Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (June 11, 1992)
m ^F ^B B ^B ^^B p_-Dailv-VS I NebraskaN .. Baldwin acquitted by reason of insanity By Sam S. Kepfield Staff Reporter Andrew Scott Baldwin was ac quitted by reason of insanity Wednesday of the January 18 attack on Gina Simanek Mountain. Baldwin will have to wait until late June to find out if he must continue treatment at the regional center. The trial of Nebraska student athlete Scott Baldwin began Monday and Dis trict Judge Paul - Merritt Jr., who Baldwin heard the case, took the matter under advisement until Wednesday. At that lime, Merrittdetermined that Baldwin was insane. Defense counsel waived a jury trial, because of the technicality of the insanity issue. In his opening statements Mon day, Hal Anderson, counsel for the defendant, said that Baldwin was in sane and not responsible for the as sault, because his illness prevented him from understanding uie nature and quality of his acts. Anderson said Baldwin was incapable of distinguish ing right from wrong. Anderson filed depositions of three psychiatrists whoexamined Baldwin, along with a forensic evaluation and a psychiatric evaluation. Anderson as serted that all the reports agree that Baldwin suffered from a mental ill ness the night he attacked Gina Simanck Mountain. Baldwin did not testify. County Attorney Gary Lacey, rep resenting the prosecution, called three witnesses. The first, Lincoln neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Gelber, treated Moun tain immediately after admission to a Lincoln hospital. Gelber testified that she was in a ‘stuporous’ condition, bleeding from her ear. CAT scans taken that evening revealed bleeding into the frontal lobe of the brain, as well as bleeding in the sinus cavity indicating a skull fracture and blood along the covering of the brain, drain ing into the spinal column. He said the injuries were signifi cant and that a loss of motor skills, memory and depression are common in such cases. John and Kristin Walters witnessed the attack after returning from a bas ketball game. John Walters, a portfo lio manager and ex-policeman, said Baldwin’s actions didn’t seem very rational. Kristin Wallers said that after Baldwin picked up Mountain on the front steps of her house, he carried her to a car parked nearby and threw her at the car. Baldwin then removed his clothes, picked up Mountain, and began car rying her by her knees, upside down, to the house, she said. He began “bash ing her head against the sidewalk’’ about five to ten times, dropping her when the police arrived. Walters then See BALDWIN on 2 New vice chancellor appointed By Mark Harms Staff Reporter he administration announced Tuesday the filling of one of the two vacant vice chancellor positions. Joan Leitzcl will be recommended to the NU Board of Regents to assume the post of senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, replacing Robert Furgason who left the University of Nebraska-Lincoln last fall. Ferguson resigned from his post in December 1990. Since then, Stanley Liberty has served as the interim vice chancellor. Herb Howe, associate to the chan cellor, said Leitzel’s duties would include overseeing the various col leges at UNL. He said the dean of each college would report directly to the vice chan cellor. The directors of University Educational Television, the Comput ing Resource Center and the Interna tional Affairs office also will report to her. In case of UNL Chancellor Gra ham Spanier’s absence, the v ice chan cellor would serve as acting chancel lor. The search for both vice chancel lor positions began last fall after Spanier took office. Howe said that more than 200 people applied for the positions. Several women had applied, he said, but he did not know if there were any minorities in the candidate pool. He said the chancellor’s office narrowed the candidates down to five for each position and submitted rec ommendations to the chancellor. The vice chancellor for research position has not yet been announced. The responsibilities of the vice chancellor for lesearch, Howe said, will be to move the university ahead in the area of research. He or she would be active in ob taining grant money for university researchers. Also, the vice chancellor would help faculty obtain patents and would assist in technology transfer. Eugene Rudd, professor of physics and astronomy, does research, with the help of graduate and undergraduate students in Behlen Lab. His research involves the bombard ing of chambers housing targets of gas with protons and electrons, which is useful in the examination of radiation damage to biological tissues. Professor knows the laws of physics By Steffen le Fries Staff Reporter M Eugene Rudd greets his environment through •the habits of a physi cist “You use physics to look at the world,” the professor of physics and astronomy said. Rudd supports his views in an undergraduate physics text for non science students titled “Physics and Our Changing World View." The text doesn *t incl ude a lot of math, because as Rudd said, “the average non-science student nowa days doesn’t know much math ematics, and is scared to death of it. “It’s a cultural physics sort of thing.” The universality of physics is one thing that first drew Rudd to physics. He said it was appealing to apply an equation from one area of physics to phenomena in another area. He said he liked the precise nature of prediction that physics allowed. Rudd earned his Ph.D. at the Uni versity'bf Nebraska-Lincoln in 1965 and recently was awarded an honor ary degree from Concordia College. He is a member of several profes sional societies including a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Rudd was selected as Outstanding Teacher-Scholar from UNL in 1991. His list of publication credits also is long; approximately 65 articles in journals and 90 papers at scientific meetings. Rudd’s research involves bombard ing gas with protons and electrons, which he then measures the elec trons that are knocked from the ionized atoms of gas. Measurements are taken of the number of departing electrons and the energies and direction of the electrons. This is of practical application when examining radiation dam age to biological tissues, Rudd said, since atoms of individual cells in the body can become ionized, and byproducts of this ionization can eventually break DNA bonds. Rudd’s research is one of the longest running grants funded by the National Science Foundation, he said. See RUDD on 6 1 ■, ■ ■ ■ ... ' . ■ - Search continues for new athletic director Devaney’s successor to be named By DeDra Janssen Staff Reporter The quest for Athletic Director Bob Devanev's replacement continues while the search com mittee narrows down the approxi mately 100 applications received, an official said. James O’Hanlon, chairman of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’sath letic director search committee, said the next step for the search committee would be to subm it three or four names to Chancellor Graham Spanicr some time this summer. “We’re moving pretty fast,” O’Hanlon said. “We’ll be able to do that.” From those three or four names given to Spanier, the chancellor will pick a few or maybe all of them to come to the university for interviews. The interviews will be conducted by athletic department personnel, but a large number of different people will get a chance to visit with the candidates, O’Hanlon said. He said there were requests from the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities to See SEARCH 0/7 ^