Life Terms

Hollywood arson suspect Harry Burkhart terrorized Los Angeles residents with a four-day rampage over New Year's weekend because he was "motivated by his rage against Americans," prosecutors alleged in court papers filed Wednesday. Burkhart appeared in court briefly to be arraigned on 37 felony counts of arson that could send him to prison for life. He looked disheveled and distracted as jail authorities have him under suicide watch. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Upinder S. Kalra set bail at $2.85 million and agreed to postpone arraignment until Jan. 24 at the request of Burkhart's public defender.

Reporting from San Diego -- Former drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal racketeering and money-laundering conspiracy charges, marking the end of a decade-old case that targeted what once was Mexico's most powerful organized crime group. Arellano Felix, 58, the former leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, transformed Tijuana into a major trafficking corridor into the U.S. during a 16-year reign that ended with his arrest in Mexico in 2002. The organization, also known as the Tijuana cartel, poured tons of drugs into California and generated profits that fueled a criminal empire that terrorized rivals, partnered with corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials and funded flashy lifestyles that became the template for Hollywood depictions of Mexican organized crime.

Two white men were given life sentences Wednesday for the racially motivated murder of a black teenager nearly 19 years ago in a case that rocked British society and led to a major shake-up within Scotland Yard. However, the men are expected to serve far less time in prison for the killing of Stephen Lawrence, the 18-year-old who was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus in South London in April 1993. Lawrence was the victim of an unprovoked attack by thugs who shouted racial epithets as they punched and knifed him. A botched police investigation followed, undermined by what an official inquiry said was pervasive racism within the police force.

"Carlos the Jackal" — the Cold War warrior, international terrorist and once the world's most wanted man — was handed a second life sentence by a Paris court Thursday after being convicted of masterminding a series of bombings in France 30 years ago. Just before midnight, a specially convened panel of judges announced that it had found the 62-year-old former Marxist revolutionary, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, guilty of the attacks...

A special court in India sentenced 31 people to life in prison Wednesday after convicting them of killing dozens of Muslims during communal riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat nine years ago. An additional 42 of the mostly Hindu defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence. The convictions, on charges of murder, attempted murder and arson, involved the deaths of 33 Muslims who were burned in a building as they tried to escape a raging mob. Twenty-eight bodies were found at the scene and five people died later of their injuries.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider putting a new national limit on life sentences for juveniles who are age 14 or younger. Nationwide, there are 73 prisoners who are serving life terms with no possible parole for their role in homicides committed when they were 14 or younger. The justices voted to hear appeals from two of those inmates — one from Alabama and one from Arkansas — to decide whether such a sentence for a very young criminal violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Reporting from San Diego -- A federal judge on Friday sentenced a Mexican drug smuggler to life in prison for running over a U.S. Border Patrol agent in 2008 while speeding across the Imperial County sand dunes to Mexico. Jesus Navarro-Montes, 25, swerved and hit Agent Luis Aguilar, 32, at about 55 mph after the officer laid down a spike strip in an attempt to stop the Hummer that Navarro-Montes was driving. The life sentence marks the end of a long and sometimes frustrating cross-border effort to arrest and extradite Navarro-Montes — who fled to Mexico and, because of a prosecutorial snafu, was able to avoid extradition for more than a year.

Authorities arrested a radical Lebanese cleric Sunday after a car chase punctuated by gunfire. Days earlier, Omar Bakri had been convicted on charges of inciting a bloody months-long confrontation between the government and an Al Qaeda-linked militant group. A military tribunal on Thursday sentenced Bakri, a Lebanese Syrian national, to life imprisonment for his role in provoking the summer 2007 conflict between the group Fatah Islam and Lebanese security forces that left dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless in the Nahr Bared refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli.

Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani immigrant who admitted he'd hoped to kill as many as 40 people by detonating a car bomb in Times Square in May, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison. U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Shahzad, 31, appeared proud but defiant in court and unapologetic for trying to kill as many Americans as he could. He wore dark blue prison garb with a white knit cap on his head.

A homeless man who went on a crime rampage in downtown Long Beach that included slashing two women's throats was sentenced Monday to 11 life terms and 433 years in prison. Charles Juan Proctor, 45, was convicted this month of 22 counts including attempted murder, kidnapping for robbery and mayhem. He was accused of robbing various Long Beach businesses and one in Hawaiian Gardens for cash ranging from $35 to about $700, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rose. In the process, Proctor threatened, slashed, stabbed or strangled six female shop owners, according to Rose.