Poutre jury recesses without verdict

The jury in the child-abuse trial of Haleigh Poutre's stepfather recessed yesterday without reaching a verdict. The judge received a note from the panel saying one of the jurors was "not feeling well" and wanted to stop deliberations for the day. Hampden Superior Court Judge Judd Carhart excused all jurors and asked them to return today at 9 a.m. The 12-member jury has one alternate. The panel in the trial of Jason Strickland began deliberations on Monday afternoon, when it met for about an hour before recessing at 4 p.m.

In an e-mail to department heads Monday, Michael Smith, dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the university's largest, outlined immediate steps in response to the worsening economic climate. A freeze on staff hiring applies to all current and proposed postings, unless the position is deemed critical, Smith said. Goals associated with unfilled positions either will not be pursued or will be handled by existing staff. "We all need to resist turning to the use of consultants and temporary staff as substitutes for unfilled positions," he said.

An apartment complex fire that injured three people in Randolph on Monday night, including a mother and her young child, was set, fire officials said yesterday. The blaze, which ripped through the first floor of the Town & Country apartment complex on Reed Street, was set by a male victim following a domestic dispute, Fire Chief Charles Foley said. The man suffered severe burns and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he remained in critical condition yesterday. The mother and her 5-year-old son were taken to Milton Hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation.

The man at the center of a long-running domestic dispute that has embroiled two employees of the police department was arrested Monday afternoon after he allegedly fought with three officers at his house and struck his daughter's grandmother at the child's school. Christopher Broderick, 47, was arraigned yesterday on several charges including assault and battery on an officer and resisting arrest following a struggle with three officers, who were injured during the fight and sent to the hospital. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The dispute began at about 4 p.m. when Broderick went to his daughter's school in West Roxbury to pick her up, according to a police report. There, he ran into the child's grandmother who was there to pick up the girl, the report stated. Broderick allegedly said "give me my daughter" and then struck the child's grandmother in the face, according to the report. Broderick's lawyer, Joseph Donnellan, said witnesses at the school said that his client did not strike his former mother-in-law.

A South Boston man wanted in connection with a 2005 quadruple stabbing outside a Revere nightclub was arrested in Chicago on Monday night, the Suffolk district attorney's office said. Prosecutors will seek the return of Ervin Memushaj, 26, to Massachusetts, where he will be charged with one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for allegedly stabbing a 22-year-old Winthrop man, and three counts of aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for allegedly stabbing a Revere man and two other Winthrop men. The attack occurred outside Club Lido, said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

A deputy sheriff was charged yesterday with raping a female prisoner in her cell at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Roxbury earlier this month. Lieutenant Thomas A. Healy Jr., 41, was released on $1,500 cash bail after his arraignment yesterday in Roxbury Municipal Court, where he pleaded not guilty to rape and other charges, said District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office and his attorney, Stephen C. Pfaff.