California Governor Brown announces $113 billion budget for 2015-16
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown on Friday released his 2015-16 state budget, calling for $113 billion in proposed general fund spending, up just 1.4 percent from the year before despite the state’s substantial …
Farm stand-style honor system used for Pennsylvania heroin deals: police
HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania teacher is due in court next week on charges he dealt heroin at a suburban home rented from a local police chief and used a farm stand-style honor system for buyers to pick up and pay for drugs left on the fro…
Vietnam veteran in Georgia pleads to be spared the death penalty
ATLANTA (Reuters) – Lawyers for a decorated Vietnam War veteran due to be executed in Georgia next week say his life should be spared because he was suffering from a combat-related mental disorder when he killed a sheriff’s deputy in 1998.
Texas county to allow indigent defendants to pick own lawyers
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Everybody who has ever watched a television crime drama knows the line where suspects are advised of their rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution that include, “if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you…
Court weighs overturning gay marriage bans in three southern states
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday appeared receptive to arguments in favor of striking down same-sex marriage bans in the conservative southern states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
New York man cleared of murder after 21 years in prison
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York man was cleared of murder on Friday after serving 21 years in prison, one of dozens of questionable murder convictions linked to a retired police homicide detective.
U.S. Supreme Court dismisses case after litigant goes AWOL
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a case it had previously agreed to hear after the man at the center of the lawsuit simply could not be found.
Briton loses challenge to overturn his conviction for Florida murders
MIAMI (Reuters) – A Florida judge refused on Friday to overturn the conviction of a British man serving a life sentence for a 1986 double murder that his lawyers say was carried out by a hit man working for notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Ringleader in Florida marching band death sentenced to six years in jail
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – The ringleader of a beating ritual that killed a Florida college marching band member was sentenced on Friday to six years and five months in prison for his role in a 2011 incident that drew national scrutiny to hazing practic…
Massive pileup in Michigan, one dead, multiple vehicles on fire
(Reuters) – One person was killed and six cars and semi-trailers set afire in a weather-related pileup of 50 to 70 vehicles on Friday morning on Interstate 94 about 10 miles east of Kalamazoo, Michigan, state police said.
