Thursday, January 15, 2004

 

Around Pennsylvania ...

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Cleared death-row inmate to be freed

The family and supporters of the first prisoner on Pennsylvania's death row to be cleared by DNA evidence rejoiced yesterday, because his long-awaited freedom seems only days away.

"I'm exuberant," said Jayne Yarris, mother of Nicholas James Yarris, who was wrongfully sentenced to death in 1982 for a murder and rape that DNA has shown he did not commit.

Prosecutors in Florida notified a judge in Orlando that Yarris owed no more time on sentences imposed there for crimes, including armed robbery, that Yarris committed during a short-lived escape in 1985.

Handling of evidence at issue in rape trial

Police investigating the first attack of the Germantown rapist did not collect blood samples from a long trail left within his victim's apartment and waited three months to submit blood evidence found in her backyard to the crime lab, according to trial testimony yesterday.

During that period between July and September 2002, three other women were raped. Women throughout that section of the city were terrified - locking doors and windows, never walking alone.

Inmate's oft-denied release ordered

Accusing Pennsylvania parole officials of "bad faith" and "willful noncompliance," a federal appeals court yesterday ordered the release of a 75-year-old convicted murderer whose life term was commuted by Gov. Robert P. Casey.

Barring an emergency stay obtained by state lawyers to appeal further, former West Philadelphia cobbler Louis Mickens-Thomas will walk out of the fortress-like Graterford Prison in about two weeks, based on the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Suspect sought in slaying of three in Armstrong County

Authorities in Armstrong County issued an arrest warrant for a man they believe was responsible for the slayings of a young couple and one of their two children and suggested that the suspect was an ex-boyfriend bent on revenge.

The suspect was identified as Donald R. Barnhart, 31, a resident of Hyde Park, Westmoreland County, who was released from prison in April after serving a five-year sentence for the aggravated assault of another woman.

Authorities said they believed that Barnhart was armed and considered "extremely dangerous." Barnhart is suspected of killing Rhonda and David Walters, and their 19-month-old daughter, Destiny. A second child, Jesse, 9 months, was later found unharmed.

From the York Evening Sun:

Mystery surrounds disappearance of Hanover attorney

Attorney Floyd P. Jones was a fixture in the York County Courthouse for more than 25 years, first as a prosecutor and public defender and then as one of the best-known criminal defense lawyers in town.

"There wasn't a day that Floyd wasn't in the courthouse, from Day 1 to Day 10,000," York lawyer Harry M. Ness said. "He was busy ­ he's a bright guy, he's a good lawyer."

These days Jones, formerly of Hanover, may need a good lawyer of his own, for reasons that have become the talk of the same courthouse halls he once frequented.

Jones, 55, apparently stopped showing up for court appearances in September, his law license has been suspended, and police want to arrest him on charges that he bounced checks and stole $2,200 a client gave him to pass along as restitution for an auto accident.

posted by Anne 1/15/2004 05:02:00 AM