Deputy who killed wife finally gets his plea deal: 15 years

By Ray Huard
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
September 11, 2008

SAN DIEGO COURTS – A former sheriff's deputy who shot and killed his wife during a fight in their Alpine home with their 4-year-old son in the room was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday...

Lowell Bruce was given the maximum sentence allowed by law after pleading guilty in August 2007 to voluntary manslaughter for the December 2006 death of Kristin Maxwell-Bruce, San Diego Superior Court Judge Michael D. Wellington said.

It took more than a year and three judges to finally impose the sentence.

Bruce, a deputy since 1998, initially was charged with murder. But in July 2007 prosecutors and defense lawyers proposed a deal under which he would plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and get a 15-year prison sentence.

El Cajon Superior Court Judge Herbert J. Exarhos rejected the deal, saying it raised questions about whether Bruce was getting special treatment because of his job in law enforcement.

A second judge, Allan J. Preckel, later agreed to it but then changed his mind, saying he wanted the discretion to sentence Bruce to a longer or shorter term. In June, Preckel was removed from the case for what an Orange County judge said was an appearance of bias against Bruce, and the case was assigned to Wellington.

Tom Condit and Chandra Levy: mirror images in Egypt?

Could the following story happen in America? It could, but it hasn't.


By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI
AP
Sept. 2, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt
An Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon was arrested Tuesday in the death of a Lebanese pop singer, Egypt's chief prosecutor said, accusing the man of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her.

Hisham Talaat, a lawmaker from the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, is accused of ordering the death of 30-year-old Suzanne Tamim, who was found decapitated in her Dubai apartment in July, chief prosecutor Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud told The Associated Press...