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The executive order Thursday by the new Republican governor follows Vice President Mike Pence's refusal to pardon Cooper before leaving office.
Cooper asked the former governor for a pardon on an armed robbery conviction, a crime for which Cooper had maintained innocence since he was arrested in Elkhart in January 1997. He would later spend more than eight years in prison.
The Chicago native had moved to the Indiana city months earlier to try to build a better life for his wife and three young children. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison later that year.
Holcomb said the pardon is for Cooper’s robbery conviction. A separate battery conviction was not pardoned.
“After careful and thoughtful consideration and review, something I’ve thought about every day over the last month, just earlier today I issued a pardon to Mr. Keith Cooper for his past and I believe wrongful armed robbery felony," Holcomb told reporters at a Thursday news conference.
A separate battery conviction was not pardoned. Cooper in 1997 pleaded guilty to that felony charge. He said he was defending himself against an inmate while in the Elkhart County Jail on the robbery charge. Cooper sought a pardon on that conviction, too, though Holcomb said Cooper never claimed innocence on that charge.
Cooper was released from prison after a 2006 deal: He could withdraw his petition that sought exoneration and, in exchange, could walk out of jail a free man. The deal was offered by the Elkhart County prosecutor, Curtis Hill, who is now serving his first term as Indiana's attorney general.
Hill, who was not the prosecutor when Cooper was wrongly convicted, said Thursday in an email to IndyStar that "it's the governor’s prerogative to issue pardons as he sees fit."
In November, Hill went on the record to defend Cooper's conviction in a court filing opposing Cooper's request for a new trial.
"The conviction and sentence entered against said defendant were proper under Indiana law and the defendant's petition is completely without merit," a legal filing from the prosecutor's office said.
On Thursday, Hill said, "We trust he (Holcomb) reviewed the evidence and the record carefully in this case before reaching his decision. We all have our respective jobs to do, and we look forward to continuing to work with Gov. Holcomb."
On the night of Oct. 29, 1996, two men tried to rob someone in the same apartment complex where the Coopers lived. Elkhart Police Department Detective Stephen Rezutko identified one of the two suspects, Christopher Parish. He was the shorter, stockier suspect.
The other suspect — the one who shot and almost killed one of the victims during a scuffle — was still on the loose.
This suspect was described as a tall skinny black man. Rezutko saw Cooper for the first time at the police station after he was arrested on allegations of purse snatching. He was taller than 6 feet, and he weighed 170 pounds at most.
The veteran detective told the apartment robbery victims of his new discovery. The man who had been shot, 17-year-old Michael Kershner, positively identified Cooper.
As Cooper sat in the county jail, awaiting his trial in the purse-snatching case, Rezutko questioned him. Cooper said he was taken to a small room, where the detective showed him the police report on the attempted murder and armed robbery incident, along with all the victims’ and witnesses’ names. “They identified you,” Cooper recalled Rezutko telling him.
About a month after he was arrested, a jury found Cooper not guilty in the purse-snatching case. He was taken back to the Elkhart County Jail after the verdict to be processed for his release. He was then charged with armed robbery and attempted murder.
In 1997, Cooper, who now lives in Chicago, was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 40 years in prison. But by 2005, the evidence that landed him behind bars was unraveling.
He petitioned for exoneration. He withdrew the petition in the 2006 deal with Hill to walk free.
Since 2009 Cooper, 49, has sought a pardon with the help of Elliot Slosar, attorney for the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School.
Slosar said Thursday he is pleased that justice is finally served.
"The courageous decision by Gov. Holcomb has provided a measure of happiness and closure to all the victims in this case — the victims of these tragic and senseless crimes, and Keith Cooper, a victim in his own right, who lost a decade of his life for a crime he did not commit," Slosar said.
Slosar is planning a news conference Friday.
In October, Slosar filed the petition that asked an Elkhart Circuit Court judge to grant Cooper a new trial — an attempt to fulfill Pence's request that Cooper exhaust his options in court before seeking a pardon from the governor's office.
The petition said an "unprecedented" amount of newly discovered evidence meant that Cooper's conviction should be vacated. It referenced witnesses who later recanted their statements and said the lead detective heavily influenced their identification of Cooper from a photo lineup. It also argued that DNA from a hat worn by the perpetrator pointed to a different suspect, a man who is serving a 60-year prison sentence in Michigan for second-degree murder.
Pence's request that Cooper seek a new trial was largely seen as a way of leaving Cooper's potential pardon to Indiana's next governor.
The news of Cooper's pardon reverberated through the halls of the Statehouse on Thursday. Holcomb's decision touched other lawmakers.
House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said the pardon gave him a new perspective on the new governor.
"He took a deep dive in the facts, and he felt very confident that the felony he was convicted of, not the one that occurred in prison, he needed to be pardoned on that," Bosma said. "I support him on that regard, and I appreciate him spending so much time on one person.
"I think that says a lot about Eric Holcomb and where his heart lies."
Caleb Walden, an east-side resident who started a Twitter campaign urging a pardon, was moved as well.
"This is a good first step," he said, "but there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered. Why is the battery conviction not pardoned?
"This needed to happen four or five years ago."
Issuing an executive order to declare a disaster emergency for an area of East Chicago grappling with lead contamination.
Ending contract talks for a cellphone tower leasing deal that former Gov. Mike Pence, now vice president, had assured Hoosiers would fund $50 million in bicentennial projects. The funding never materialized.
Tapping former Pence chief of staff, Jim Atterholt, to return to his role as chairman of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Atterholt served as the commission’s chairman from 2009 to 2014.
SWAT officers were called out Wednesday night after a KCSO deputy vehicle was shot at.
The shooting happened around 10:30 p.m. on August 29 in Rosamond. The deputy was driving down Dinkey Avenue when someone shot at and hit the vehicle.
The SWAT team was called out, but not needed. A suspect was taken into custody.
No injuries were reported. The suspect's identity has not been released at this time.
These Texans Cheerleaders sure know how to have fun. Just a gentle reminder as we end our summer and start the NFL season next week. Enjoy the video below.
Crews will install a powerful new instrument, start assembling a new "self-seeding" system that will focus soft X-ray laser pulses into a bright, narrow band of colors, and upgrade several laser systems during two months of routine downtime at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser.
LAMP replaces an instrument called CAMP that was central to early experiments at LCLS. LAMP improves upon some CAMP capabilities, offering more versatility with experiments that require other laser systems, better coupling to those laser systems, and a simpler arrangement for changing experimental configurations, as examples.
LAMP was built and paid for through a collaboration between SLAC's LCLS and Western Michigan University, with funding from a Department of Energy grant to WMU and support from the Max Planck Advanced Study Group in Hamburg, Germany.
A separate project, the new "soft X-ray self-seeding" (SXRSS) system, is designed to produce X-ray laser pulses of higher brightness in a much narrower band of wavelengths, or colors. A similar system for "hard," or higher-energy, X-rays was installed and commissioned last year; both are considered major improvements that will give researchers more control in studying and manipulating matter at the atomic level and deliver sharper images of materials, molecules and chemical reactions. The setup for this system replaces one segment of the magnetic undulator where electron bunches from SLAC's linear accelerator emit X-rays for the LCLS.
A short-pulse laser that is used to create superhot plasmas and other exotic states of matter at LCLS is getting a high-power boost that will increase its peak power from about 4 terawatts to about 30 terawatts. An additional upgrade to 200 terawatts planned by 2015 would push it toward the ranks of the highest-power lasers in the nation. A terawatt is 1 trillion watts, enough to power 10 billion 100-watt light bulbs. Eduardo Granados, a laser scientist working on the short-pulse laser upgrade, said many components for that system were custom-built, including the device designed to "clean" and shape the pulses for improved performance. The first phase of the upgrade should be complete by year-end.
A new LCLS "injector" laser, used to initiate the electron bunches that travel through a section of SLAC's linear accelerator and later emit X-ray light, will be installed alongside the primary injector laser for LCLS, replacing an older backup system. Used together, these two laser systems can produce two separate electron bunches at once; scientists will study ways to feed those bunches to separate X-ray laser lines, as is planned in LCLS upgrades.
A 10-terawatt high-power laser system, installed along the linac to drive plasma wakefield acceleration experiments at the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET), will be outfitted with new equipment that will expand its uses for other types of research, such as the creation and study of superhot dense matter. Additional upgrades planned during this calendar year could increase this laser's peak power to 15-20 terawatts. Alan Fry, deputy director of SLAC's Laser Science and Technology Division, said, "We wanted this laser available to our laser scientists and other scientists at SLAC to be able to use during FACET's downtime." Fry added, "The LCLS injector laser that is being replaced will be used for other laser research, including experiments that are complementary to the offline research planned with the FACET laser."
Also during this period, about a dozen SLAC interns are engaged in a variety of science- and office-related projects supporting the laser division and LCLS, said Fry, who manages the interns. "We had an explosion of interest,” he said. All of the interns are undergraduate students pursuing technical degrees. The interns arrived in late June and early July and will wrap up their work by early September.
"We are grooming potential future employees and potential future Stanford graduate students," Fry said.
(Washington, DC--March 25, 2005) The current civil unrest in Bishkek has led to a "quiet but tense situation" after the flight of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev from the presidential palace on Thursday, March 24, 2005, according to RFE/RL reporters on the scene in Bishkek. Outside the capitol, people are celebrating the victory of the revolution, but expecting "big trouble" tonight in Bishkek--that was the collective judgement of Tyntchtykbek Tchoroev, director of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service based in Prague; Jean-Christophe Peuch, RFE/RL's senior correspondent in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; and Daniel Kimmage, RFE/RL's Washington-based regional analyst for Central Asia.
According to Peuch and Tchoroev, the latest reports are that three people were confirmed dead at a morgue in Bishkek, all killed during looting on Thursday night. There are some injuries among participants of a peaceful rally in the central square in Bishkek, who were attacked by groups with sticks before demonstrators stormed the Kyrgyz "White House"--the main building of the Kyrgyz government.
Ousted President Askar Akaev has fled the country, but refused to resign from his position as president. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a central opposition leader was named the interim government's president. He assured citizens that the interim government will create transparent and free elections within 3 months, Peuch reported.
It is crucial for the new leaders to establish control and stability quickly, said Tchoroev. "Citizens are rallying outside the White House, urging the interim government to stabilize the country. Feliks Kulov, former vice president who was jailed for politically motivated reasons, is now in charge of all law enforcement operations." He added that the police, who are "morally weak" from yesterday's events, are being aided by the protestors and non-governmental organizations helping to patrol Bishkek.
The Kyrgyz opposition, a multi-ethnic and diverse opposition, is divided in many regions, "but the main thing is these opposition forces are all for democrative change," Tchoroev said, "People rose against this system for fair and free elections. They are ready for a new system, given only through fair elections."
Reactions from neighboring countries have included an accusation that outside forces may have aided in the overthrow of a weak internal regime in Kyrgyzstan, according to Kimmage. Uzbekistan has closed its border with Kyrgyzstan and Russia's President Vladimir Putin offered to give shelter to the exiled President Akaev, who is rumored to have fled to Kazakstan. According to Tchoroev, Putin does not expect the interim government to act against the interests of the Russian government. In January, 2005, Rosa Otunbayeva, leader of the Ata-Zhurt opposition bloc and Bakiyev met with high officials and Duma deputies in Moscow to discuss future relations with Russia.
A video posted online Wednesday shows GOP candidate Scottie Mayfield saying he must get elected to Congress before he elaborates on what he wants to do there.
"Until you get on a committee, it's really hard to get too focused," he told the College Republicans at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. "Quite honestly, I've got a file in my file cabinet that's 'When I Get There.' I haven't really focused on that because I've got to get there first."
Mayfield was responding to a student's question about "two or three things" he'd like to accomplish in Washington.
A McMinn County dairy executive, Mayfield is challenging U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann in Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District Republican primary.
The five-minute video, titled "Scottie Mayfield Struggling to Answer Basic Questions," was anonymously uploaded to YouTube.
In it, Mayfield also says, "I hire a CPA that's very good at what he does, and I get to take advantage of pieces of the tax code I'm pretty sure the average person doesn't get to take advantage of. That's the rules, and that's how I play."
POLL: Which candidate do you support for the 3rd Congressional District?
Mayfield's campaign website says he wants to "make taxes flatter, fairer and lower" without offering specifics.
Mayfield did not respond to a phone message asking about the "file cabinet" statement and which parts of the tax code benefit him, but Mayfield consultant Tommy Hopper defended the candidate's answers.
"Scottie's not a lawyer or a politician," he said. "You won't find our campaign posting videos of the other candidates on YouTube, or other silly and childish attempts to diminish the other guys."
Tyler Threadgill, a campaign spokesman for Fleischmann, said none of the congressman's supporters attended the meeting.
"I saw the video," he said, "and I think it speaks for itself."
But Weston Wamp, the son of former U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp who also is challenging Fleischmann in the primary, would not rule out whether one of his supporters videotaped the event.
A 2009 UT graduate, Wamp said he knows "about half those guys" in the school's College Republicans club. His younger sister, Coty, attends UT law school.
In an interview, Tyler King, president of UT's College Republicans, said he didn't see anyone taping at the meeting, but he noticed Coty Wamp was present.
King said Coty Wamp almost never goes to club meetings, adding that she last attended when Weston Wamp spoke about two months ago.
King said Coty Wamp sat to the left of Mayfield. The picture shows Mayfield's left profile.
"There's no way to know for sure, but it's a pretty small room," said King, a Memphis resident who isn't working for any 3rd District campaign. "I'll just say it's conceivable that it could have been her. And even if it was, it's not illegal. It's a 24/7 news cycle, and being videotaped is part of a campaign."
Weston Wamp said he wasn't sure if his sister attended Mayfield's talk. Either way, he shrugged off the possibility.
"Cameras are part of campaigns now," he said. "I don't know where you have an event where there's not a camera whipped out."
Ron Bhalla also is running in the 3rd District Republican primary, while Mary Headrick and Bill Taylor are vying for the Democratic nod. Matthew Deniston is the lone independent candidate.
IN THE tourist season, the Slovak capital is frequently visited by tourists, including Austrians, Americans and tourists from Asia alike. But most stay just long enough for a brief guided tour, and coffee break or quick lunch.
Patricia Gill, who visited one sunny April Saturday, has just turned 90. She is enthused by the European trip, and keeps pace with others – thanks to a crutch which can be changed into a three-legged impromptu chair. She finds Bratislavans nicer than inhabitants of Vienna where they were the day before (maybe because Friday is a work-day and everyone was busy).
She may like Bratislava better also because of the weather: rain and cold can spoil even a visit to city like Paris. Moreover, “sun can attract to streets also locals, and they co-create the atmosphere”, Sloboda opined.
Sherry Zekowski, another US tourist, also paid a visit.
She finds the atmosphere in Bratislava fantastic, better than in Vienna and Budapest – she can imagine spending a few weeks here.
“I would know everyone by their names then, no?” she laughs. A superintendant at secondary schools, Zekowski is form New York City and has travelled a lot, save for India. Everywhere she went, she was interested in exploring the education system and the culture. She finds the guided tour of Slovakia the second best thing of the whole European journey, after the Gustav Klimt exhibition in Vienna’s Belvedere.
Nancy Stafford of New York is for the first time in Europe and is fascinated by historical centre, narrow alleys and cafés full of people.
“For Americans, each building older than 100 is historical,” the guide explains.
They also admire the Slovak “savoir vivre”, the ability to stop hurrying and enjoy meal or coffee.
“In the US, they cannot afford to waste time, and after half an hour in a café, the waiter would wave you out, so that you do not take the place of others,” Sloboda explained of his US experiences. He also adds that safety of Bratislava is a big positive point, especially when compared to some neighbourhoods in US cities.
Germans and Austrians require a detailed lecture, interested in joint history – and they are especially in love with the Habsburg rulers, guides say. They like traditions and crafts but have low esteem for Slovakia. They are equally shocked by the busy city life, relatively cutely reconstructed centre and decent standard of living.
Asian tourists, in the other hand, can endure only a brief lecture on Bratislava – as they know nothing about the history and overall, the European trip is usually a culture shock. What they can relate to are usually composers like Beethoven or Mozart, as they are often connoisseurs of classical music.
“They are interested in everything and ask about everything, including salaries, social benefits and money in general,” Marián Belačič, head of the Slovak Association of Tourism Guides told Sme.
He adds that they are mostly surprised by local gastronomy, order various meals and everyone tries everything – while also taking pictures.
“But they usually only poke at bryndzové halušky and return them uneaten – it is an unusual combination for them,” Bilačič says.
He also complains about excessive picture taking that slows down the progress of the group.
Chinese tourists often prefer local Chinese restaurants, but are disappointed by the lack of original ingredients used there – also the rice is low quality, they complain. While they are very disciplined, Thai and Philippine tourists have problems with time management, Bilačič complains. Indian tourists refuse to walk – sometimes even for 500 metres – while they are by far the wealthiest visitors.
All tourists are positively surprised by what they find Bratislava and Slovakia – but this cannot change their itinerary, and so they stay here just for a while anyway, continuing from here to Vienna, Budapest, Prague or Krakow, tourism experts say.
“They have decided already back home about their time schedule, and cannot change it now,” Sloboda says.
In 2014, 844,524 tourists visited Bratislava – 67 percent from abroad. They stayed for 2.17 nights here in average, while Slovaks stayed for 3 nights, the Slovak Statistics Office claims.
A black Mercedes and a purple estate car collided between Skipton Road and Smithy Lane, with one of the vehicles badly damaging a garden wall after the impact.
The other vehicle involved in the crash (photo Natalie H Rushton).
Emergency services were on the scene and the road was shut in both directions. It is not known if there have been any casualties.

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