National news

Student who hid box cutters gets probation

Baltimore A college student who says he hid box cutters on airplanes to expose weaknesses in security was sentenced Thursday to two years’ supervised probation and fined $500.

Nathaniel Heatwole also must serve 100 hours of community service and reimburse his parents for up to $500 in legal expenses.

Heatwole, 21, told U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm that his intentions were constructive and he never meant to embarrass security officials or put anyone in any danger. But the judge said Heatwole’s actions “produced an opposite effect.” The best way to bring about change is “civilly, rationally and openly,” Grimm told the student.

Prosecutors initially charged Heatwole with a felony – taking a dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft – at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. That charge carried a possible 10-year prison sentence. The charge was reduced later to a misdemeanor.

Heatwole placed three disassembled box cutters and razor blades with tape over the sharp edges on a Southwest Airlines flight Sept. 14.

After the items were discovered, he admitted that on that flight and three others he had smuggled such items as strike-anywhere matches, liquid bleach and modeling clay made to look like plastic explosives.

Inmate’s separatist worship to be reconsidered

St. Louis A federal appeals court has ordered a judge to reconsider a white separatist inmate’s bid to hold group worship with other separatists in prison.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said Tuesday that the state did not sufficiently prove that the gatherings could incite racial violence.

Inmate Michael Murphy belongs to the Christian Separatist Church Society, a group that believes white people are uniquely blessed by God. Murphy and others were allowed to worship privately but not as a group.

Under federal law, correctional institutions may not prohibit the exercise of inmates’ religious freedom, as long as it does not compromise the safety of other inmates or the staff. The 8th Circuit found that the state failed to prove that limiting Murphy’s religious practices amounted to the “least restrictive” way to prevent racial violence.

Scott Holste, a spokesman for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, said the state is considering its next step.

Murphy, 55, was sentenced to life behind bars for a 1977 Missouri slaying that prosecutors said was racially motivated. He was paroled in 1992, but pleaded guilty two years later to federal drug and gun charges. He was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.

Man gets life for stabbing cops with meth needle

Tyler, Texas A man who stabbed two police officers with a methamphetamine-filled needle during a scuffle was sentenced to life in prison.

Shane Ray Dykes, 29, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to two life sentences, which will be served concurrently.

The officers, Steve Black and Dale Feuquay, did not become sick from the stabbings.

Dykes, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs 280 pounds, stabbed Black and Feuquay in December while four officers were trying to subdue him.

Officers had confronted him after responding to a call of a suspicious vehicle idling behind a movie theater in this East Texas city.

Dykes, who said he has been addicted to drugs for nearly half of his life, apologized to officers before sentencing.

“I deserve to go to prison,” Dykes said. “I deserve life in the pen.”

He then asked the judge for probation but was denied.

Woman allegedly rams car, kills ex’s companion

Castro Valley, Calif A 21-year-old motorist chased a car carrying her ex-boyfriend and a teenage woman onto a highway and repeatedly rammed their vehicle, causing a wreck that killed the teenager, police said.

Laura Medina was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into Santa Rita Jail. The man was not identified.

“We believe it was an intentional criminal act,” said Sgt. Scott Dudek of the Alameda County sheriff’s department. “Obviously, she intended to hurt someone in the car.”

Medina’s attorney, Fred Remer, said Medina didn’t intend to harm anyone, and the other car crashed because it hit a speed bump and lost control.

Police said Medina had broken up with the man a few days before she spotted him Tuesday in East Oakland with Michelle Dickerson, 18. Enraged, she and three girlfriends chased their car onto an interstate, allegedly ramming their car a dozen times, police said. The chase reached speeds up to 90 mph.

The chase ended in Castro Valley, where Medina allegedly again rammed the car, causing it to spin into a row of parked cars, police said. Dickerson died of head injuries.

“It’s just a waste of a life over something stupid as jealousy or rage or whatever,” said Dickerson’s stepfather, Bruce Babcock.

Rapist that time forgot released from prison early

Little Rock, Ark. A man who pleaded guilty to statutory rape but was somehow forgotten by the system and allowed to remain free for six years was ordered released from prison Thursday by the Arkansas Supreme Court because he did not get a speedy sentencing.

Michael Shane Jolly, now 27, served just one year of a 12-year sentence for having sex with a 12-year-old girl.

A prosecutor apparently lost track of the case after Jolly’s 1997 guilty plea and Jolly went about his life. In 2003, a new prosecutor took office, and the state realized that Jolly had never been sentenced.

Prosecutors argued that Jolly’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial did not include a speedy sentencing, and a judge on Aug. 15 agreed, sentencing Jolly to 12 years in prison.

But in a 5-2 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. It said sentencing has been accepted as a part of a trial since a 1957 precedent in a federal case.