Scott Maben

A Kootenai County magistrate judge released the transcript of the preliminary hearing for a 15-year-old boy charged with two counts of murder after Spokane television station KHQ challenged the judge’s decision to bar the public and media from the hearing and withhold the written account of the proceedings. Magistrate Clark A. Peterson last April closed the hearing for Eldon Samuel III after the boy’s public defender argued that sensitive information disclosed at the hearing could prejudice his right to a fair trial and affect his chances for rehabilitation. Peterson said hearings for juveniles don’t share the same legal expectation for openness as hearings for adults. Samuel was 14 when he was arrested and charged with killing his father and younger brother last March in Coeur d’Alene.

As a 15-year-old boy in Coeur d’Alene prepares to stand trial for murder in the deaths of his father and brother last March, a judge will decide whether a jury will hear evidence of a hostile relationship between the brothers, and if the boy’s alleged confession to police should be tossed out. Idaho 1st District Judge Benjamin Simpson also will rule on a motion challenging the state’s automatic transfer of the case to adult court, and another seeking a change of venue because news coverage might prejudice Kootenai County jurors.

Ironman will carry on in Coeur d’Alene the next three years and likely beyond that with a new push to raise money for the sponsorship fee.

The Kootenai County prosecutor intends to seek the death penalty for a man charged with murder in the deaths of his wife and her young daughter in Post Falls last summer.

The Coeur d’Alene School District will ask voters in March for a $15 million-a-year tax levy, about $2 million more than the current levy that expires in June. The additional money will be earmarked for buying new curricular materials and hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes.

Daniel Charles Howard stood before a judge Monday in Coeur d’Alene and took responsibility for crimes that cost him his career as an Idaho state trooper and took a heavy toll on his family. “I screwed up and I stand here utterly ashamed,” Howard said before he was sentenced for malicious injury to property, petty theft, title fraud and failing to tag a deer he shot.

Over the past 12 years Sandpoint schools have been enriched through the efforts of Panhandle Alliance for Education, a nonprofit that hands out teacher grants, coordinates classroom volunteers and spearheads an early childhood literacy program. The group’s success was due in no small part to the generosity of Coldwater Creek, its principal patron from the start. Recognizing that a strong public education system is a key to recruiting and retaining quality employees, the company raised millions of dollars for the alliance.

Coeur d’Alene School District officials say they’re $1.8 million short in paying for a new school scheduled to open next September. The funding gap for Winton Elementary School was discussed publicly for the first time at a school board workshop Monday night. Superintendent Matt Handelman said he learned about the shortfall about two months ago and immediately tightened his oversight of the $8 million project.

Police must get warrants before drawing blood from suspected drunken drivers who refuse to cooperate, the Idaho Supreme Court has decided in two Kootenai County cases. The opinions follow a national trend of courts limiting warrantless blood draws and suppressing evidence obtained from such samples.