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Nation in brief

Death row inmate has sentence overturned

By wire services
Published October 6, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas - A convicted killer whose case stirred national debate over whether mentally retarded inmates should be executed had his death sentence overturned for the third time Wednesday.

A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent Johnny Paul Penry's case back for another punishment hearing. The court ruled 5-4 that improper jury instructions prevented the jurors from considering the full scope of his claims of retardation.

Penry won two reversals from the U.S. Supreme Court that changed the way judges instruct juries in capital murder cases.

The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1989 and, in 2001, threw out his sentence but left the conviction intact. Both times the high court reasoned the jury was not allowed to properly weigh Penry's alleged retardation.

When the court overturned Penry's conviction in 1989, it also narrowly ruled that mentally retarded people could be executed. The court reversed itself in 2002 and barred capital punishment for retarded killers.

At the 2002 trial that was considered by the Texas court, the jury heard detailed testimony about Penry's intellect. Defense experts noted his IQ consistently tested below 70, the retardation standard, and Penry was childlike in his abilities.

CALIMESA, Calif. - A wildfire erupted Wednesday in an area east of Los Angles, quickly consuming about 1,000 acres of brush, threatening about 100 homes and burning to the edge of a freeway.

Motorists passed within yards of a wall of flames before authorities closed a 10-mile stretch of the 60 Freeway on Wednesday evening, said Jane Scribner, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Fire Department.

The fire, which broke out about 3 p.m., was only 5 percent contained, said Patrick Chandler, a spokesman for the state Department of Forestry and the county Fire Department. No one was immediately evacuated.

Wind gusts up to 60 mph in canyon passes, warm weather and low humidity prompted the weather service to issue red flag warnings for much of Southern California, meaning conditions favored fires growing rapidly.

Firefighters continued to put out hot spots from a 24,000-acre blaze on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties that was fully contained Tuesday.

In San Bernardino County, a 935-acre fire burning in rugged terrain in and around San Bernardino National Forest was 85 percent contained, said Robin Prince, a forest spokeswoman.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - References to creationism in drafts of a student biology book were replaced with the term "intelligent design" by the time it was published, a witness testified Wednesday in a landmark trial over a school board's decision to include the concept in its curriculum.

Drafts of the textbook, Of Pandas and People, written in 1987 were revised after the Supreme Court ruled in June of that year that states could not require schools to balance evolution with creationism in the classroom, said Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Forrest reviewed drafts of the textbook as a witness for eight families who are trying to have the intelligent design concept removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum.

The families say teaching intelligent design promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the separation of church and state.

Intelligent design holds that life on Earth is so complex that it must have been the product of some higher force.

Under the policy approved by Dover's school board in October 2004, students must hear a brief statement about intelligent design before classes on evolution. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory is not a fact and has inexplicable gaps.

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 01:15:08]