[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., KY.

[Rick Halperin]

March 21



PENNSYLVANIA:

3 trials possible in 'random' killing spree that hit Allentown, Easton


3 men accused of carrying out a random, 1-night killing spree last July across 
the Lehigh Valley could each get his own separate trial.

At a hearing in Lehigh County Court last week, attorneys for Todd West, Kareem 
Mitchell and Robert Jourdain asked to sever their client's case from any 
codefendants. Prosecutors did not oppose the motion.

West, 23, of Elizabeth, N.J.; Mitchell, 23, of Newark, N.J.; Jourdain, 20, of 
Easton, are charged with multiple counts of homicide in the deaths of 
22-year-old Kory Ketrow of Easton and Allentown residents Francine Ramos, 32, 
and Trevor Gray, 21.

Police said the men conspired to kill the victims in the early morning hours of 
July 5. West was the triggerman, police said, Jourdain allegedly bought the 
bullets at an Easton-area Walmart, and Mitchell is accused of driving the 
getaway car.

The defendants also face attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting at a 
couple driving their car in Easton on the morning of the killings. West and 
Jourdain are also charged with 3 knifepoint robberies in Allentown the next 
day.

Police said there is no known motive for the slayings.

The trials are still several months away. Judge James T. Anthony on Friday 
heard evidence on several pretrial motions, including requests to throw out 
statements Mitchell allegedly made to police about his involvement in the 
homicides.

Jourdain's attorney, Christopher Shipman, is seeking to bar jurors from hearing 
phone calls his client made from the Lehigh County Jail to a female companion. 
Shipman on Friday argued that prosecutors' use of his client's phone calls 
violates Jourdain's constitutional rights, even though inmates are informed 
that their phone calls are monitored and recorded.

The judge will listen to the taped calls and view a video of Mitchell's 
interview with Allentown police detectives before ruling on the motions.

The three men were arrested within a day of the slayings, after the white 
Mercedes sport utility vehicle they allegedly used in the shooting spree was 
found outside an apartment building at 404 Hamilton St. in Allentown, across 
the street from the city police station.

Detectives said West admitted shooting the victims and said he heard voices in 
his head during the crimes. At a prior hearing, Allentown police Detective John 
Brixius testified that West believed the devil was speaking to him and urging 
him to kill people.

West's lawyer, Robert Sletvold, previously said his client's mental health will 
be evaluated before trial.

The trio is being held without bail in the Lehigh County Jail. Though the first 
slaying occurred in Easton, Northampton County prosecutors stepped aside from 
their case Oct. 6, agreeing that their counterparts in Lehigh County should 
handle all 3 of the homicides.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for West. Jourdain and Mitchell face 
life sentences if convicted.

West is also charged in New Jersey with shooting 4 men to death and wounding a 
5th last year in Elizabeth.

Another pretrial hearing in the case is set for June 27.

(source: Morning Call)






VIRGINIA:

'No More Ricky Grays'----A juror in the Harvey family murder case speaks out 10 
years later


Last Wednesday, the day Ricky Gray was to have been executed, Risa Gomez 
started her day as she has many in this 10th year since the murders: struck by 
sorrow. Hers is a particular kind of sadness, one so complicated and shot 
through with contradiction that it is hard for her to articulate, and so she 
rarely does.

Her sister knows. So do her friends. Other than that, there is no easy way to 
say, I was a juror for the Harvey family murders. For 5 days in August 2006, I 
saw images I will never unsee and heard testimony I will forever remember.

A 28-year-old man kills his wife. 2 months later, on New Year's Day 2006, he 
invades a home and kills a couple and their young daughters. 1 child is in 3rd 
grade; 1 is in preschool. He and his accomplice steal 2 laptops and a wedding 
ring. They take homemade cookies and set the house on fire. To this day, the 
murders of the Harvey family - Bryan, Kathryn, Stella and Ruby - cannot be 
looked upon directly. They are too painful. Not a week later, this same man, 
Ricky Gray, and his accomplice kill another man and his wife and her daughter, 
the Tucker-Baskerville family.

Gray was brought to trial for the Harvey murders. His accomplice would plead 
guilty to the murders of the Tucker-Baskervilles, and will live out the rest of 
his days in prison.

In the jury room during the penalty phase of Gray's trial, the jurors made 5 
columns, 1 for each count against him. For each count, they voted L or D. Life 
or death. D, D, D, D, D, Gomez voted. Other jurors could not come to that 
decision. The testimony about the physical and sexual abuse Gray's family said 
he experienced as a child stayed with them. "I am waiting for God to speak to 
me," Gomez remembers 1 juror saying. "Well, God has spoken to me," she 
remembers replying. They agreed to a death sentence in the murders of the 2 
children, and life in prison for the other counts, killing more than one person 
at a time, killing someone during a robbery and killing more than one person in 
3 years.

And 10 years pass. In the intervening years, Gomez says there is rarely a day 
that she does not think of the family, and, of late, their killer. Gray's 
appeals drag on. Imagine pulling a trigger and waiting a decade for the bullet 
to strike. A lot changes in that time.

Gomez had only lived in the city for 4 years when she received her jury 
summons. In the decade since, Gomez, who works for a brokerage firm, has become 
invested in Richmond. She has come to love it, and to see how interconnected 
this city-town is -- how paths cross, how actions have ripples that seem to go 
on forever: the random killing of a family, the abuse of the child who grow up 
to be the man who would kill that family.

She has come to understand how grievous a wound it was that Gray inflicted upon 
the city, but also to have some empathy for the wounds inflicted upon him. 
Empathy is not the same as excusing him for his actions. She does not. "You 
have to take responsibility for your actions at some point."

Gomez says she did not have an easy childhood herself, but she had her older 
sister to guide her.

Still, in the last several years, she has learned a lot about childhood trauma. 
Through her volunteer work for TEDxRVA, she has learned about programs that 
help reduce prison recidivism, that provide mentors, that keep troubled youth 
out of jail and that work to reform the juvenile justice system. She says that 
some of those program leaders will be speaking at next month's TEDx event and, 
if it were up to her, the entire thing would revolve around how to support and 
nurture youth whose lives are marked by trauma. She would connect all the dots 
between us and the Harveys and Gray. She would plead for everyone to support 
these organizations, to mentor a child, to take all the grief and anger 
unleashed 10 years ago and turn it into something healing.

"I want to get up on stage and shout, 'No more Ricky Grays,'" she says. "He 
didn't have a chance. He was 28 when he committed his crimes. He already had 
spent 1/3 of his life in jail. He had a broken family. He was sexually abused. 
He had all this pain and rage and he inflicted it upon the city.

"You see how much pain he caused. You read it in the comments every time there 
is an article. You read it in faces of people who knew the Harveys. I would 
like to think that at some point there was a tipping point for him, a point 
where he could have taken a different path with positive reinforcement or a 
program or a person."

She thinks about a photo of Gray as a boy that surfaced during the trial. He 
was wearing a white sailor suit and matching hat. Gomez cannot help but think 
that if someone had gotten to him then, things may not have turned out as they 
did.

She was among the first jurors called. Gray was there. She didn't know who he 
was. The prosecutors asked: Are you willing to impose a sentence of life in 
prison? Yes, she said. Are you willing to impose the death penalty? Yes, she 
said, thinking it would depend on how heinous the crime was. She had no idea.

She will never forget the autopsy reports. She will never forget the 
prosecution's cross-examination of Gray's sister: You suffered the same abuse 
as he, but you didn't go out and hurt people. "Only myself," the sister 
replied. Or Ryan Carey, the young Arlington man whom Gray and his accomplice 
attacked before they killed the Harveys. Carey could not lift his hand to take 
the oath to tell the truth because the knife damage the pair had inflicted upon 
him had maimed him. And she remembers the explanation of the levels of 
privilege that Gray would be able to earn in prison if he behaved. She could 
imagine him sitting in an inmate lounge one day watching TV.

"He had been in prison 1/3 of his life. He kind of showed he excelled at 
prison. That's what kept going through my head. This is his lifestyle. This is 
what he is used to. A life sentence isn't punishment."

Gomez has never spoken publicly about the case. To her knowledge, none of the 
jurors have. She wrestled with whether to speak now, but was seized with a 
sense of urgency as Gray's scheduled March 16 execution date neared. The Fourth 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a stay so the Supreme Court could 
decide whether it will hear his case. If it does not, he will be executed and 
people will call it closure, when, in reality, she says, it never ends.

"It all still happened and it could happen again if we don???t intervene. 
That's what I want people to realize. We all should be doing some part, making 
some effort to make a positive impact on someone else, no matter how small or 
seemingly insignificant it seems, because it is all going to come back to you."

This is the complicated nature of her sorrow. A feeling that comes close to 
regret battles with her resolve that she did the right thing and that the right 
thing wasn't good enough.

"I mean, it's just living with my decision," she says. "That was the decision I 
made. No matter what reassurances you get from friends and family or in 
recalling the horror of it all, you still ..." Her eyes well with tears and she 
shakes her head "You know, there are no winners."

This, too, is the complicated nature of her sorrow: She used to live in the 
Fan, just down the street from Fox Elementary, where Stella Harvey was a 
student. Gomez would go home for lunch and walk her little dachshund, and when 
she passed the school, the girls would flock to the fence to pet him through 
the chain link. A few weeks after the trial, when she was walking her dog past 
Fox, a memory flooded back: Girls dashing to the fence, cooing over the dog, 
and 1 child calling back, "Stella, Stella come here." And Gomez wonders if, on 
that day, Stella Harvey petted her dog.

She stands there, outside the school, suspended in a moment between what was 
and what will never be, and she weeps.

(source: Richmond Magazine)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Funeral Service Held Saturday for Darryl Hunt


The community paid its respects this weekend to Darryl Hunt.

The 51-year-old spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, before 
DNA evidence secured his release.

Hunt then devoted his life to justice, specifically for others who were 
wrongfully convicted.

The people who knew him best say we can celebrate his life and contributions by 
keeping his legacy alive.

"The biggest memorial we can make to Darryl is to pursue the things that he 
thought was important: to oppose the death penalty, support people coming out 
of incarceration, to fight against false accusations, and to learn much more 
about the criminal justice system that encapsulates so many people," said Dr. 
Carlton A.G. Eversley.

After finding Hunt dead last weekend, police said he shot himself.

(source: Time Warner Cable News)






FLORIDA:

Shelby Farah murder trial resumes Monday in Jacksonville


Celllphone store clerk Shelby Farah's 2013 slaying shocked Jacksonville to its 
core. And a sharp debate continues between the State Attorney's Office and the 
Public Defender's Office on whether the trial of James Xavier Rhodes should be 
a death penalty case.

Farah's mother, Darlene Farah, and State Attorney's Office prosecutor Bernie de 
la Rionda disagree that the death penalty should be sought for defendant 
Rhodes.

Rhodes shot and killed Shelby Farah, 20, during a 2013 robbery of the Northside 
MetroPSC store at 3100 N. Main St. N. where she worked.

Darlene Farah has asked as recently as this month that the death penalty not be 
applied in this case.

Public Defender Matt Shirk asserted in a letter to State Attorney Angela Corey 
last month, "Mrs. Farah has been particularly vocal concerning her opposition 
to your office's decision to seek the death penalty for her daughter Shelby's 
murder."

If the death penalty is pursued, Shirk asserts, "this case will continue to be 
litigated for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. I believe that with every motion, 
petition or appeal filed on Mr. Rhodes' behalf, she will relive the pain and 
loss she has felt since losing Shelby."

The Farah family has been mourning for 2 years and 7 months since her slaying.

It's still fresh in her mother's consciousness. Part of the reason why, Farah 
says, is that in recent days, "I have seen the video of my daughter getting 
killed repeatedly.

"James Rhodes didn't take away 1 life. He took away many lives. Our lives will 
never be the same. My life will never be the same," Farah said Sunday.

Such statement usually help make the case for a maximum penalty. Farah, 
however, calls it "pathetic that people are trying to use my daughter's death 
for their [political] benefit."

Her blunt take on the case is that many parties have political agendas that are 
taking priority over her and her family's needs.

"The days before court dates," Farah said, are "pure hell" at her house. 
Indeed, during the 31 months since her daughter's death her mind has 
continually been occupied with it.

They are months that have torn the family apart. The kids have a hard time 
being at home where their sister's absence remains an open wound, she said. 
Meanwhile, she said, the case has driven a wedge between her and her son.

Farah, a Jacksonville native, opposes the death penalty in this case, saying 
that the "state failed ... raised and created James Rhodes." He had been a ward 
of the state since his parents abandoned him at age 5. He received physical and 
sexual abuse in a boys' home.

Farah's son supports the death penalty in the case. In spite of his mother's 
pleas with the SAO to not show him the video, it was done. Since then, she 
said, her son has not slept at home, and says that "he hates me" and "never 
comes home."

"I can't help but feel like they are trying to play my son against me," she 
said.

Despite her son's position on capital punishment, Farah said that if Shelby 
were alive "she'd be trying to help James Rhodes."

"Everybody always called Shelby the peacemaker," her mother said.

There is little peace in the Farah home, and hasn't been in the past 31 months. 
Farah tells of cooking Christmas dinner and the children decided not to be 
around to eat it.

Dinner went into the garbage.

Meanwhile, for Darlene Farah, the worries pile up. Her son, years ago, was 
making trips to visit college football programs. Played multiple positions at 
Cedar Creek High. Ran a 4.6 40.

"He's so smart," Farah added. "Always got perfect FCAT scores."

Now? He's dropped out of high school. Drinks more. And his mother frets.

"My son's going to end up in a morgue or a prison," Farah said if things don't 
turn around.

"I done buried one child. I don't want to bury another," Farah said.

The trial resumes Monday morning in Courtroom 503 in the Duval County 
Courthouse. Long after final sentencing, though, the trial will continue for 
the Farah family.

(source: floridapolitics.com)

***************

The death penalty is never simple or easy


No sooner had the Florida Legislature smoothed out the latest legal wrinkle in 
Florida's capital punishment law than the state Supreme Court gave us an odd 
illustration of how hard it is to execute even the most horrible, clearly 
guilty killer.

In the last week of its session, the House and Senate sent Gov. Rick Scott a 
bill requiring a jury vote of 10-2 to recommend death, before a judge can 
impose the ultimate sentence. The new bill also removes the judge's ability to 
override a jury recommendation of life and impose death in capital cases.

It wasn't the Legislature's idea. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled, on opening 
day of the session last January, that Florida's 2-stage process of juries first 
determining guilt, then life or death, was unconstitutional. There was no 
question that the law would get fixed, only some argument over whether to 
require unanimous jury recommendations.

So less than a week after the Legislature sent its work product to Gov. Rick 
Scott, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the sentence of a man who got to 
death row without a jury recommendation. The death "recommendation" was 
unanimous - not from a jury, but from himself.

In fact, he wanted to get to death row. He killed his cellmate 7 years ago for 
the precise purpose of getting there. He cooperated in his own conviction and 
told his court-appointed counsel to butt out.

"James Robertson pleaded guilty to a charge of 1st-degree murder, waived the 
right to a jury recommendation on sentencing and did not object to, contest or 
rebut the state's evidence and argument for a sentence of death," the Supreme 
Court's unsigned ruling said, in its 1st sentence.

Robertson fashioned a garrote out of some socks at the Charlotte Correctional 
Institution and waited until the guards made their half-hourly cell check. Then 
he strangled his sleeping cellmate, Frank Hart, who had not done anything to 
provoke him.

Robertson, 45 years at the time, had been in prison for 28 years. He grew up in 
world of poverty and violence, committed his 1st felony before his 18th 
birthday and committed some offenses behind bars. He faced another 30 years in 
prison, if he hadn't killed Hart.

So he decided to qualify for a death sentence by killing his cellmate. Perhaps 
wanting to add aggravating circumstances, he attacked a Charlotte County jail 
officer with a homemade weapon in 2011, drawing an added charge of attempted 
murder.

With such a wasted, pointless, violent life, it's almost possible to feel 
sympathy for Robertson. Almost. If he'd used the socks to hang himself, it 
would have been a tragic, fitting end to his miserable existence.

But instead, he decided to have the state do it for him.

Robertson turned down a plea deal that would have resulted in a life sentence 
for Hart's murder. A psychiatrist and psychologist examined him and decided he 
was not insane, and was competent to stand trial. He waived his right to a 
penalty phase hearing and presented no mitigating evidence.

His trial court found that Robertson was already a violent felon, that he was 
in prison at the time of Hart's murder for a violent offense, that the murder 
was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" and carried out in a "cold, 
calculated and premeditated manner without pretense of moral or legal 
justification."

What more do you need? Well, a lot, in our system. After they try the killer, 
they try the trial. Once they prove he did it, and deserved to die, they have 
to prove they proved it the right way and that the punishment fit the crime.

There are some 390 condemned killers on death row. Almost all of them profess 
their innocence, mounting decades-long legal arguments for a new trial or life 
sentence.

Yet, here's a guy who says he not only did it, but did it for the sole purpose 
of being executed. And it???' taken 7 years to get the Supreme Court's 23-page 
ruling affirming his sentence.

That Robertson has had appointed lawyers fighting, without his cooperation, to 
keep the lethal needle out of his arm is a tribute to the justices' 
thoroughness. The courts respect the law and the process even when the 
defendant doesn't.

It would feel good to put Robertson out of his misery, like a wounded wolf, and 
maybe that would be justice. But even a fitting outcome has to be done with due 
process of the law.

(source: Bill Cotterell is a retired Democrat reporter who writes a 
twice-weekly column----Tallahassee Democrat)

****************

Appeals court rules in favor of Fla. death penalty law


Florida's new death-penalty sentencing process should apply to prosecutions 
that were already underway when the new law went into effect this month, a 
state appeals court ruled Friday.

The 5th District Court of Appeal also decided that a U.S. Supreme Court 
decision, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, did not strike down the state's 
entire death penalty as unconstitutional, but instead overturned the procedure 
for imposing death sentences.

But because the issues "involve questions of great public importance," a 
3-judge panel asked the Florida Supreme Court to decide whether the Hurst 
decision declared that the state's death penalty is unconstitutional and if the 
new law applies to cases already in the pipeline before the new sentencing 
process went into effect March 7.

In a Jan. 12 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Florida's system of 
giving judges, and not juries, the power to impose death sentences was an 
unconstitutional violation of defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial by 
jury.

The 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision dealt with the sentencing phase of 
death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and it focused on what 
are known as aggravating circumstances that must be determined before 
defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a 
case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations of such aggravating 
circumstances must be made by juries, not judges.

The ruling left Florida temporarily without a death-penalty sentencing 
structure, prompting the Legislature to hurriedly pass a bill intended to fix 
the process. Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill March 7, and it went into effect 
immediately.

Under Florida's new law, juries will have to unanimously determine "the 
existence of at least 1 aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible 
for death sentences. The law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the 
death penalty in order for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a 
feature of the old law that had allowed judges to override juries' 
recommendations of life in prison instead of death.

The Florida Supreme Court, which indefinitely put on hold 2 executions after 
the Hurst ruling, has been grappling with how or whether to apply the ruling to 
inmates already on death row. The questions posed Friday by the appellate 
judges are part of a process known as "certifying" questions to the Florida 
Supreme Court.

Friday's ruling came in the consolidated cases of Larry Darnell Perry, accused 
of killing his 3-month-old son in 2013, and William Theodore Woodward, charged 
with murdering 2 of his neighbors in 2012.

After the Hurst decision, Perry and Woodward asked judges in their cases to bar 
prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. The judges agreed with the 
defendants' lawyers, who argued that, because there was no constitutionally 
permitted death penalty process in Florida at the time, the state could not 
pursue death sentences in the cases.

But the appellate court on Friday sided with the state, saying that blocking 
the death penalty "impermissibly invades" the discretion of the state to seek 
the sentence.

The appeals court also rejected arguments that the new sentencing law should 
not apply in the cases of Perry and Woodward because of a 1972 law that 
provides alternative sentences if the death penalty is deemed unconstitutional. 
The 1972 law, which required that all death sentences be converted into life 
imprisonment, came in response to a ruling in a case known as Furman v. Georgia 
that resulted in a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty.

In the 10-page decision issued Friday, appeals-court Judge Richard B. Orfinger 
wrote that the Hurst ruling "struck the process of imposing a sentence of 
death, not the penalty itself."

Orfinger, joined by judges Kerry I. Evander and F. Rand Wallis, also disagreed 
with the defendants' contention that the application of the new law to pending 
cases would amount to an "ex post facto" violation of the Florida and U.S. 
Constitutions.

That constitutional problem would only arise if the new law retroactively 
altered the definition of crimes or increased the punishment for the crimes, 
Orfinger noted.

While Florida's new law changes the process used to determine whether the death 
penalty will be imposed, it does not modify the punishment attached to 
1st-degree murder, Orfinger wrote. "The new sentencing statute added no new 
element, or functional equivalent of an element, to 1st-degree murder. Hence, 
the changes to our capital sentencing procedures do not resemble the type of 
after-the-fact legislative evil contemplated by the ex post facto doctrine," he 
wrote.

(source: Tampa Tribune)

************

Lawyers argue murder defendant's competency----Michael Finn is accused of 
stabbing his wife


For the 2nd time in 5 months, a circuit judge is considering whether a Lakeland 
man who prosecutors said has admitted killing his wife is competent to stand 
trial.

In a hearing Wednesday, 2 psychologists testified that Michael Finn, who was 
declared incompetent in October, is legally eligible to proceed with his 
criminal case. A 3rd psychologist said Finn meets the state's criteria for 
competency on 4 levels, but questions remain concerning his ability to assist 
his lawyers.

Circuit Judge Jalal Harb has taken the motion under advisement.

Finn, 46, was arrested May 9, 2015, after his wife, Kristen, called 911 when he 
threw a baseball at her and hit her in the face during an argument on their 
patio at 1263 Scottsland Drive in Lakeland.

She told emergency operators her husband had attacked her before and was on 
probation, according to Polk County Sheriff's Office reports. During the 
conversation, operators heard her telling her husband to stay away, then she 
began screaming.

When deputies arrived at the house, Kristen Finn, 34, was running from her 
husband, who was wielding a knife. Deputy Dennis Jones reported she looked as 
if she'd been stabbed several times.

Jones ordered Michael Finn to drop the knife, and took him into custody.

As he was being arrested, Finn told his 15-year-old daughter from a previous 
marriage "I should have killed her," according to Sheriff's reports.

Kristen Finn died at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center that afternoon, an 
hour after she called 911.

After Finn was found incompetent to stand trial in October, he underwent 
treatment at Treasure Coast Forensic Treatment Center in Indiantown until late 
December, when staff psychologist John P. Mihalovich, who testified Wednesday, 
determined he was competent to stand trial.

Finn was brought back to the Polk County Jail for further evaluation.

Defense lawyers representing Finn said Wednesday his condition has deteriorated 
since his return to Polk County because of stresses at the Polk County Jail, 
and asked Harb to return him to Treasure Coast.

Harb is expected to issue a written ruling.

Prosecutors said they are seeking the death penalty against Finn, but have 
offered life imprisonment if he would plead to the murder charge.

Assistant Public Defender Tonmiel Rodriguez declined to comment on the plea 
deal.

(source: The Lakeland Ledger)



KENTUCKY:

Prosecutors want death penalty for 2014 Winchester shooting


Clark County prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty if four 
suspects in a woman's shooting death are convicted at trial.

The Winchester Sun reports prosecutors notified Clark County Circuit Court 
during a status hearing last week.

21-old Christopher Robinson is charged with murder, 1st-degree burglary and 2 
counts of 1st-degree assault in the December 2014 shooting at a Winchester 
apartment complex.

19-year-old Lillian Barnett, 19-year-old Aaron Stailey and 21-year-old Lamont 
Wilkerson are indicted on charges of complicity to murder, burglary and 
assault.

Police say shots were fired when the 4 went to the apartment. A bullet went 
through the floor and into an apartment below, killing 19-year-old Amber 
Caudill.

The defendants are set for trial in May, although a motion is pending to try 
them separately.

(source: Associated Press)