Court briefs for December 14, 2004

Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2004 | 8:52 a.m.

Forced medication of suspect eyed

District Judge Donald Mosley may soon have to decide whether a 48-year-old man at the state's mental health facility in Sparks should be forced to take his medication.

Charles Anthony Greco was sent to Lake's Crossing after allegedly slashing his elderly father to death with a butcher knife. Greco was diagnosed as a schizophrenic.

Doctors at Lake's Crossing, the states's mental hospital, have sent letters to Greco's lawyers and prosecutors saying Greco is "not taking the medication he needs to be deemed competent."

Prosecutors said they would prepare an order for Mosley to sign to require Lake's Crossing doctors to "involuntarily medicate" Greco.

If Greco is ever deemed competent to stand trial, he faces a charge of murder of a victim over 65 for allegedly murdering his father, 84-year-old Albert Greco on Jan. 20.

Man sentenced in shooting

District Judge Salley Loehrer sentenced a 27-year-old alleged gang member to 17 to 45 years in prison for using an assault rifle to shoot at police officers, but the man could face the death penalty if convicted at his retrial on charges of murder.

"When you know you are a felon and you are running around with huge weapons of mass destruction, because with a cartridge of 30 shells you are carrying as close to a weapon of mass destruction as a person can, which is what an AK-47 is, you have to suffer the consequences," Loehrer told the defendant, Samuel Moten.

Moten also is charged with murder in the death of 27-year-old Marcel Travel Jackson. Jackson was killed during a car chase on June 15, 2003.

The jury was unable to resolve a 9-3 split in which the majority had wanted to find Moten guilty on the murder charge. He is to be retried before a new jury on Aug. 8 before Loeher.