National Roundup

Wyoming
County tests new, modern jury system
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming county is testing a system that allows courts to issue jury reminders and notifications via text message and email.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports the first round of Laramie County jurors earlier this month used the eJuror system — a program that aims to make it easier for both the public and clerk’s offices to more easily process information related to jury service.

The system is only currently available in the Laramie County Circuit Court and District Court, as well as the Platte County Circuit and District courts.

An email from Cierra Hipszky, the business manager of the Wyoming judicial branch, says Statewide implementation is set to begin in 2019 and span about two years. It will cost $620,000 for initial installation and will likely cost an additional $36,000 per biennium for maintenance.

Georgia
Court: Man can’t be retried for murder after mistrial ruling
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court says a man can’t be retried for murder after the judge in his case declared a mistrial after about three hours of jury deliberations.

Jedarrius Treonta Meadows was on trial in September 2015 for the February 2014 shooting death of Damion Bernard Clayton in Macon.

The judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they weren’t making progress and a bailiff said things had become contentious in the jury room. The defense objected, arguing that three hours of deliberation wasn’t unreasonable.

The following month, the defense argued a retrial would violate Meadows’ constitutional protection against double jeopardy. The judge rejected that in June.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that the mistrial ruling was made “without sufficient factual support and without considering less drastic alternatives to terminating the trial.”

Florida
Police: Video shows slaying suspect talking to future victim
FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Newly released surveillance video shows a woman in a Florida bar smiling and talking with a fellow patron whom police say she later killed so she could steal her identity.

The video released by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office shows 56-year-old Lois Riess of Bloomberg Prairie, Minnesota, talking to 59-year-old Pamela Hutchinson April 5 at the Smokin’ Oyster Brewery in Fort Myers Beach.

Police say Riess is also wanted for the March slaying of husband David Riess in Minnesota. Authorities say she may have targeted Hutchinson because the two women looked alike. Riess is still at large. Authorities say she stole Hutchinson’s car, which has been seen in Louisiana and Texas.

Lee County Undersheriff says while Riess “may look like anyone’s mother or grandmother, she’s an absolute cold-blooded murderer.”

Massachusetts
Town wants UFO memorial moved; witness objects
SHEFFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A memorial in a remote corner of Massachusetts that marks a 1969 UFO sighting has been ordered moved, but one man who experienced a close encounter is objecting.

The 5,000-pound (2,300-kilogram) memorial in Sheffield was installed in 2015, but was moved about 30 feet (9 meters) a few weeks later when it was discovered it was on town land.

Now, Town Administrator Rhonda LaBombard tells The Berkshire Eagle it has to be moved again because it’s on a town right-of-way easement.

That’s not sitting well with Thom Reed. He was 9 when he, his mother, grandmother and brother saw what he described as a “self-contained glow” that flooded their car with an amber light. About 40 people in several surrounding towns reported the strange light.

Reed is threatening legal action.

Ohio
Trial on hold, but attention remains on baby’s death
LEBANON, Ohio (AP) — A former high school cheerleader’s trial on charges she killed and buried her newborn baby near her family’s house in an Ohio village is on hold, as intense attention and speculation continue to swirl around the case.

Attorneys for Brooke Skylar Richardson want a ruling to bar prosecutors from presenting testimony from an obstetrics-gynecology practice’s medical staff, citing physician-patient privilege that she won’t give up. Prosecutors said the privilege doesn’t apply in this case.

A trial that was scheduled to begin Monday in Warren County Court is delayed while an appeals court weighs the issue.

Authorities first learned of the baby from a doctor. The remains were found last July. Prosecutors say Richardson buried the full-term baby shortly after giving birth within days after her senior prom in early May 2017 in Carlisle, a village of some 5,000 people 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Cincinnati.

Her defense attorneys say she didn’t kill the baby — it was stillborn — and that an expert witness concluded there was no sign of burning or of trauma that would have caused the baby’s death.

County Prosecutor David Fornshell said Skylar, as she is known, and her family had been worried about community reaction to her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

The storyline of an appearances-driven cheerleader who would kill, burn and bury her newborn, as authorities alleged, took off. The case was examined in national magazines such as “People” and “Cosmopolitan,” was debated on cable TV crime shows, and argued relentlessly in a divided community.

Two Facebooks pages have been dedicated to the case and critics of the family have shot and posted video and photos of the family and their home, often with sharp commentary.

Her defense attorneys, the locally prominent father-and-son team of Charles H. Rittgers and Charles M. Rittgers, have blasted prosecutors for “a false narrative” that sensationalized the case.

“What started as an 18-year-old high school girl who was frightened and saddened because of giving birth to a stillborn baby whom she named Annabelle and then telling her doctor of the stillborn and burial in the backyard turned into something sinister and grotesque,” they said in a motion to move the trial.

Judge Donald Oda declined the change of venue request, saying he would try to seat a jury first.

All the attention reminds some of a high-profile Warren County case in which a young husband was accused in 2008 of drowning his wife in their suburban home’s bathtub. Ryan Widmer is serving 15 years to life after being convicted of murder in his third trial.