Nation IN BRIEF : LOUISIANA : Death Sentence Ruled for Ex-Officer

A former New Orleans policeman who ordered a woman murdered the day after she filed a brutality complaint against him should be executed, a jury ruled. Jurors agreed that Len Davis, 31, used his position as a policeman to arrange the killing. Kim Groves, a 32-year-old mother of three, was gunned down in front of her house in October 1994. Groves had filed a complaint accusing Davis of pistol-whipping a teenager. It took the jury just 30 minutes to decide Davis’ fate. Davis is the first person sentenced to death in a civil rights case, according to Dave Bruck of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project. U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan is bound to impose the jury’s verdict when Davis is formally sentenced.