Utah High Court Upholds LWOP For Juvenile: In a 4-1 decision, the Utah Supreme Court has upheld the life without parole (LWOP) sentence for a juvenile convicted of rape and murder. Pat Reavy of Deseret News reports that Robert Houston was 17-years-old when he violently raped and stabbed to death a youth counselor who had been assigned to work with troubled teens. Since Houston was a minor at the time of the murder, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty and instead pursued a life sentence. Houston, who already had two prior knife-point sexual assault charges prior to the killing, is the only juvenile in Utah state history to be sentenced to life without parole.
Mexico Captures Notorious Drug Kingpin: Authorities in Mexico have captured one of the country's most wanted drug lords, 49-year-old Servando "La Tuta" Gomez. Anahi Rama and Lizbeth Diaz of Reuters report that aside from being wanted in his native country of Mexico, Gomez was also wanted in the U.S. on charges of trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine. He is also believed to have been involved in the murders of 12 Mexican federal police officers in 2009. More than 100,000 people have been killed in gang-related violence in Mexico since the country's government began cracking down on drug cartels in 2007.