NURSE TO UNDERGO EVALUATION IN DEATHS OF HER 3 CHILDREN
WHEATON, Ill. (AP) -- A judge has ordered a mental examination for a nurse accused of drugging and suffocating her three young children.DuPage County Judge George Bakalis expressed doubts about Marilyn Lemak's ability to understand the three murder charges against her.
Lemak, who has been under psychiatric care since her children's deaths, appears "trancelike" at court hearings, Bakalis said Monday. Her arraignment was indefinitely postponed.
Prosecutors allege Lemak, of Naperville, Ill., gave her children prescription drugs before putting them to bed March 4, then suffocated 7-year-old Nicholas, 6-year-old Emily and 3-year-old Thomas Lemak with her hands as they slept.
Lemak and her husband were in the midst of a divorce, and he had recently moved out of the home. Authorities have not disclosed a motive.
WHITE SUPREMACIST WANTS NEW TRIAL IN DRAGGING DEATH
JASPER, Texas (AP) -- A white supremacist sentenced to die for the dragging death of a black man is seeking a new trial, claiming his chances for a fair trial were jeopardized because his attorneys didn't investigate his version of where he was the night of the attack.
John King, 24, claims his alibi never was investigated properly by his trial attorneys, said David Schulman, King's appeals attorney.
King, condemned last month for the June 7 dragging death of James Byrd Jr., has claimed he was dropped off at his home while the 49-year-old black man was still alive.
Haden "Sonny" Cribbs, King's court-appointed trial attorney, said all witnesses provided to him by King were questioned.
37 ILLNESSES BARRED FROM SUIT FILED BY SICK FLORIDA SMOKERS
MIAMI (AP) -- Sick Florida smokers suing tobacco companies and industry groups cannot make claims for 37 diseases and conditions in the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to reach trial.
The health problems include repeated sore throats, skin cancer, burned nasal passages, tumors originating in the heart and kidney cancer.
The diseases were excluded because the smokers' attorneys, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, didn't present evidence that they are caused by smoking, Circuit Judge Robert Kaye said in a ruling released Friday.
The Rosenblatts represent as many as half a million Florida smokers who blame cigarettes for their illnesses, saying they were never warned exactly how dangerous smoking is. They are seeking at least $200 billion in damages.
MOTHER PLEADS GUILTY, FACES PRISON TIME FOR INJURING CHILD
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A woman believed to have a disorder that causes her to injure or kill children for attention has pleaded guilty to child injury charges and faces up to 32 years in prison.
Cynthia Martinez Lyda, 32, entered the plea Monday on the eve of jury selection in her trial. Sentencing is set for this summer.
Doctors have diagnosed Lyda with Munchausen's by proxy syndrome, a disorder in which caregivers fake or induce illnesses in children to win attention by rescuing them. Lyda denies having the condition.
Of her six sons, Aaron died when he was 2 years old of poisoning from ipecac, a syrup used to induce vomiting in children. Another son, Daniel, now 7, fell into a vegetative state at a hospital six years ago when a machine monitoring his respiratory and heart rate was turned off.
And a foster son died when he was 2 years old while in Lyda's care in Phoenix in 1993.
Her guilty plea pertained to Joseph, 5, who nearly died when he was 8 months old.
'WOLVES' ACTOR PLEADS GUILTY TO NOT PAYING CHILD SUPPORT
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Actor Rodney A. Grant has pleaded guilty to failing to pay child support.
Grant, who played Wind in His Hair in the 1990 film "Dances With Wolves," was indicted in January for failing to pay child support to Christina Mesa, the mother of his three teenage children.
The 40-year-old actor, who lives in Clovis, Calif., was indicted under federal child-support legislation signed into law by President Clinton last year. He pleaded guilty Monday, U.S. Attorney Tom Monaghan said.
The indictment said that Grant had made only one child support payment since August 1992, despite earning more than $685,000 from 1992 through 1997.
MOTHER WHO HAD BLACK SON TO GIVE HIM TO 'REAL PARENTS'
NEW YORK (AP) -- A white woman who gave birth to a black child after she was accidentally implanted with another couple's embryos will surrender the baby to the couple who are believed to be the biological parents, her lawyer said.
Donna and Richard Fasano will give up the 3-month-old boy "because we love him," they said Monday in a statement.
"We both want what's in the best interest of the child," Donna Fasano said.
Donna Fasano gave birth Dec. 29 to two boys, one black and one white.
The Fasanos decided to raise the white child and allow Robert and Deborah Perry Rogers to raise the black child if DNA tests confirm that they are his biological parents, said Donna Fasano's lawyer, Ivan Tantleff. They hope to get visitation rights.
"The Fasanos have reared, loved and cared for both children as their own," he said. "(Donna Fasano) doesn't look at them as white and black. She looks at them as her sons. She is torn apart by this."
The Rogerses, from Teaneck, N.J., sued over the case, seeking custody.