Judge nixes reargument in case of killer who was freed

(AP) – A Kent County Judge has denied the state’s request to reargue the case of a killer released from prison after he modified her sentence.

Judge Robert Young wrote Tuesday that there was nothing in the state’s motion for reargument that he had not already carefully considered.
    
Fifty-six-year-old Catherine Culp was released from prison and began serving probation last week after Young concluded that her model conduct and extensive rehabilitation efforts as an inmate demonstrated “extraordinary circumstances” justifying a modification of her sentence for the 1998 shooting of her boyfriend, Lee Hicks.
    
Prosecutors contend that Young was barred from considering a second motion for sentence modification after an initial motion was denied in 2003.
    
Prosecutors also argue that Young erred in concluding that Culp had demonstrated “extraordinary circumstances.”