Prisoner Releases

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cleared the way Thursday for the release of a terminally ill inmate serving a life prison sentence for murdering her abusive boyfriend in 1982, in a controversial case championed by advocates for battered women. Deborah Peagler, 49, is expected to be released early next week, according to one of her attorneys. She has spent more than 26 years behind bars for luring her boyfriend to a park near Lawndale, where two men beat and strangled him. The state's Board of Parole Hearings decided last month that Peagler should be freed, despite opposition from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Scotland's justice minister Monday defended his much-criticized decision to free the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. The Scottish administration has faced unrelenting criticism from both the U.S. government and some of the families of American victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing since it announced last week that it was freeing Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi on compassionate grounds. The terminally ill Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, returned to his native Libya on Thursday, where he was greeted by crowds waving Libyan and Scottish flags.

Reporting from San Francisco, Orinda, Calif., and Antioch, Calif. -- As details continued to emerge about Jaycee Lee Dugard's alleged kidnapper, questions intensified Monday over how Phillip Garrido could have served only 11 years in prison after a 1976 rape and kidnapping for which he had been given a 50-year federal sentence as well as a life term in Nevada. Garrido was convicted of kidnapping in federal court for abducting Katherine Callaway in South Lake Tahoe on a November night nearly 33 years ago and driving her -- handcuffed and hogtied -- to Reno.

A San Fernando Valley man whose murder conviction was overturned last month walked out of court Monday a free man after prosecutors announced they would not retry him for his mother's 1983 slaying. "How can you put this into words?" said Bruce Lisker, 44, after a judge formally dismissed the murder charge during a hearing in a Los Angeles courtroom. "It's unbelievable." In requesting the dismissal, Head Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon said much of the physical evidence had been lost or destroyed and some witnesses have died.

A 40-year-old man who spent more than five months in Los Angeles County jail accused of sexually assaulting a Santa Monica College student on campus was released Thursday after DNA tests threw the case into doubt. Chase Guy Reynolds, who was living in Topanga when he was arrested April 7, was charged after the 18-year-old student identified him as the man who attacked her near the restrooms in the college's library building. The woman told police that the assailant robbed her, licked her stomach and sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.

Mitrice Richardson is afraid of the dark and always has been, says her mother, Latice Sutton, who remembers that quirk when she thinks about her daughter's release from a jail cell at a Los Angeles County sheriff's substation in Calabasas in the predawn hours of Sept. 17. Wearing jeans and a dark T-shirt, Richardson, 24, had no car, no cellphone and no purse as she left the station about 1:25 a.m. The nearest Starbucks and fast-food restaurants are about a mile away in a shopping area.

In a quiet residential neighborhood in Long Beach 13 years ago, Dick Keech fired four shots at his son-in-law, who lay face-down on a neighbor's lawn, bleeding from an earlier gunshot wound. "It's all over," he said later to a neighbor who ran out at the sound. "He won't bother anyone anymore." On Monday, a Long Beach judge said he would grant Keech, 89, the compassion he did not show his 47-year-old son-in-law, Nick Candy, at the time of the killing in 1996. Judge William T. Garner ordered Keech, who was serving a life term for murder, released on grounds that he is medically incapacitated.

A San Diego woman captured last year after escaping from a Michigan prison in 1976 and living as a suburban mother will be released from the original sentence that put her behind bars, a state parole board ruled. Susan LeFevre will be freed May 19, but her behavior in prison will be monitored for misconduct until that date, said Russ Marlan, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. "If there is significant misconduct, they'll revisit the case," he said. LeFevre, 54, escaped after serving about 14 months of a 10-year drug sentence.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick was released from jail early today after serving a 99-day sentence. Kilpatrick, 38, and his ex-chief of staff admitted lying during a 2007 whistle-blowers' trial, denying a romantic relationship and their role in a police official's firing. Text messages they'd sent to each other belied their testimony, leading to perjury charges. In a plea agreement, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice and agreed to pay the city $1 million in restitution.

An Australian author imprisoned last month for insulting Thailand's crown prince in a little-read 2005 novel has been freed, the Australian government said today. The case against Harry Nicolaides, 41, who received a three-year term, was one of a slew of investigations involving lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy, that rights groups say are stifling freedom of speech and political dissent. Lese-majeste is a serious offense in Thailand, where many people regard King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, as semi-divine.