After three hours of deliberation Friday afternoon, a jury in Spencer returned a verdict of guilty in the murder trial of a man accused of killing his wife. Seventy-two-year-old Harold Duncan was convicted in the January 2003 shooting of his wife in what prosecutors said was an attempted murder-suicide. Duncan’s attorney argued the couple had struggled over the gun before Kay Duncan was shot in the chest and back, and that she’d fired the shot that left her husband with a head wound. But Clay County assistant attorney Mike Houchins said the jury reached the right verdict. Sentencing is set for Monday morning in the Clay County courthouse. Under Iowa law, the sentence for first-degree murder automatically is life in prison, and the case is also automatically appealed.
ICLU fine with Ten Commandments in Statehouse
The Iowa Civil Liberties Union has taken a look at a display of the Ten Commandments posted in the statehouse this week — and doesn’t care. ICLU director Ben Stone says this is one of a set of ten documents donated by private citizens and originally intended for display in the state’s brand-new judicial building. Stone says in September, there was a well-publicized effort to place them in the judicial building, but the government’s judicial branch declined. Sponsors then went to House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Sioux City Republican, and he approved having them put in the statehouse. But Stone says they’re not displayed prominently in the part of the capital building where tourists or visitors are likely to see them. The Commandments have been placed behind the House chamber, on the third floor, clear at the end of a hallway. Stone says the framed document display is not “prominent.” While the civil liberties union is known for taking a stand on publicly-sponsored displays of religion, Stone says the group agreed no action is merited in this case.
