In brief: Acquittal sought in hit man case
Attorneys for a Post Falls man who was convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill his ex-wife are seeking an acquittal.
A federal jury convicted Paul W. Driggers on Feb. 23 in the murder-for-hire plot. Prosecutors said Driggers plotted to have his ex-wife murdered because he was facing molestation and gun charges and wanted sole custody of his children.
Federal Defender Kathleen Moran is asking that Driggers’ conviction be overturned or a new trial be granted. In court documents filed Friday, Moran said prosecutors failed to prove the case against Driggers.
She said Driggers also objected to the instructions that were given to the jury before deliberations.
Last month’s trial was the second trial for Driggers on the same charge – and the second time a jury returned a guilty verdict against him. A mistrial was declared the first time after jurors inadvertently learned of Driggers’ criminal history during deliberations.
Driggers is set to be sentenced May 21 in Coeur d’Alene.
Boise
Senate bans Internet hunting
The Senate on Tuesday took aim at Internet hunting, voting to stop the practice in Idaho before it ever took root.
The vote was 31-0 to ban remote-control hunting – in which a gun is hooked to a Web camera, placed in a field and guided via a mouse by an Internet hunter to shoot everything from wild pigs to deer.
The bill now goes to the House. If it becomes law, as is likely, Idaho would join more than 20 states that have banned such hunts, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
The flurry of laws comes in response to a venture set up in 2005 by a Texas entrepreneur who hooked up a gun on his 220-acre ranch to a Web site, where subscribers could pay to shoot game sometimes from thousands of miles away. The operator would send the heads of the animals to his clients. Texas was the first state to ban the operations.
Caldwell, Idaho
Illegal immigrants crammed in van
Authorities found as many as 18 illegal immigrants crammed inside a van during a traffic stop Tuesday on U.S. 95 in southwest Idaho.
Idaho State Police officers stopped the van just before 10:30 a.m., about 11 miles inside the border from Oregon. Sixteen people inside told officers they had paid $1,000 each for the driver and his partner to smuggle them into the United States to work in the Caldwell area, police said in a news release.
All 18 people were being held in Owyhee County on federal immigration charges.