Prosecutor

CONROE, Texas - An 84-year-old woman jailed on a theft charge allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill the Houston-area prosecutor handling her case and to maim his boss, one of the apparent targets said Monday. Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said Dorothy Canfield allegedly sought to have him attacked and his assistant district attorney, Rob Freyer, slain. Neither man was injured in the alleged plot, which investigators said surfaced in early April. Canfield allegedly wanted the attacks to appear similar to the recent unsolved killings of two other Texas prosecutors, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, according to Ligon.

Prosecutors are recommending that Villanova University basketball forward JayVaughn Pinkston be given probation in connection with his alleged assault of a man at a 2010 party. Pinkston, 21, is expected to be admitted to Montgomery County's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program (ARD), generally used for first-time offenders charged with nonviolent crimes. A formal recommendation will be made at a hearing next month, said Assistant District Attorney Lauren McNulty. At the end of the proposed two-year probationary period, if Pinkston has complied with all required court terms and remained out of trouble, he would be able to ask that his record be expunged, she said.

HOUSTON - After two Texas prosecutors were slain in two months, law enforcement agencies across the state are considering steps to better protect attorneys who go after violent criminals, including providing round-the-clock security details and withholding personal information from public records. Last weekend's fatal shootings of the Kaufman County district attorney and his wife in their home were so alarming that county officials assigned a 24-hour security detail to the interim prosecutor who took over the job. Another prosecutor in the state's Panhandle region encouraged his staff to request that property records not list their home addresses.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - For James Holmes, "justice is death," prosecutors said Monday in announcing that they will seek his execution if he is convicted in the Colorado movie theater attack that killed 12 people. The decision - disclosed in court just days after prosecutors publicly rejected Holmes' offer to plead guilty if they took the death penalty off the table - elevated the already-sensational case to a new level and could cause it to drag on for years. "It's my determination and my intention that in this case, for James Eagan Holmes, justice is death," District Attorney George Brauchler said, adding that he had discussed the case with 60 people who lost relatives in the July 20 shooting rampage by a gunman in a gas mask and body armor during a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie.

KAUFMAN, Texas - Two days after a Texas district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home, authorities have said little about their investigation or any potential suspects. But suspicion in the slayings shifted to a white supremacist gang with a long history of violence and retribution that was also the focus of a December law enforcement bulletin warning that its members might try to attack police or prosecutors. Four top leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas were indicted in October for crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking.

DENVER - Prosecutors in the Colorado theater massacre case have rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, saying the proposal can't be considered genuine because the defense has repeatedly refused to give them information needed to evaluate it. No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said in a scathing court document Thursday, and one "is extremely unlikely based on the present information available...

KAUFMAN, Texas - Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland took no chances after one of his assistant prosecutors was assassinated two months ago. McLelland said he carried a gun everywhere he went and took extra care when answering the door at his home. "I'm ahead of everybody else because, basically, I'm a soldier," the 23-year Army veteran said in an interview less than two weeks ago. On Saturday, he and his wife, Cynthia, were found dead in their home just outside the town of Forney, about 20 miles from Dallas, killed in an attack for which authorities have given no motive.

It's no secret that Punxsutawney Phil is a shadowy underworld figure. And yet it now looks like the dirty rat-cousin could burrow his way out of a possible death sentence in Ohio. A supposed higher-up in the Gobbler's Knob mob has stepped forward to be the fall (or winter and still-not-spring) guy. Police in Maryland, however, have yet to withdraw their "Suspect Wanted for Fraud" proclamation. Being a famous groundhog in Pennsylvania isn't such a warm and fuzzy deal anymore.

Recently appointed to the bench by Gov. Christie, Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford will be sworn in Monday as a Superior Court judge and be assigned to Burlington County. Ford, 59, of Toms River, will be a Family Court judge. She has experience in all three branches of state government. From 1992 to 2007, she was a Superior Court judge in Ocean County, where she became the presiding judge over the family division, according to a biography on the Prosecutor's Office website.