• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- A judge in Sioux Falls says a heavy workload for lawyers is not a good enough reason for a confessed killer to avoid the possibility of a death sentence.
• James McVay has pleaded guilty but mentally ill to first-degree murder in the July 2011 stabbing death of 75-year-old Maybelle Schein in Sioux Falls. McVay told a reporter after his arrest in Wisconsin that he planned to kill and steal his way to Washington, D.C., to assassinate the president.
• Minnehaha County Public Defender Traci Smith told Judge Peter Lieberman on Thursday that her office has too many clients to offer James McVay adequate counsel in his sentencing hearing next March. She asked Lieberman to bar prosecutors from seeking a death sentence.
• Lieberman declined, saying McVay has received a "first-rate defense."
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• YANKTON, S.D. (AP) -- Officials say inmates in two state prison facilities have grown more than 21 tons of fresh produce that was donated this year to community organizations in southeastern South Dakota.
• Inmates harvested more than 43,000 pounds of beets, carrots, cucumbers, kohlrabi, okra, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, rutabagas, squash, tomatoes, watermelons and zucchini this year.
• Inmates in the horticulture program at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield start growing tomatoes and peppers before the plants are transferred to a garden at the Yankton Minimum Unit at the state Human Services Center. The other vegetables are grown from seed at the Yankton facility.
• The gardening provides fresh produce for inmates at the two facilities and also is donated to a food pantry, some senior citizens centers, some area schools and other organizations.
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- An oral interpretation tournament honoring the late Sen. Karl Mundt will be held at Dakota State University on Saturday.

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