AROUND FLORIDA

Jury acquits teen in

uncle's stabbing death

From Herald Wire Services

A jury acquitted a 16-year-old boy Friday of stabbing his uncle to death, deciding that the teen acted in self-defense when he killed the man with a rusty butcher knife.

Daniel Carter showed no emotion when the verdict was read. He still faces a charge of attempting to escape from a juvenile detention center, and bond was set at $1,000.

Carter was 15 when he killed Jack Carter, 46, of Navarre Beach, on June 16, 2002. Defense attorneys said the uncle, a martial arts expert, broke into and trashed the teen's room, beat and kicked the boy and terrorized him by threatening to tie him up, strip him and castrate him.

Prosecutor David Rimmer said Jack Carter was a loving uncle trying to straighten out ''an angry, out-of-control teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder, a knife in his hand and murder on his mind.'' The teen was tried as an adult and would have been automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.

PLANT CITY

REPORT: CANCER RATE

LOW AROUND PLANT

Cancer rates around the troubled Coronet Industries phosphate plant are below the state average, according to a new report.

The Florida Department of Health report counters claims by area residents that cancer is more prevalent in the area because of pollution from the aging plant, which is slated to close this month.

Coronet officials said they were ''pleased -- but not surprised'' by Thursday's report, but Hillsborough County health officials continue to urge caution. The report is ''reassuring but it does not absolutely prove there has been no illness caused in that area,'' said Doug Holt, who headed an investigation of Coronet.

BARTOW

KILLER GETS 35 YEARS

IN TODDLER'S DEATH

A man accused of fatally beating a toddler and dumping the body along I-275 was sentenced to 35 years in prison Friday. Richard Chouquer pleaded no-contest to second-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the July 2002 death of 2-year-old Alfredo Montes. The boy's mother had left Alfredo with Chouquer and his girlfriend Amandy Lawrence. She was sentenced to five years probation last summer as an accessory to the murder.

Lawrence, a childhood friend of Alfredo's mother, Jeanna Swallows, was baby-sitting the toddler before he was killed. Authorities say Chouquer killed Alfredo by repeatedly slapping him.

JACKSONVILLE

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

EFFORT CALLED RACIST

A school district police program that monitors the 25 most disruptive students in each of Jacksonville's middle and high schools may be racist and should be suspended, the NAACP alleges. The Jacksonville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and some local ministers said they have several problems with the Monitoring At-Risk Students (MARS) program.

They said there should be parental notification if a student is placed on the list, and they want the criteria used to rank students clearly defined. And they said were concerned the program may be racist. While 65 percent of the most disruptive students are black, only 43 percent of the student population is black.

The program uses a selection of school referrals and police contacts to list 25 most disruptive each month. School resource officers are required to meet three times a week with the top five students to offer them counseling or other help.

TAMPA

JUDGE TO BE TRIED

IN PLAGIARISM CASE

A judge who served as an FBI informant in an investigation of courthouse corruption will be tried on charges he plagiarized a paper while applying for an Air Force promotion.

The state Judicial Qualifications Commission has ruled the trial of Hillsborough Circuit Court Judge Gregory Holder will be rescheduled promptly. Holder is a colonel in the Air Force Reserve. In 1998, he submitted a research paper on the Allied bombing of Europe as part of an Air Force requirement for promotion, which he received.

In 2002, a paper alleged to be Holder's and another research paper on the same topic were delivered anonymously to a federal prosecutor. The papers allegedly shared nearly a dozen pages of verbatim text.

Holder has denied the plagiarism charge, and his lawyers allege the other research paper is a fake concocted to discredit him.

ORLANDO/DAYTONA

TOPLESS-PROTEST PAIR

SUES TO STALL ARRESTS

Two women who plan to lead a topless protest in Daytona Beach on Sunday sued the city Friday in a pre-emptive move to stop police officers from arresting them. Elizabeth Book and Shirley Mason asked a judge in U.S. District Court in Orlando to issue a restraining order prohibiting city police officers from arresting marchers during a topless protest on the last day of Bike Week, the annual gathering of motorcycle aficionados.

The women believe it's unfair that men can go topless in public places while they can't. They claimed in their lawsuit they should be allowed to protest topless under the free speech and freedom to assemble clauses of the Constitution.