In brief: Court rejects Connecticut death penalty
HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut’s highest court has overturned the death penalty in the state, saying it’s unconstitutional.
Thursday’s ruling means the 11 men on the state’s death row would no longer be subject to execution orders. Those inmates include Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, who were sentenced to die for killing a mother and her two daughters in a 2007 home invasion in Cheshire.
DNA confirms Harding scandal
WASHINGTON – DNA testing is rewriting a chapter in presidential history.
AncestryDNA, a division of Ancestry.com, says genetic analysis has confirmed President Warren G. Harding fathered a child out of wedlock with his long-rumored mistress Nan Britton. She set off a scandal when she went public nearly 90 years ago.
The findings were based on DNA results from Britton’s grandson and descendants of Harding.
Inmate knew he was target, lawyer says
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – An inmate who was a notorious killer with ties to the 1960s and ’70s black revolutionary movement survived 50 years in California prisons before he was fatally stabbed in an exercise yard.
Hugo Pinell’s attorney Keith Wattley said the 71-year-old inmate was killed Wednesday just days after being placed in the general prison population at California State Prison, Sacramento.
Wattley called Pinell’s death foreseeable, as Pinell was a target of attacks for decades. The inmate spent the last 45 years in disciplinary isolation units, partly for his own protection.
Marijuana issue progresses in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio – If Ohio voters decide this fall to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational use, Ohio would become the rare state to leap in a single bound from outlawing marijuana altogether to allowing it for all uses.
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted said Wednesday that ResponsibleOhio’s proposal has met the state’s voter signature requirements to get on the Nov. 3 ballot. Organizers initially fell short of the required number but were able to gather an additional 44,185 signatures to meet the minimum.
Stolen Picasso returned to French
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government on Thursday formally returned a painting by Pablo Picasso valued at $15 million that had been stolen from a Paris museum more than a decade ago and seized by immigration officials late last year in New Jersey.
During a ceremony at the French Embassy, Sarah Saldaqa, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officially repatriated the abstract artwork, titled “La Coiffeuse” or “The Hairdresser.” It was signed over to Fridiric Dori, the Embassy of France’s deputy chief of mission.
Deputies went to home of killings repeatedly
HOUSTON – On the day six children and two adults were fatally shot inside their home, deputies made four separate visits to the house over about a nine-hour period before going inside, according to a timeline authorities released Thursday.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office had initially declined to say how many times its deputies had gone to the home Saturday after receiving numerous 911 calls. The first call came from the children’s grandmother, who had received a text from her daughter saying she was being held at gunpoint, authorities said.
David Conley remains jailed, facing capital murder charges.