Nevada
Man pleads guilty to firing at golfer who hit his home
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada man accused of shooting a golfer who broke a window at his home with an errant ball has pleaded guilty to a felony charge.
Jeff Fleming of Reno entered the plea to battery with a deadly weapon on Thursday in Washoe County District Court. He faces from probation to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine when he’s sentenced Dec. 12.
The golfer was unable to find his ball and was doing a drop shot on the 16th hole of the Lakeridge Golf Course in September 2012 when Fleming approached and fired a single shot at him with a shotgun, prosecutors said. The golfer was treated for minor injuries to an arm and both legs at a hospital.
Deputy District Attorney Sean Neahusan said neighbors along the golf course were stunned as it’s common for stray golf balls to hit their homes.
“Live on a golf course and you got to expect your house to get hit every once in a while,” he told The Associated Press. “This (shooting) is one of those stories that you just can’t make it up.”
Neahusan said he’s unsure what motivated the shooting and referred queries about Fleming’s mental state to his lawyer, Larry Dunn.
Dunn did not immediately return phone calls.
Fleming, 53, has expressed remorse and shock over his reaction to the broken window, Neahusan said, adding he apparently has no felony criminal record.
In return for Fleming’s guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop an assault with a deadly weapon charge and to go along with the Division of Parole and Probation’s recommended sentence for him.
Police said the golfer and his partner ran away after the shot was fired and it wasn’t until they were safe that the golfer realized he had been hit. One or two shotgun pellets had to be removed from his body at the hospital.
The area around the 16th hole was evacuated after the shooting. Fleming drove to his attorney’s office, where he surrendered without incident.
Kentucky
Man charged in killing two men hangs himself
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — An inmate awaiting trial on charges of killing two men at a homeowners association meeting committed suicide by hanging himself from a bed sheet in his cell, jail officials said.
Louisville Metro Corrections Director Mark Bolton said in a news release that Mahmoud Yousef Hindi was discovered hanging in his cell around 3:55 p.m. on Saturday.
Bolton said workers performed CPR on Hindi, who was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. Officials said Hindi was not on suicide watch and was alone in his cell. He’d been seen praying in his cell about 10 minutes before his body was found.
In September of 2012, Hindi took a loaded gun to a homeowners association meeting at an eastern Louisville church, authorities said. Police said that after waiting about a half-hour, he shot association President David Merritt, 73, and member Marvin Fisher, 69. No one else was hurt.
Hindi had been involved in longstanding property disputes with the board, and one was over a fence Hindi erected in his yard. The size and location of the fence, and later a driveway extension, became such sore points that the Spring Creek Homeowners Association took Hindi to court several times.
In a videotaped interview with police, Hindi said he went to the meeting hoping to resolve the issues with Merritt and Fisher.
“I was hoping that I could reason with them,” Hindi told police. “But I said to myself, if they are not going to resolve peace(fully) with me, honestly, I had to kill them. So I took my gun.”
A July 2014 trial date had been set for Hindi, who could have faced the death penalty. He also faced seven charges of wanton endangerment.
Hindi, a former doctor, was involved in multiple altercations while jailed. He was hospitalized in March after a fight with officers and was charged on New Year’s Day with assault and terroristic threatening after he was accused of throwing water on an officer and threatening to kill him.
Louisiana
Man sentenced to life still faces charges in death
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A 44-year-old Baton Rouge man once described by East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III as a menace will spend the rest of his life in jail on a sex-crime conviction.
But now Moore and his staff are pondering whether to proceed with charges against Percy Cage in the 2009 slayings of a pregnant woman and her teenage brother and the 2008 shooting injury of a former girlfriend.
Moore told The Advocate the victims’ families have been and will continue to be involved in the discussions.
“We are going to assess the remaining counts following the Supreme Court’s affirmation of Cage’s conviction and life sentence and make a determination as to the best course of action on the remaining charges,” Moore said.
Those charges include second-degree murder and second-degree feticide in the 2009 shooting deaths of 31-year-old Tanya Smith and her brother, 15-year-old Renea Boreaux, while they slept in their home. Smith was eight months pregnant. Police said Cage was her ex-boyfriend.
In the sex-crime case, Cage was found guilty in 2011 of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and state District Judge Tony Marabella sentenced him as a fourth-felony offender to life in prison.
Cage was accused in that case of having sexual intercourse with a girl between February 2006 and January 2008 when she was under the age of 17.
The other felony convictions leading to that fourth-felony status were from 1990, 1995 and 2000 of simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling, first-degree robbery and illegal possession of stolen things, respectively.
Cage is scheduled to appear on Dec. 17 for a status hearing on his remaining charges.
Washington
Court to look at death row inmate with lower IQ
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will take up a Florida case over how judges should determine if a death row inmate is mentally disabled, and thus ineligible for execution.
The justices said Monday they will review a Florida Supreme Court ruling that upheld the death sentence for a man who scored just above the state’s cutoff for mental disability as measured by IQ tests.
Freddie Lee Hall was sentenced to death for killing Karol Hurst, a 21-year-old, pregnant woman who was abducted leaving a grocery store in 1978.
Florida law prohibits anyone with an IQ of 70 or higher from being classified as mentally disabled. Hall’s scores on three IQ tests ranged from 71 to 80.
In 2002, the Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally disabled inmates.
