Court throws out death sentences

Court throws outdeath sentences
CHICAGO -- A federal appeals court threw out death sentences of two defendants Friday, saying a corrupt judge dealt with them harshly as a way to masquerade as a law-and-order jurist.
Judge Thomas J. Maloney "deliberately let this death-penalty hearing become a debacle because imposition of the death penalty would bolster his reputation as a tough judge," the appeals court said.
Maloney, a former Cook County Circuit Court judge, is serving a 15-year sentence for his conviction in 1993 on four charges involving payoffs. He has maintained his innocence, but the appeals court said he had mob ties and fixed cases.
The court let stand the murder convictions of William Bracy and Roger Collins for robbing and shooting three men in 1981. Collins and Bracy were convicted following a trial before Maloney. The case has been tied up in appeals for two decades.
Friday's decision came from the 11-member 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Eight judges wanted to throw out the death sentences, while three judges wanted to uphold them. Four judges wanted to throw out both the murder convictions and death sentences.
Bracy and Collins remain jailed. Bracy has also been sentenced to death in Arizona in an unrelated murder case.
Probes of Clintons cost$70 million, GAO says
WASHINGTON -- The investigative arm of Congress said Friday that the criminal investigation of former President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton has cost $70 million.
The General Accounting Office's figures make the probe of the Clintons the most expensive in the history of the now-expired law under which court-appointed independent counsels investigated top political figures.
The probe of the Clintons long ago surpassed the previous record of $47.4 million, spent by prosecutor Lawrence Walsh during his six-year investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal.
The Clinton investigation, which began in 1994, eclipsed the Iran-Contra cost three years ago.
The GAO said that Independent Counsel Robert Ray spent $3.7 million in the six months ending last Sept. 30, raising the total costs for the probe to $68 million. With additional costs since then, the figure is around $70 million.
Serbia to begin arrestsof war crimes suspects
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Serbia could begin arresting war crimes suspects within days, its prime minister said Friday, stressing it has little choice if it wants to avoid punishing sanctions and international isolation.
The U.S. Congress has given Yugoslavia until Sunday to cooperate with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, or risk losing $120 million in financial assistance. Serbia is the largest republic in Yugoslavia.
"If we do not cooperate, we could face international isolation and U.S. sanctions, literally within days," Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic warned.
Arrests, he said, could come "within three to four days," sending a signal to the 15 suspects hiding in Serbia that they no longer can expect to find safe haven there.
Acting on a similar ultimatum last year, Serbia arrested and extradited former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague, where he is on trial for atrocities his forces committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.
War crimes suspects in hiding in Serbia include one of the tribunal's most-wanted fugitives: Gen. Ratko Mladic, the wartime military leader of the Bosnian Serbs.
Inmate art show ends
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The Department of Correctional Services has discontinued its annual inmate art show and banned the sale of art produced in prisons amid an uproar over a serial killer who profited from his works.
Corrections spokesman James Flateau confirmed Friday that the "Corrections on Canvas" show, held for 35 years in the Legislative Office Building in Albany, has been eliminated.
At the same time, Corrections Commissioner Glenn Goord ordered, effective immediately, that the state's 67,000-plus inmates are not allowed to profit from their art or handicraft, though they can still produce it.
Inmates, who buy their own art supplies, had been allowed to keep half the proceeds from their sales in the nine-day show, with the other half going to the state Crime Victims Board.
Last year, a portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales, was among 10 sketches and paintings by convicted serial killer Arthur Shawcross selling for up to $540 each.
Relatives of Shawcross' victims were outraged. Shawcross, 56, is serving a 250-year sentence for killing 11 Rochester-area women a decade ago.
Associated Press