Manslaughter

DEFENSE attorneys for two men charged with murdering four people with a car speeding away from an armed robbery persuaded a judge Thursday to bar the most graphic death-scene photos from the trial. The photos of the severed limbs and crushed bones of the three children and young mother killed on the sidewalk at 3rd and Annsbury streets on June 10, 2009, would serve no purpose other than to inflame jurors' passions, said attorneys for Ivan Rodriguez, 23, and Donta Craddock, 21, who are charged with four counts of second-degree murder.

A North Philadelphia youth was acquitted of murder charges yesterday in the Christmas Day shooting of a man who hit him with a baseball bat. But Michael Keaton, 17, of Hemberger Way near Jefferson Street, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and a weapons offense for shooting more than once. Common Pleas Judge David N. Savitt returned the verdict after ruling that Keaton was provoked into shooting Acie Frames, 40, of Diamond Street near 25th. Keaton was committed to prison pending sentencing on Dec. 12. Defense lawyer Willis W. Berry Jr. said Keaton "was minding his own business" in front of his apartment building when Frames falsely accused him of breaking into Frames' car earlier in the day. "My client was beaten with a baseball bat," Berry said.

A South Philadelphia man whom the prosecution claimed assumed the roles of "judge, jury and executioner" has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting to death a suspected burglar. A Common Pleas jury returned its verdict yesterday against Franklin Lott, 38, of Annin Street near 19th. The victim, George Crenshaw, 32, of Florence Avenue near 56th Street, had served a brief prison term for an earlier burglary at the Lott home, according to Assistant District Attorney Joseph Casey.

Andres Albaladejo was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter yesterday in the slaying of reputed Hunting Park drug dealer Luis "Sexo" Ortiz. Albaladejo protested the jury verdict, declaring that he was innocent. Common Pleas Judge George J. Ivins deferred sentencing until motions for a new trial are heard. Bail was set at $150,000. Albaladejo, 34, of 6th Street near 65th Avenue, faces a possible 5 to 10 years in prison, and another 2 1/2 to 5 years for a weapons offense for which he also was found guilty.

Construction worker Charles Bevin, 22, has beaten a murder rap for the fatal shooting of his foreman. Yesterday, after defense lawyer Mark S. Gottlieb said the killing of Herbert Musgrove, 37, on Saturday, was either self-defense or at most manslaughter, Municipal Judge Eric L. Lilian held Bevin for trial on a voluntary manslaughter charge. Bevin, of 15th Street near 68th Avenue, was freed on $25,000 bail. "I don't think the defendant is a risk to the community or a risk to flee," Lilian said.

It was another case of a death caused by someone playing with a loaded handgun. Marcel Crump says his 22-year-old cousin ignored his warnings to stop toying with a gun on the second-floor of their North Philadelphia house on June 1, 1997. "Put it down!" Crump shouted to Joseph Day. Day refused, so Crump tried to disarm him by grabbing his arm, said defense lawyer Michael F. Giampietro yesterday. The gun went off and Day was killed when a bullet tore into his head, added Giampietro.

A Camden County jury yesterday acquitted Jose Baez of murdering Juan Velez in December but convicted him of manslaughter, illegal possession of a gun and hindering apprehension. Baez, 19, of the 900 block of North 32d Street in Camden, had been accused of shooting Velez, 19, of the 1400 block of Bradley Street in Camden, during an argument at Bergen Avenue and River Road in Camden about 6 p.m. Dec. 28. Defense attorney Leonard Baker argued that Baez could not have shot Velez because he was playing pool at a friend's house in Pennsauken at the time, a contention buttressed by testimony from the friend.

Charles Twyman blew up when he saw Richard Scott cutting a hole in the roof of Twyman's 1992 Mustang convertible in front of his house last April 14. He grabbed a gun and shot Scott to death. "There was a justification, although not a legally recognized justification," said Common Pleas Judge Robert A. Latrone yesterday in convicting Twyman, 23, of West Philadelphia, a construction worker, of voluntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person. "This is a different kind of case," said the judge, who allowed Twyman, of Chestnut Street near 57th, to remain free on bail pending sentencing.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Marine sergeant who told his troops to "shoot first, ask questions later" in a raid that killed unarmed Iraqi women, children, and elderly pleaded guilty Monday in a deal that will carry no more than three months' confinement and end the largest and longest-running criminal case against U.S. troops from the Iraq war. The deal marked a stunning and muted end to the case once described as the Iraq war's version of...

CHILDREN SAT, mostly silent and confused, glancing at the teens and young adults who wiped away tears inside the dark Kensington rowhouse. An infant on the couch sucked a bottle. A little girl looked at a photo of Gregory Loper on a cellphone. "Look, here's Pop-Pop right here," the girl said excitedly. "He's right here. " There seemed to be a broken heart on every seat in every room of the sparsely furnished home on East Huntingdon Avenue yesterday. Loper, 49, was the home's heartbeat, the figure who connected them all, supporting them any way the law would let him. On Friday night, about 6:15 p.m., he was riding his bicycle to a store after work when a Bucks County man allegedly drove a Toyota RAV4 into him near Lehigh Avenue and Jasper Street, in Kensington.

In September, a Superior Court judge gave the Burlington County prosecutor and a defense team until Monday to resolve a 12-year-old case involving a Burlington Township woman who shot her sleeping husband to death. When both sides reported they had failed to reach a plea agreement - four months after the state Supreme Court overturned the woman's 30-year manslaughter sentence - Judge Jeanne T. Covert set a new deadline, Dec. 13. Marie Hess, a former Burlington-Bristol Bridge toll-taker who was diagnosed with battered-wife syndrome while she was serving her term in state prison, said nothing at Monday's hearing.

DR. CONRAD MURRAY , the cardiologist who became Michael Jackson 's personal anesthesiologist and medical yes-man, was convicted yesterday of involuntary manslaughter after less than nine hours of jury deliberation, ending a trial that painted him as a careless caregiver who administered a lethal dose of propofol to the pop star. Members of Michael's family wept quietly after the verdict. Mother Katherine Jackson later told the Associated Press, "I feel better now. " Asked if she was confident in the outcome, she said, "Yes I was. " La Toya Jackson told the AP she was overjoyed.

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson's doctor finally made a decision he had long delayed, telling a judge Tuesday he would not testify in his involuntary-manslaughter trial. Minutes later, the defense rested its case and the prosecution, after presenting brief rebuttal testimony, closed its presentation of evidence in the six-week trial. Closing arguments begin Thursday. Conrad Murray's announcement came while jurors were out of the room and he was not asked to repeat it for them.

The brother of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was acquitted yesterday of manslaughter in the death of their 70-year-old father by a jury that apparently agreed with his defense that the elder man died of heart disease, not from a scuffle between the two. Mark Kerrigan, 46, was convicted, though, of a misdemeanor assault and battery charge in a January 2010 altercation with Daniel Kerrigan at the family's home in Stoneham, just north of...

Rap artist Cassidy is back behind bars, arrested on charges of violating his probation stemming from a 2005 Philadelphia manslaughter conviction, police said. The rapper, originally from Cedarbrook and whose real name is Barry Reese, was arrested Saturday outside a convenience store in Hackensack, accused of failing to report to his Philadelphia probation officer, police said. In 2005, Cassidy was charged with the murder of Desmond Hawkins, 22, and the attempted murder of two other men during a shoot-out in an alley behind the rapper's home on the 7800 block of Bayard Street.

Rapper Cassidy is back behind bars, arrested for a probation violation stemming from a 2005 Philadelphia manslaughter conviction, police said. The rapper, originally from Cedarbrook and whose real name is Barry Adrian Reese, was arrested Saturday outside a convenience store in Hackensack, N.J., for failing to report to his Philadelphia probation officer, police said. In 2005, the rapper was charged with the murder of Desmond Hawkins, 22, and the attempted murder of two other men, during a shootout in an alley behind the rapper's home on the 7800 block of Bayard Street.

A 24-year-old Glassboro man was found guilty Tuesday of manslaughter in the stabbing death of his sister's boyfriend in December 2007, Gloucester County prosecutors said. A Superior Court jury acquitted him of first-degree murder charges. Carlos Bryant could face up to 10 years in prison on the manslaughter conviction. He was charged with stabbing 19-year-old Robert Harrell in the chest at the Williamstown apartment of Bryant's sister. He is scheduled for sentencing on June 20. - Joelle Farrell

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - A North Wildwood man who said he acted in self-defense when he stabbed a Welsh tourist outside a Margate nightclub in August 2007 delivered an odd and tearful apology to the victim's brother Thursday during his sentencing at Superior Court in Atlantic County. Robert Davies, 49, was sentenced to 211/2 years in state prison for reckless manslaughter and weapons offenses in the death of Lavern Paul Ritch, a British reality-show personality who was at the Shore with friends from Cherry Hill.