Back from vacation odds and ends...

I'm back from vacation, and am trying to catch up on a few things.  Here's what's on my radar blog-wise:

1.  Casey Ann mentioned a problem with the button used to write Jim and I a message.  I tested it, and it's not working for me either.  I'll try to figure that out ASAP.

2.  Judge Yerger sentenced Justin Larun Lomax to 75 years in prison yesterday for three counts of house burglary.  The maximum sentence for each count was 25 years, so he got the max on all three.  Mr. Lomax, 19, had entered an "open" plea, meaning he pled guilty without a recommendation from the DA with respect to sentencing.  Mr. Lomax also pled guilty to another house burglary and an aggravated assault.  He had also been charged with shooting into an occupied dwelling, possession of a stolen firearm, and possession of a stolen firearm while in the commission of a crime in connection with the house burglary and aggravated assault, but those three charges have been remanded.  Judge Hilburn will sentence Mr. Lomax tomorrow on the house burglary and aggravated assault.  Lomax pled open on those as well.  By my calculations, the 19 year-old Lomax will not be eligible for release until somewhere north of his 55th birthday.  Ouch.

3.  Alan Michael Rubenstein of Marrero, LA, was resentenced to life without parole after the Mississippi Supreme Court, in 2006, overturned a death penalty sentence handed down by a Pike County jury in 2000.  It was a heinous case, but the language of the statute altering the sentencing options on capital murder cases was fairly clear at the time.  The MSSC sent the case back for resentencing because the jury had not been given the option of life without parole, despite a 1994 amendment to the statute that clearly provided for that option, regardless of when the crime itself occurred.  Here's a link to the MSSC's opinion.  (Easley wrote the dissent, of course.)

4.  There's been no docket entry in Leisha Jane Pickering v. Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd since the deposition subpoenas were issued back on July 23, 2009.