Wife who killed husband with bat blocked from ‘heat of passion’ claim

A central Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty to beating her husband to death with a baseball bat was rightly barred from claiming she acted “in the heat of passion” because she believed he was unfaithful to her, a state Superior Court panel has ruled.

That decision solidifies an agreement Deborah Ann Stephens struck with Adams

County prosecutors when she pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for the September 2018 killing of her spouse, James, in their home in York Springs.

Deborah Stephens, 66, is serving a 20- to 40-year prison term — a de facto life sentence — for the slaying. Her case has several odd twists. The first of those is the fact that James Stephens foreshadowed the manner of his murder. As Judge Anne E. Lazarus noted in the state court’s opinion, nine days before his death James texted the couple’s son that Deborah had threatened to hit him in the head with a bat 20 times. She actually hit him with the bat 36 times, state police said.

Another unusual facet of the case is the role the Superior Court was asked to play. It wasn’t requested to referee the usual arguments over defense attorney effectiveness or the severity of the sentence. Instead, the state judges only were called in to rule on whether Deborah Stephens could use her conclusion that her husband was cheating on her as a “heat of passion” defense.

Deborah Stephens entered her guilty plea — she had no sentencing deal — after county Judge Thomas Campbell essentially blocked her from using that defense. He barred her from introducing evidence of the supposed infidelity at trial. Campbell agreed with prosecutors that Deborah Stephens could not argue that she was overcome by a sudden fit of angry passion when she killed her husband because she had learned of his supposed infidelity months before the slaying.

On appeal to the state court, Deborah Stephens sought to reopen the possibility of such a defense. Lazarus shut that idea down. The state judge agreed with Campbell’s conclusion that the amount of time that had passed between Deborah Stephens’ alleged discovery of unfaithfulness and the murder of her husband ruled out a heat of passion defense, especially since there was no evidence James Stephens had provoked his wife right before she killed him.

The Superior Court ruling should end the case since prosecutors and Deborah Stephens had an agreement that she would be allowed to withdraw her guilty plea and opt for a trial only if the state judges overturned Campbell’s decision to bar her from using the infidelity evidence in her defense.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee will return this year in a mostly virtual format, with the in-person competition limited to a dozen finalists who will gather on an ESPN campus at Walt Disney World in Florida, Scripps announced Monday.

Last year’s bee was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the first time since World War II it had been called off. Organizers said they did not believe a large gathering at the bee’s longtime venue — a convention center outside Washington — would be possible this year for the competition’s usual date around Memorial Day.

Instead of compressing the entire competition into a week — spellers routinely refer to Bee Week as a highlight of their young lives — the bee will be stretched over several weeks. The preliminary rounds will be held in mid-June, the semifinals June 27 and the ESPN-televised finals July 8.

“We gave up on the idea of Bee Week early on because we knew we couldn’t bring hundreds of people to one location safely,” Carolyn Micheli, the bee’s interim executive director, told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement.

“We came up with what I think is a pretty exciting and creative way of structuring the competition across several weeks that will be fun for the kids, build excitement, and I think it’s a great way to cope with a difficult situation,” she added.

The cancellation of last year’s bee was a particularly cruel blow to eighth graders who missed out on their final chance to compete after years of preparation. Top spellers routinely study obscure words, roots and language patterns for hours a day, sacrificing other activities and social life for a chance to become the national champion.

Spellers are no longer eligible after they reach high school.

Porn star’s suit rejected: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from porn star Stormy Daniels, who sought to revive a defamation lawsuit she filed against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place a lower court ruling dismissing the case.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement days before the 2016 presidential election. She sued him for defamation after he dismissed her claims of being threatened to keep quiet about the tryst as a “total con job.”

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2018 and ordered Daniels to pay nearly $300,000 in attorneys’ fees.

Israeli compensation: The Israeli government Monday approved a plan to offer $50 million in compensation to the families of hundreds of Yemenite children who disappeared in the early years of the country’s establishment.

But the announcement received a cool reception from advocacy groups that said the government had failed to apologize or accept responsibility for the affair.

Stories about the missing children have circulated in Israel for years. Hundreds of newborn babies and young children of Jewish immigrants from Arab and Balkan countries, most of them from Yemen, mysteriously disappeared shortly after arriving in the country.

Many families believe their children were taken away and given to childless couples of European backgrounds, both in Israel and abroad. Although previous inquiries have dismissed claims of mass abductions, the suspicions have lingered and contributed to a long-simmering fault line between Jews of European origin and those of Middle Eastern backgrounds.

“This is among the most painful affairs in the history of the state of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “The time has come for the families whose infants were taken from them to receive recognition by the state and government of Israel, and financial compensation as well.”

Ambassador killed: The Italian ambassador to Congo, an Italian Carabinieri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed Monday when gunmen attacked a U.N. convoy traveling to a school in eastern Congo, the Italian Foreign Ministry and residents said.

Luca Attanasio, serving at the Italian embassy in the country since 2017, Carabinieri officer Vittorio Iacovacci and their driver, Moustapha Milambo, were killed, officials said. Other members of the convoy were wounded and taken to a hospital, the World Food Program said.

Congo’s interior ministry said four others in the convoy were kidnapped, but one person has since been found by Congo’s army.

The ambush occurred as the convoy was traveling from Goma, Congo’s eastern regional capital, to visit a WFP school project in Rutshuru, the U.N. agency said.

Eastern Congo is home to myriad rebel groups all vying for control of the mineral-rich Central African nation that is the size of Western Europe.

Appeal for Iran detainees: The family of a father and son detained for years in Iran appealed Monday to President Joe Biden to make the freeing of Iranian American detainees a condition of any deals or concessions with that country.

“It is beyond outrageous for Iran to continue playing with my father’s life,” said Babak Namazi, whose 84-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, is marking his fifth year under Iranian control.

The Biden administration and Iranian officials have signaled to each other in recent months that they want to reenter a 2015 nuclear pact, in which Iran accepts limits on its nuclear program in exchange for easing of international sanctions.

The Obama administration entered the deal, only to have the Trump administration pull out in favor of what the U.S. called a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran instead.

Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF representative, was detained in 2016 when he traveled to Tehran to try to win the release of his son Siamak Namazi, a businessman detained in Iran a year earlier.

Myanmar protests swell: Protesters gathered in Myanmar’s biggest city Monday despite the ruling junta’s threat to use lethal force against people who join a general strike against the military’s takeover three weeks ago.

More than 1,000 protesters gathered near the U.S. Embassy in Yangon despite barriers blocking the way, but left to avoid a confrontation after 20 military trucks with riot police arrived nearby. Protests continued in other parts of the city, including next to Sule Pagoda, a traditional gathering point.

Factories, workplaces and shops were shuttered across the country Monday in response to the call for a nationwide strike.