National Roundup

Iowa
Court: Lawyers overbilled ailing Vietnam veteran
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has suspended two lawyers for charging excessive fees to a mentally ill Vietnam veteran whose affairs they helped manage for three decades.
The court said Keota law partners Donald Laing and Scott Railsback claimed too many hours for managing the conservatorship of John Klein and charged excessive rates for performing services that didn’t require legal training. Justices suspended the licenses of Laing and Railsback for 18 months.
Laing was appointed Klein’s conservator in 1974 after Klein inherited farmland and other property from his mother’s death. He didn’t have a legal guardian, and Laing and Railsback helped care for him.
The court says the attorneys “sincerely attempted to make Klein’s life better” but went wrong in applying for excessive fees, even if a judge approved them annually.

Idaho
Man pleads to Craigslist ad soliciting rape
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man charged with placing an online ad seeking men to rape his wife has pleaded guilty to solicitation of rape.
The 33-year-old Twin Falls man pleaded guilty Thursday in 5th District Court to posting an ad on Craigslist claiming to be the woman and asking to be raped. He acknowledged exchanging pictures and messages with men who answered the ad. A sentencing date has not been set.
Court records say two men broke into the woman’s house on consecutive days in July 2012. The woman shot at one intruder, but missed. She held the second man at gunpoint.
The Associated Press is withholding the defendant’s name to protect the victim’s identity.
The defendant’s attorney says his client is a member of the Idaho National Guard and is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pennsylvania
Bus driver charge might violate the state wiretap law
ROCHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Prosecutors have withdrawn charges against a western Pennsylvania school bus driver accused of endangering children after police say he let two students fight instead of intervening.
The Beaver County Times reports the district attorney withdrew the charge because some evidence may be illegal under the state’s wiretap act, which prevents audio recordings without a person’s permission.
North Sewickley Township police charged Braden Hollis, of Baden, after viewing surveillance video of the March 4 incident in which police say Hollis can be heard telling other students to “clear the aisle and let them fight.”
Defense attorney James Ross has declined comment, but has said in court papers he believes the recorded evidence is “improper, and possibly unlawful.”
Prosecutors say they plan to refile the charges using other evidence.

Kentucky
State High Court hears case over police reports
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Supreme Court has heard arguments in a case over what information in a police report can be redacted.
The Kentucky New Era brought the case against the City of Hopkinsville nearly four years ago after the police department began blacking out the names, addresses and phone numbers of victims and witnesses to crimes.
Louisville attorney Jon Fleischaker argued Thursday for the newspaper that the redactions hinder reporting on how officers handle crime reports.
Attorney Foster Cutthoff argued for the city that the policy is an effort to protect the privacy of the victim’ and witnesses.

Ohio
Former justice now opposes death penalty
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former Ohio Supreme Court justice who mostly sided with the majority in cases ending in executions says she now opposes the death penalty.
Former Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton tells The Columbus Dispatch she objects not for moral reasons but because she doesn’t think the death penalty is effective.
Stratton spoke Thursday to a task force analyzing the effectiveness of Ohio’s capital punishment law. She told the panel she didn’t have a strong overall opinion about the death penalty when she served on the court.
The Republican says that she opposed executions of mentally ill inmates and now has concluded the death penalty doesn’t provide sufficient deterrence for crime or closure for victims’ families.
Stratton left the court last year and is now an attorney in Columbus.
There is no timetable for when justice might rule on the matter.

South Carolina
State High court overturns child death conviction
BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a Beaufort woman serving 35 years for homicide by child abuse.
The Beaufort Gazette reports the justices ruled this week that prosecutors failed to show that Paris Avery acted with extreme indifference in the death of her 15-month-old son, Ra’Saan Avery Young.
A Beaufort County jury convicted Avery in 2008 of giving the child too much prescription Atarax, an oral antihistamine used to relieve itching from eczema.
Showing extreme indifference to human life is required to convict on homicide by child abuse.
Beaufort County public defender Gene Hood had asked during the original case for a retrial, saying the prosecution had not shown extreme indifference to life. The trial judge denied the request at the time.

Maine
Cancer patient gets $200K for misdiagnosis
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A Maine man who was told he had only months to live because of an aggressive Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is still alive more than four years later. And a jury has awarded him $200,000 for the doctor’s misdiagnosis.
It turns out Wendell Strout suffers non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a more treatable form of cancer.
He sued Central Maine Medical Center for damages, citing “tremendous emotional distress” as well as lost income and loss of enjoyment. The Sun Journal says a jury awarded him $200,000 on Thursday.
The lawsuit accused a former CMMC doctor of advising his patient that he “faced certain death” before procuring pathology results.
Strout eventually got the good news that his affliction wasn’t as dire as initially believed.t