Ex-Uber driver pleads guilty to 6 killings
KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- A Michigan man charged with killing six strangers between picking up rides for Uber pleaded guilty to murder on Monday, just before attorneys were set to interview jurors for his trial.
Jason Dalton's surprise move came more than three years after the shootings, which occurred over the course of a few hours in and around Kalamazoo. Dalton pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder over his attorney's objections, triggering a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole.
"Yes, I've wanted this for quite a while," Dalton replied when a judge asked if the pleas were voluntary.
The 48-year-old Dalton answered "yes" to a series of questions, admitting that he shot eight people at three locations. After his arrest, police quoted Dalton as saying a "devil figure" on Uber's app was controlling him on the day of the shootings.
Four women were killed in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. A man and his 17-year-old son were fatally shot while looking at a pickup in a dealer's lot. A girl who was 14 at the time was shot in the head during the restaurant shooting and survived. Another woman was injured in a residential area.
Dalton had been deemed competent to stand trial and last week dropped an insanity defense. In court, he didn't explain why he randomly shot eight people.
Prosecutor Jeff Getting said the motive behind the shootings is a question that "haunts us."
Iraqi's immigration release ordered
MINNEAPOLIS -- A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered an Iraqi man released from immigration custody until a final order is issued on whether to remove him from the U.S.
On Monday, District Judge David Doty ordered that 35-year-old Farass Adnan Ali be released within 30 days. Ali has been in custody on immigration charges for 18 months.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials allege that when completing immigration forms, Ali concealed his service in the Saddam Hussein regime's elite Republican Guard.
Lawyers for Ali challenged what they call his "unreasonable, prolonged" pre-deportation detention, which included seven months of solitary confinement.
Ali attorney Ian Bratlie of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota says he hopes Ali is released this week.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota did not respond to requests for comment.
Supreme Court won't hear Skakel case
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it is leaving in place a decision that vacated a murder conviction against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel.
Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the 1975 bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley, who lived across the street from the Skakel family in Greenwich, Conn., and whose body was found in her family's backyard. Both Skakel and Moxley were 15 at the time of her death.
The high court's refusal to hear the case means that a 2018 decision by Connecticut's highest court throwing out Skakel's conviction will stand. Connecticut's highest court based its decision on Skakel's attorney's failure to seek out an additional alibi witness.
Skakel was charged in 2000 with Moxley's killing. After a jury convicted Skakel, he argued that his lead trial lawyer did an inadequate job representing him.
Skakel served more than 11 years in prison before being freed on $1.2 million bail in 2013 when a judge overturned his conviction, citing errors by his lead trial lawyer.
But Connecticut's Supreme Court reinstated Skakel's conviction in December 2016, ruling 4-3 that Skakel was adequately represented. However, the court reversed itself after a new justice sided with the three judges that questioned Skakel's representation at trial.
Though it would be difficult, the state could retry Skakel, who is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy. Several Connecticut prosecutors declined comment Monday.
Moxley's mother, Dorthy Moxley, 86, said Monday she was disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision adding that she will support whatever decision prosecutors make about whether to retry him.
Nursing home where 12 died loses license
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida has revoked the license of a nursing home where 12 elderly patients died in the heat after the facility lost power during a 2017 hurricane.
The Agency for Health Care Administration issued its order Friday, saying an administrative law judge correctly concluded the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills "created an unsafe environment" in September 2017 after Hurricane Irma knocked out its air conditioning.
Patients began dying three days after the storm passed. Investigators said the center did not evacuate patients as temperatures inside rose, even though a fully functional hospital was across the street. The home's license was suspended days after the storm and it closed.
Police have been investigating the deaths, but no charges have been filed.
The center's attorneys did not immediately respond to an email Monday seeking comment.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 01/08/2019