Court briefs for April 24, 2001

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 10:51 a.m.

Two life terms handed LV man

Curtis Barker of Las Vegas, convicted of first-degree murder in the Jan. 1, 2000, death of Roy Powell, was sentenced Monday to two consecutive no-parole life terms.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz used a suveillance tape from the Orleans hotel to prove the case against Barker. On the tape, the men were seen walking into their room together and Barker, 37, was seen leaving the room 20 minutes later with a duffel bag. No one entered the room again until Powell's body was found.

Deputy public defender Howard Brooks admitted his client hit Powell, 32, over the head with a bottle of liquor and kicked him repeatedly, but only after Powell attacked him with a wrought iron lamp.

The jury rejected Barker's claims of self-defense.

Appeal made over blood samples

Jessica Williams' attorney has filed an appeal seeking to overturn her conviction in the deaths of six teenagers March 19, 2000.

John Watkins argues that Williams' conviction should be overturned because the state failed to ensure that her blood was refrigerated after tests were conducted to see how much marijuana and Ecstasy was in her system.

The state's failure to do so prevented him from being able to re-test the blood and verify the results, Watkins claims.

Williams was sentenced to 18 to 48 years in prison on March 30 after a jury found that she had the active ingredient of marijuana in her system when her van ran off the road and struck the teens.

Two arrested in theft

Two men have been arrested in connection with a West Las Vegas bank robbery Monday.

Jamaal Anthony Lewis and Orlando Lamar Hawkins, both 21, were arrested about 11:30 a.m., shortly after the Bank of America at 835 N. Martin L. King Blvd., was robbed, the FBI said.

Two gun-wielding men in stocking masks entered the bank at 10:45 a.m., took an undisclosed sum of cash and fled, the FBI said, noting that witnesses inside the bank followed the robbers' getaway vehicle and phoned police with a description of the car and its license plate number.

This was the 56th bank robbery in Las Vegas this year.