New Trial

A Harford County man convicted almost three years ago on charges of murder, kidnapping and attempted rape in the 1990 death of a 21-year-old Army clerk is back in Baltimore County court for a new trial.Daniel E. Turner, 35, of Aberdeen was sentenced to life in prison with out parole in June 1991 by Circuit Judge Alfred L. Brennan Sr. after a jury found him guilty in the death of Bonnie Sue Joseph. She had disappeared during an early-morning trip to a convenience store for snacks and other items for her Aberdeen Proving Ground co-workers.

A three-judge panel of Maryland's Court of Special Appeals on Monday tossed out the conviction of a man found guilty of murder last year in Baltimore County Circuit Court and ordered that he be tried again. Thomas B. Harris was accused of fatally stabbing another man, Karim Cross, in the parking lot of the Rush Hour Bar in Randallstown in the early hours of Aug. 13, 2006. A jury convicted Harris of second-degree murder and in May 2008 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In his appeal, Harris, 35, questioned his conviction on various grounds, but the appeals court found cause for reversal in only one of his arguments: that the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to declare a mistrial after it became known that the defense had not been informed of a communication between a juror and the trial judge's secretary.

JACKSON, Miss. -- Three years ago, in an attempt to heal old wounds, officials reopened one of the most searing cases from the Civil Rights era: the 1963 assassination of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers.Today, the Mississippi Supreme Court hears arguments that could rip those wounds open once again.The question is whether a new murder trial of his accused assassin, Byron De La Beckwith, a 71-year-old white supremacist, should go forward or whether the murder charges, filed in 1990, should be dismissed.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Court of Appeals ordered a new trial yesterday for Sandra A. Craig, the Clarksville day-care operator who was convicted of child abuse in a 1987 trial that featured closed-circuit television testimony from four of her alleged victims.That testimony, Maryland's highest court held, should not have been allowed until Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr., the trial judge, interviewed the children to decide whether they would have difficulty communicating from the witness stand.Dwight Thompson, deputy state's attorney for Howard County, said he would have to talk with the victims and their parents before deciding whether to retry Mrs. Craig.

A Baltimore man convicted two years ago for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend at an Edgewood motel will stand trial on the charge again in Harford Circuit Court this week.Ethel "Dino" Watson, a 47-year-old mechanic, was granted a new trial after he appealed his conviction of first-degree murder to the state Court of Appeals.Watson was sentenced to life in prison for the Sept. 23, 1987, beating and strangulation of Jeanette D. Hill, 21, of Washington. Hill was almost six months pregnant at the time of her death.

A week after Maryland's highest court blocked the reinstatement of his first-degree murder conviction, James Howard VanMetre III lost his bid for a new trial in a Pennsylvania rape and kidnapping.By rejecting arguments that VanMetre's lawyer was incompetent and that his 1992 jury trial should have been moved from Gettysburg because of excessive publicity, Adams County Common Pleas Judge John D. Kuhn late Tuesday paved the way for a Nov. 30 sentencing hearing.According to Assistant District Attorney Martha J. Duvall -- who learned of the ruling yesterday -- Judge Kuhn could impose a sentence ranging from about 10 years to more than 80 years for VanMetre's convictions on rape, kidnapping, assault, burglary and deviate sexual contact charges.

A former East Baltimore man who has spent the past 18 years in prison for a 1974 murder he says he did not commit will be able to continue his pursuit of a new trial under a ruling issued yesterday by a judge.Baltimore Circuit Judge Thomas E. Noel stopped short of granting Michael Austin's request for a new trial, but he ruled that Austin was denied effective assistance of counsel during a previous, unsuccessful appeal of his 1975 murder conviction.Ruling that Austin's lawyer should have challenged the admission of a calling card as evidence near the end of the 1975 trial, Judge Noel granted Austin a "belated appeal," meaning that the former iron pourer will be allowed to try to persuade an appeals court to grant him a new trial.

A federal judge has denied a motion for a new trial filed by convicted child pornographer Christopher Blauvelt, who claimed a juror's ingratiating e-mail to a Baltimore assistant U.S. attorney showed bias. The juror, identified as "GSS" in court papers, is an accountant who oversees the tax return of a legal nonprofit organization, whose treasurer, Michael Leotta, is a federal prosecutor. On the second-to-last day of the trial, he sent the attorney an e-mail in response to an invoice request.

A Baltimore man serving a life sentence for the murder of his former wife's lover has been denied a new trial by a state appellate court.In a four-page written opinion issued yesterday, Joseph F. Murphy, chief judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, rejected Cordell Albert Patton's contention that he should be retried based on new evidence.Patton was convicted in May 1996 for the shotgun slaying of Irvington handyman John C. Ruhs on a deserted dirt road in Finksburg near Liberty Reservoir on March 27, 1987.

A Baltimore man who was sentenced to life in prison a decade ago for a first-degree murder conviction was granted a new trial by a Circuit Court judge who decided prosecutors withheld key evidence at his trial in 1993. Larry Wright, 30, had been found guilty by a jury of the 1992 fatal shooting of Eugene Douglas Scott, 48, in East Baltimore. Wright has been in prison since the conviction. Judge Martin P. Welch decided Tuesday that prosecutors did not turn over evidence that could have helped Wright's case, as is required by law. The evidence includes transcripts from an interview with Malcolm Bryant, a man who said he was with Wright on May 17, 1992 - the night of the shooting, court documents show.