Small plane hits powerlines near St. Maries

ST. MARIES, Idaho -- A small private plane struck two power lines and caught fire before crashing, killing the pilot, investigators said.

Witnesses told authorities that the plane had been flying low Sunday afternoon when it struck the first line and caught fire in the air.

Witnesses said the plane then hit another line and crashed and exploded about nine miles east of St. Maries, said Verene Miller, a Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector.

"I heard it hit the wire, then I just saw it come down and hit the ground, and it just exploded after it hit," said 13-year-old Cregg Hoyt, who was on a nearby boat dock along the St. Joe River.

The pilot was dead at the scene.

Benewah County authorities Monday identified him as Martin Bruce Mills, 51, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif. He was the only occupant of the single-engine, four-seat plane.

An autopsy was planned, and FAA officials planned to forward their findings to the National Transportation Safety Board, Miller said.

Pang defense attorneys want arson trial postponed

SEATTLE Defense attorneys for Martin Pang want his scheduled trial in a fatal arson fire postponed for five months because of the question over first-degree murder charges. Four firefighters died in the fire.

Attorney John Henry Browne also is questioning the prosecution's use of a rarely used procedure to obtain evidence in the case.

Browne is asking that Pang's trial be postponed from Sept. 24, as now scheduled, to February.

The earlier date allows inadequate time to prepare a case because it remains unclear whether Pang will face four first-degree murder charges in addition to a single count of first-degree arson, Browne said.

In April, Judge Larry Jordan tentatively ruled out murder charges unless prosecutors show that Brazil's executive branch had waived treaty rights when Pang was extradited earlier this year. Pang was arrested in Brazil several months after the fire that destroyed his parents' warehouse. Pang is charged with torching the building to collect insurance.

The Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that Pang could be extradited only on the arson charge.

Prosecutors claim the Brazilian justice minister later said his government would have no objection to proceeding with murder charges against Pang, and efforts to get written confirmation are continuing, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

In a motion filed last week in King County Superior Court, Browne also asked the court suppress testimony gathered in a special inquiry process that was held within a month after fire destroyed the Mary Pang Food Products warehouse on Jan. 5, 1995.

Special inquiries, a seldom-used procedure similar to federal grand jury hearings, are supposed to be used only to determine whether there is probable cause to file criminal charges, Browne asserted.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that such hearings are an "investigatory tool to identify possible defendants, not as a means of secretly collecting evidence relating to a specific individual against whom probable cause has already been ascertained," Browne wrote in his brief.

Prosecutors had probable cause against Pang at least two weeks before the hearing, he said. The day after the fire, a police detective said so to a Superior Court judge in a request for permission to wiretap Pang's conversations with an ex-wife, according to documents cited by Browne.

The judge signed the order granting the wiretap, agreeing probable cause existed for charges of arson, conspiracy to commit arson and murder.

King County prosecutors would not comment, but Gerry Horne, chief deputy criminal prosecutor for neighboring Pierce County, said prosecutors are granted broad power to gather evidence in the secret hearings.

"There's nothing that says you have to stop it once you have probable cause," Horne said. "They are for purposes of finding the truth. The more information you have, the more apt you are to arrive at the truth."

Critics come out against term limit initiative

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- The recently-qualified initiative to pressure adoption of congressional term limits has picked up opposition from a conservative group that many would have assumed to be a supporter.

The Save the Constitution Committee warned voters on Monday that the initiative essentially sets the stage for an unlimited constitutional convention that could result in dramatic and potentially devastating changes in the constitutional rights of Americans.

"The term limits issue is a classic bait and switch deception on the public," committee Chairman George Detweiler of Twin Falls said in a statement.

The initiative on the November ballot, if adopted by voters, requires the state to place behind candidates names a statement on whether incumbents did everything possible to force congressional action on a federal constitutional amendment to limit congressional service and whether challengers support such action.

The attorney general has said the proposal, know by critics as the "Ballot Clutter Initiative of 1996," is probably unconstitutional because it essentially requires the state to campaign for candidates taking a pro-term limits stand by advising voters of that stand.

Among those sponsoring the Save the Constitution Committee are former state Health Division Director Fritz Dixon, who endorsed the 1994 term limits initiative. That initiative slaps limits on every office from Congress and governor to school board. But the U.S. Supreme Court voided the state interference in congressional service, leaving only the state office limitations in effect.

The new initiative is intended to build pressure for overriding that high court ruling with a constitutional amendment.

But Detweiler contended that what initiative backers really want is a constitutional convention that would open up the entire constitution including the Bill of Rights to change without any guarantee that term limits would be addressed.