Regional Briefs: Death-penalty bill barely gets by committee

RALEIGH -- N.C. House legislators again have narrowly approved legislation designed to prevent a murder suspect or death-row prisoner with severe mental illness from facing capital punishment.

A House appropriations subcommittee voted 5-4 yesterday in favor of creating a process whereby the death penalty would be removed as a sentencing option for a murder defendant with a severe mental disability. The maximum penalty would be life in prison without parole.

The bill passed a judiciary committee last week and now heads to the House floor.

Opponents said that criminal procedure already allows jurors to take mental illness into account at sentencing. A state attorney said that the bill creates a process that would cost millions of dollars to carry out if it becomes law.

Ministry taking items for fire victims

Sunnyside Ministry of the Moravian Church is collecting donations of household items to help the 97 people who were displaced July 14 when a fire severely damaged the Alder's Point apartment complex.

Tommy Cole, the agency's director, said that his organization has received "hundreds and hundreds of bags" of towels, sheets, dishes, silverware and other items that will be distributed to the displaced residents.

"We are trying to get it sorted out and organized," he said.

His organization will give most of the donated items to the residents when they find an apartment, Cole said. Staff members will accept items from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the ministry's office at 319 Haled St. For more information, call 724-7558.

The repairs to Alder's Point are expected to take several months. Displaced residents are staying at the service center of the Northwest North Carolina chapter of the American Red Cross and at local hotels and motels.

N.C. must rehire employee, judge rules

RALEIGH -- A judge says that North Carolina must rehire an employee who was fired after he complained that the Division of Motor Vehicles might be giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants.

Judge Howard Manning of Wake Superior Court ruled Tuesday that Jeffrey M. Brown has a right to return to his DMV job and to $70,000 in back pay.

Brown worked as a license examiner in the DMV New Bern office from July 2006 until April 2007. He was fired after he complained that state policy allowing immigrants with temporary work visas to renew licenses for longer than their visa period conflicted with state law.

Brown said after he won his lawsuit that he was being forced to give licenses to illegal immigrants and his supervisors told him to be quiet.

Duke closes one of its summer camps

DURHAM -- Duke University is closing one of its summer camps in North Carolina after several young participants tested positive for the flu.

David Jarmul, a spokesman for Duke Univer­sity, said yesterday that parents of students in the Duke Talent Identification Program have been notified to pick up their children after more than 25 of them tested positive for the flu or flu-like symptoms.

Jarmul said that the decision to close the three-week camp early was a precaution. No students have been hospitalized and the symptoms are mild to moderate and consistent with the normal influenza virus.

There are 260 students ages 13 to 16 enrolled in the program for academically gifted students.

Mental hospital will again get money

GOLDSBORO -- A mental hospital where a patient sitting in a chair for nearly 24 hours died will soon be able to get federal money after spending nearly a year without the money, state regulators said yesterday.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said federal inspectors told Cherry Hospital leaders that they will recommend that the facility be recertified to get treatment money for federal Medicaid and Medicare patients.

The state should get about $1 million a month in Medicaid and Medicare, hospital director Philip Cook said.

The federal government decertified the Goldsboro hospital last September after allegations of patient mistreatment. In April 2008, a 50-year-old man died after choking on medication while he was left sitting in a chair for nearly 24 hours over the course of four work shifts.

Two staff members also were accused of beat­ing a different patient last August, at the same time Cherry leaders started patient-care retraining to show investigators that it was trying to fix problems.