Nichols' Sentence Sparks Reform Bid:  Georgia legislators, frustrated over an Atlanta jury's failure to unanimously choose a death sentence for the murderer of four people, are introducing legislation allowing the sentence when less than 12 jurors agree.  A story by New York Times reporter Robbie Brown discusses the response by state lawmakers to the jury's decision not to impose a death sentence.  Nichols on trial for rape in 2005, overpowered a female deputy and took her gun, then shot and killed the judge, the court reporter, a deputy who tried to prevent his escape and a federal agent a few miles from the courthouse. After Friday's jury decision, the judge sentenced Nichols to 11 life sentences.  The story quotes a Harvard Law School Prof who suggests that allowing non-unanimous juries to select a death sentence might be unconstitutional. 

Adam Walsh's Killer Identified:  Florida police reported yesterday that a serial murderer serving five life sentences admitted to the kidnap and brutal murder six year old Adam Walsh in 1981.  An Associated Press story reports that Ottis Toole confessed that he was the little boy's murderer, but later recanted.  The child's severed head was found in a canal by fishermen two weeks after his abduction from a shopping mall.  After his son's death his father, hotel developer John Walsh, dedicated his life to improving law enforcement's handling of missing children cases and to tracking down criminals who abduct children.  He founded and hosted the television show "America's Most Wanted" which enlisted millions of viewers to help solve such cases. His advocacy helped create a national database and toll-free call-in line to help find missing children.  Toole, who John Walsh had long suspected, died in prison in 1996.  

Methadone 'does not reduce crime': BBC News has this report on research from the University of Glasgow, finding "those using methadone took heroin on a fewer amount of days, but they committed just as much crime."