8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2008
TRIAL
Ex-cop appeals for his life
Jury returns to hear Cutts' pleas, consider life or death
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Convicted murderer Bobby Cuts Jr., second from right, stands with his attorneys Myron Watson, left, Caroleyn K. Ranke, second from left, and Fernando Mack at the end a sentencing hearing Monday in Canton, Ohio. A jury will decide if Cuts deserves the death penalty for the murder of Jessie Davis and her unborn child last summer.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CANTON, Ohio — A former police officer sobbed and apologized for killing his pregnant lover and their unborn child as he appealed Monday to the jury that convicted him to spare his life.
"I accept responsibility," Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, said from the witness stand. Cutts was convicted Feb. 15 of aggravated murder in the death of the nearly full-term fetus and of murder in the death of Jessie Davis, 26.
He could receive death, life in prison without parole or life with parole after 20, 25 or 30 years. If the jury recommends death, the judge can reduce it to life, something that has happened just seven times in Ohio in 27 years.
Reading from handwritten notes, Cutts said he could not express in words how he felt knowing that he had killed Davis and the unborn girl, who was to be named Chloe.
"If I could do anything to
bring them back to you, I would," Cutts, sitting at the witness stand just steps from Davis' teary-eyed parents, said.
"I pray that you find peace and you some-day find room
for forgiveness," he said during his roughly six minutes on the witness stand. He said he never intended to harm Davis or their baby.
Two weeks ago, Cutts sobbed on the witness stand as he testified during the trial that he had accidentally killed Davis with an
elbow blow to the throat during a disagreement and dumped her body in a park in a panic.
Cutts also apologized to his family and to community members who searched nine days for Davis before Cutts finally admitted that he knew where
"If I could do anything to bring them back to you, I would."
her body
BOBBY CUTTS JR.
Former police officer
was:
Under court rules, Cutts could not be questioned by prosecutors after giving his statement. Prosecutor
Chryssa Hartnett said Cutts deserves to die for what he did.
Cutts' attorney, Myron Watson, said the defense accepted and respected the verdict but asked jurors to listen closely to defense witnesses called to appeal for his life.
"Certainly, Mr. Cutt's life is important," Watson said.
Cutts' divorced parents, his sister, an ex-wife and a fellow officer testified, describing an upstanding individual who was attentive to his family and children and the residents whose neighborhoods he patrolled in Canton.
Prosecutions told the jury that Cutts killed Davis and the unborn baby last June at her Lake Township home to get out of child support payments for a fourth child
The couple's two and a half-year-old son Blake, who was found home alone, gave investigators their first clues to his mother's disappearance when he said, "Mommy's crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in the rug," and later, "Daddy's mad."
For more than a week, Cutts denied knowledge of her whereabouts as thousands searched in the area. He finally led authorities to the body, wrapped in a comforter. Cutts has resigned from his job.
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KU researchers explain flight theory on'NOVA'
BY MARY SORRICK msorrick@kansan.com
FOSSILS
www.newgradnursing.com
M
In the basement of the Natural History Museum lies a 130-million-year-old fossil that could reshape popular theory about the evolution of birds' flight.
Larry Dean Martin, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum, and David Burnham, dinosaur preparator at the museum, cited a well-preserved Micraptor fossil from China as evidence that flight did not develop on the ground, as many paleontologists believe, but in the trees.
That's where two University researchers developed a theory about the bird, called a Micraaptor, that has earned them a spot on an upcoming episode of the PBS show "NOVA."
The "NOVA" episode, which airs on channel 11 at 7 p.m. tonight, will explore that and other theories about the Microraptor.
The Microraptor, a four-winged dinosaur-like bird, lived during the early Cretaceous period, which spanned between 145 million and 65 million years ago.
The animal's hip joints, which Martin said fit the model of an animal that sprawls its legs, would have made it difficult for the Micracaptor to move quickly on the ground.
dinosaurs were animals that, moved on only two feet.
Despite this, Martin and Burnham said many paleontologists were still wed to the idea that the Microraptor was a terrestrial dinosaur.
Martin said that even if the Micracorpa had downward-pointing legs, its feathers would have tripped it and prevented it from gaining enough ground speed to actually fly.
Based on the Micraaptor's hip joints and feather position, Martin and Burnham proposed that it was a tree-dwelling animal that flew by gliding from tree to tree.
Paleontologists thought that the bird flew by gaining acceleration from running on the ground.
In defense of the Micraptor, a reconstruction of the bird's skeleton led Martin and Burnham to the conclusion that the Micraptor's legs pointed outward like wings.
He said paleontologists continued to advocate their origin of flight theory at the expense of other evidence
"These animals are pretty much going to get eaten if they land on the ground," Martin said.
"In nature, simpler is better," Burnham said. "Physics, anometry, the fossil record are all being modified because they are convinced they have the right answer."
Burnham said part of the misconception was because of the belief that
Martin and Burnham also built a life-sized Micracorator glider. When thrown, the glider moves through the air in a way that supports the treedwelling theory about the nature of the Micracorator.
Burnham said that Micraptor theory supported the idea that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs but represent their own evolutionary line. He said several prominent paleontologists, including Bob Bakker, a consultant for "Jurassic Park," also have begun to support their idea.
Although the researchers didn't know how much screen time they would get in the "NOVA" special, Burnham said he was optimistic.
"Just the fact that we're in it, we win," he said.
Edited by Sasha Roe
Kristin Hoopa/KANSAN
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
David Alexander, assistant professor of biological sciences, tests a model Microraptor. The model, based on a Microraptor fossil, supports the idea that Microraptors glided from tree to tree.
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Larry Martin, curator of vertebrate paleontology, left, and David Burnham, dinosaur preparator, right, display their model of the Microraptor in the Natural History Museum, Monday. Martin and Burnham will be featured in a NOVA special airing tonight on PBS at 7 p.m.
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