drake, who was 17 at the time, has always claimed he thought the car was abandoned.
Drake received two sentences of 25 years to life after the first conviction.
West Virginia: Man who set girlfriend on fire gets life
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A South Charleston man convicted of setting his girlfriend on fire has been sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole.
Thirty-two-year-old Farley Allen Rhodes admitted pouring lighter fluid on Starlena Pratt and igniting it following an argument at their apartment in 2008. She died a month after the assault.
Rhodes was sentenced for a first-degree murder conviction Tuesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
Georgia: Ex-principal of Ga. elementary school indicted
MACON, Ga. (AP) — A federal grand jury in Macon has indicted a former Athens-area elementary school principal on charges she embezzled thousands of dollars.
The grand jury returned the indictment against Yvonne John-Daniels on May 5, but the charges weren’t made public until after authorities were unable to deliver summonses that ordered her to appear in court Monday.
A federal warrant for her arrest was issued this week.
The indictment says John-Daniels diverted thousands from an after-school program at Winterville Elementary School to shop and pay her cell phone bills between June and December 2005, when she resigned.
The indictment alleges John-Daniels used the school’s name when she opened accounts with Verizon Wireless and Sam’s Club among other places and used money parents paid into the after-school program.
Arkansas: 3 of 7 counts dropped against county judge
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A Benton County judge charged with misdemeanors related to the way he awarded three county projects has had three of the seven charges against him dropped.
Benton County Judge David Bisbee still faces three counts of violating ethics for county government officers and employees and one count of unlawful judicial intention.
Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Van Stone has chosen to drop the other charges, including two counts of prohibited activities and one count of further unlawful judicial intention. Stone described the three charges that were dropped as minor compared with the other four charges.
Bisbee’s attorney, Asa Hutchinson, says he is pleased that the number of charges against his client have been reduced.
Hutchinson has said that Bisbee will fight the charges. A trial is scheduled for next Tuesday.
South Carolina: Judge probes misconduct in SC cockfighting trial
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A federal judge is investigating possible juror misconduct in a South Carolina cockfighting trial where six people were convicted earlier this month.
The State newspaper reported U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie called jurors to Columbia on Wednesday to discuss the possibility a juror went on the Internet to conduct research about the case.
One juror testified that another juror brought pages of material from the Wikipedia Web site into the jury room and held private discussions with three other jurors. The other juror said he used outside resources, but denied private deliberations and said he didn’t show his printed material in the jury room.
The jurors’ names have not been released. Currie says she may not rule on misconduct until July.
Those convicted have not yet been sentenced.
Pennsylvania: Panel to issue report on kids for cash scandal
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A state panel investigating the “kids for cash” scandal in northeastern Pennsylvania is scheduled to issue its final report and recommendations on Thursday.
The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice was created last August by the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell to look into the causes of the judicial scandal at the Luzerne County Courthouse and to suggest ways to prevent a recurrence there or elsewhere.
Former judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella (shiv-uh-REL’-uh) are charged in federal court with racketeering for allegedly taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to place youth offenders in for-profit detention centers. Conahan has agreed to plead guilty for his role in the $2.8 million scheme.
The commission’s work revealed failures in state oversight of the court system.
