NATION
Mom convicted of poisoning son
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A woman who blogged for years about her son's constant health woes was convicted Monday of poisoning him to death by force-feeding heavy concentrations of sodium through his stomach tube.
A jury in the New York suburbs found Lacey Spears, of Scottsville, Kentucky, guilty of second-degree murder in the death last year of 5-year-old Garnett-Paul Spears.
The defense portrayed Spears as a caring mother and her son as sickly, but the prosecution argued Spears reveled in the attention his illness brought her. Video showed Spears twice taking him into a hospital bathroom with a connector tube and him suffering afterward.
“The motive is bizarre, the motive is scary, but it exists,” Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy said in closing arguments Thursday. “She apparently craved the attention of her family, her friends, her co-workers and most particularly the medical profession.”
She suggested that Spears, 27, eventually killed the boy because she feared he would start telling people she was making him ill.
Popular ammunition could be banned
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering banning a type of ammunition used in one of the most popular types of rifles because it says the bullets can pierce a police officer's protective vest when fired from a handgun.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is proposing the ban of some types of 5.56 mm rounds — or .223-caliber — used in widely available and popular AR-15-style rifles because the bullets can also be used in some new types of handguns. Other types of 5.56 mm rounds would still be legal to buy, own and fire from guns.
Georgia woman's execution postponed
JACKSON, Ga. — Georgia postponed its first execution of a woman in 70 years late Monday, as officials cited problems with the lone drug that would be used for the lethal injection.
The drug, pentobarbital, had a cloudy appearance, prompting officials to called a pharmacist and then out of an “abundance of caution” to postpone the execution, said Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan. She did not give a new date.
Kelly Renee Gissendaner was scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. at the prison in Jackson. The execution was put on hold while officials waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to either grant or deny a stay requested by her lawyers. The court had still not ruled more than four hours later.
An appellate court rejected the lawyers' request for a delay on the grounds that Georgia's lethal-injection procedures aren't transparent enough to be challenged in court.
