At a Glance . . .

 Court tosses conviction in 1983 stabbing death

HIGHLAND PARK (AP) — The state Court of Appeals has overturned a murder conviction in a Wayne County case that took about 30 years to bring to trial.

The court says the rights of William Lyles Jr. were violated at trial last year. The court says Judge Megan Brennan didn’t give the jury a standard instruction about considering evidence of Lyles’ good character.

Lyles was convicted of stabbing Andrew Weathers in Highland Park in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He wasn’t charged for nearly three decades. Files and evidence were lost, but the case eventually was reopened.

The appeals court noted that evidence at trial was largely circumstantial. The court says that’s why the jury instruction about Lyles’ character evidence was important.

 

Health insurers owe millions in refunds

LANSING (AP) — The federal government says more than 184,000 Michigan health insurance customers will benefit from nearly $13.2 million in refunds because of a provision of the nation’s health care law.
 
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the figures Thursday.

The law requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvement or return the difference to consumers and employers.

The money won’t necessarily be a check in the mail. Employers can apply rebates in a way that benefits workers or take a discount on future premiums. Individual policyholders owed a rebate will either get a check, a reimbursement to their credit card account or see a reduction in future premiums.

 

Ruling disallows probation ban on medical pot use

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A new court ruling says Arizona judges can’t order people on probation to not use medical marijuana.
 
A split ruling issued recently by a three-judge state Court of Appeals panel overturns a Cochise County Superior Court judge’s order that a drug-case probationer not use medical marijuana.

The probationer had agreed to a plea agreement that included the prohibition but later tried to changed.

The panel’s majority ruling says judges can normally prohibit use of marijuana as a term of probation. But the majority ruling says that authority must bow to the medical marijuana law’s provision that exempts use of marijuana for medical purposes from criminal laws.
 

Lawsuit filed over river water for fish

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A lawsuit filed by environmentalists accuses federal agencies of breaking promises and failing to provide Rio Grande flows needed to protect two endangered species of fish.
 
WildEarth Guardians filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque against the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers over protection for the silvery minnow and the Southwestern willow flycatcher.

The Albuquerque Journal reports that federal officials say they’ve made major changes in how they operate and spent tens of millions of dollars in the past decade to leave water in the river for the fish.
The flycatcher was listed as endangered in 1995. The minor was listed as endangered in 1994.

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