Nation Digest
Jury finds Texas woman insane in stoning of sons

	Deanna Laney
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TYLER, Texas — A woman who claimed God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted of all charges by reason of insanity yesterday after a jury determined she did not know right from wrong.

A jury found that Deanna Laney, 39, was legally insane May 9 when she killed her two older sons, ages 6 and 8, in the front yard and left the youngest, now 2, maimed in his crib. She would have received a life sentence if convicted of capital murder.

Laney broke into tears as the verdict was read. Her husband, Keith Laney, sat solemnly with head down. A few jurors cried.

State law allows Laney to be committed to a maximum-security hospital. Medical evaluations will dictate when she is freed.

Defense attorneys argued that insanity was the only reason why a deeply religious mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of them and maim another without so much as a tear.

"There was no crying," said Tonda Curry, one of Laney's lawyers. "She was insane. There is no other answer."

All five mental-health experts consulted in the case, including two for the prosecution and one for the judge, concluded that a severe mental illness left Laney incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings — the standard in Texas for insanity.

Prosecutors portrayed the killings as deceptively planned and coldly executed.

Budget issues a factor for another Muhammad trial

RICHMOND, Va. — A festering budget impasse in Virginia has caused prosecutors to delay a decision on whether to try convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad in Fairfax County, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Horan Jr. said.
 
Horan previously said he wanted to seek a second death sentence for Muhammad as an "insurance policy" in case Muhammad's first conviction was overturned on appeal. But if funding for his office is reduced significantly, forcing him to lay off assistant prosecutors, "I'd certainly have to rethink the whole thing," Horan said.

Prince William County prosecutors won a death sentence in November for Muhammad, 43, in the killing of Dean Meyers, one of 10 sniper slayings in the Washington region in October 2002. Horan has an indictment pending against Muhammad in the fatal shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin in Fairfax County.

Muhammad's accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 19, was convicted of Franklin's killing and sentenced to life without parole.

Man sought after ex-wife, her partner shot to death

EDWARDSVILLE, Kan. — An emergency medical technician and a paramedic were shot to death early yesterday in an apparent ambush, authorities said. Police issued a murder warrant for the paramedic's ex-husband.

Authorities found Tye Brown, 33, and Katherine Malone, 30, dead at a fire station shortly after midnight, said a spokesman for Metropolitan Ambulance Service Trust.

The pair, who lived together, had been shot multiple times, Kansas City, Kan., police Capt. John Cosgrove said.

Mine-safety expert says spill investigation halted

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The former head of a federal mine-safety school alleges that Bush administration appointees halted an investigation of an October 2000 coal-mine sludge spill that polluted about 100 miles of creeks and rivers along the Kentucky-West Virginia state line.

Jack Spadaro, former superintendent of the federal Mine Health and Safety Academy at Beckley and member of the team that investigated the spill near Inez, Ky., says the investigation showed Martin County Coal, a Massey Energy subsidiary, knew its containment was weak.

Spadaro, a frequent critic of U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration operations, told CBS' "60 Minutes" for a report airing tonight that the agency interfered with the investigation.

Also ...

An amusement ride broke open and ejected several passengers at a Miami-Dade County fair late Friday, injuring seven people, one critically. ... Cool, wet weather yesterday helped firefighters trying to contain an 8,700-acre Colorado wildfire that has burned for five days.

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