LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I don’t think it’s too hard to predict the path of this proceeding.This is not a whodunit. ... The only possible defense is insanity.”
Craig Silverman, a former chief deputy district attorney in Denver, as prosecutors filed 142 charges against James Holmes in the Colorado shooting Article, 1A
Park probes reason for coaster’s stall
VALLEJO, Calif. - Mechanical problems were not to blame for the stalling of a roller coaster carrying a dozen people at a Northern California theme park while the coaster was about 150 feet above the ground, park officials said Monday.
The riders were stranded upright aboard the new Superman Ultimate Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo for less than 90 minutes Sunday afternoon before the roller coaster was restarted.
Park spokesman Nancy Chan said crews found no mechanical problems with the new ride or track.
They are still investigating what caused the coaster to stall and planned to run its cars later Monday.
None of the stranded riders was injured, Jackson said.
The ride opened June 30.
Arizona abortion limits clear judge
PHOENIX - Arizona’s ban on abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy is poised to take effect this week as scheduled after a federal judge ruled Monday that the new law is constitutional.
U.S. District Judge James Teilborg said the statute may prompt a few pregnant women who are considering abortion to make the decision earlier. But he said the law is constitutional because it doesn’t prohibit any women from making the decision to end their pregnancies.
The judge, who was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, also wrote that the state provided “substantial and well-documented” evidence that an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks.
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure into law in April.
Arizona’s ban, set to take effect Thursday, prohibits abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy except in medical emergencies. That is a change from the state’s current ban at viability, which is the ability to survive outside the womb and which generally is considered to be about 24 weeks. A normal pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks.
The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights and another group filed a notice that they would be appealing Teilborg’s decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Baby snatcher sentenced to 12 years
NEW YORK - A woman who snatched a newborn from a hospital more than two decades ago and raised the child as her own was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison.
Ann Pettway of Raleigh, N.C., nodded her head repeatedly as U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel announced his sentence in a Manhattan courtroom.
The 50-year-old Pettway had pleaded guilty in February to kidnapping, describing how she one day in 1987 took a train from her Connecticut home to Harlem Hospital, where she posed as a nurse and reassured Carlina White’s mother, who had taken her 19-day-old daughter to the emergency room for treatment of a high fever.
Castel scolded Pettway, telling her she had “inflicted a parents’ worst nightmare on a young couple” and led hospitals to install preventive measures to avoid similar kidnappings. He called her crime “an act of selfishness, a crime of selfishness.”
16 reject plea deals in Amish attacks
CLEVELAND - Sixteen people charged in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio rejected government plea-bargain offers of leniency Monday and will go to trial.
The defendants include members of an eastern Ohio breakaway Amish group.
Prosecutors said the attacks were hate crimes, while the defendants said they were internal church disciplinary matters.
The defendants, led by Sam Mullet Sr., stood up one by one before U.S. District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster and said they understand the risks of trial, including lengthy prison terms if convicted.
The plea bargains detailed in court would have given many of the defendants sentences of two to three years in prison instead of the possibility of 20 years or more. Several might have been eligible for parole.
Prosecutors say a feud over church discipline led to attacks in which the beards and hair of men and hair of women were cut, an act considered deeply offensive in Amish culture.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 07/31/2012