Zachariah Blanton, 18, of Gaston, had been scheduled to stand trial next week on charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness. He pleaded guilty in Jackson Circuit Court to lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and criminal recklessness.

A judge must still approve Blanton's deal with prosecutors. Sentencing is set for Dec. 27, and Blanton could receive anything between 20 years and 50 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Blanton fired his hunting rifle into highway traffic from an overpass about 60 miles south of Indianapolis on July 23, 2006.

One of the shots went through a pickup truck's windshield and killed 40-year-old Jerry L. Ross. An Iowa man traveling in another pickup truck was injured.

Police say Blanton later shot at cars along another highway northeast of Indianapolis, but no one was injured. Blanton, who was 17 at the time, was arrested at his home two days later.

Blanton's defense attorney did not publicly comment after court and did not immediately return a phone call.

Blanton confessed to the shooting and provided police with details, police have said. Blanton told police he fired the shots to relieve pressure after he argued with fellow participants in a southern Indiana hunting trip. Blanton confirmed the motive in court Monday.

Ross's relatives, wearing "Justice for Jerry" buttons outside the courthouse, said they were unhappy with the deal.

His father, 70-year-old Jesse Ross, said a jury should decide Blanton's fate.

"Twelve people would be about as fair as it could be, it couldn't get no better than that," he said. "I don't think this is right, the way they're doing it. All we want is a fair trial because you can't bring nothing back."

Blanton "committed those crimes, he should be standing trial for them," said Jerry's twin brother, Terry Ross, who was in the truck with his brother when he was shot. "He didn't give Jerry any kind of a deal."

Prosecutor Rick Poynter said he had to make the deal based on the strength of his case. He noted that the judge had ruled that statements Blanton gave police were inadmissible.

If Blanton had been convicted of murder, he could have faced 45 to 65 years in prison. But Poynter said the jury also could have acquitted him or found him guilty of reckless homicide, a lesser crime punishable by two to eight years in prison.

Poynter said that although he understood the family's reaction, "I think they would be a lot more emotional if the killer of their loved one walked out of jail in four years."

Prosecutors accused Mark Serrano, 30, and Charles Gilleo Jr., 32, of killing Tina and Manuel "Tony" Morey and their three young sons in the early hours of Jan. 19, setting the family's house on fire and stealing cocaine from Tony Morey. Prosecutors said Serrano and Gilleo had previously bought drugs from Manuel Morey.

A Dutchess County jury deliberated for five hours before returning its guilty verdict against Serrano on all charges except first degree arson. Serrano was found guilty of 20 counts of first-degree murder, 11 counts of second-degree murder, six counts of robbery, one count of third-degree arson, two counts of conspiracy and one count of perjury.

Gilleo has pleaded not guilty to the same 42 charges Serrano faced and is set to be tried early next year.

According to an autopsy, Manuel Morey died of a gunshot wound to the neck. Tina Morey, 30, died of gunshot wounds to the chest and head. Manuel "Tony Jr." Morey, 13, and Adam, 10, died of multiple stab wounds. Ryan, 6, died from blunt-force trauma to the head.

A state district court jury in Amite on Monday convicted Austin "Trey" Bernard III in the rape of his daughter as well as the rape of a 12-year-old boy, prosecutor Scott Perrilloux said.

Bernard, 39, denied the charges, but three earlier confessions and a journal that seemed to detail the practices of the group were too much to overcome, said Al Bensabat, the public defender who represented him.

"Once the jury read that it was all over," Bensabat said Tuesday.

Bernard, who faces a mandatory life prison term without parole when he is sentenced on Jan. 12, was being held in jail on Tuesday.

No trial date has been set for the remaining six defendants. Perrilloux said he anticipates bringing the former minister of Hosanna Church, Louis Lamonica, to trial in early 2008. Lamonica has pleaded not guilty.

The allegations have rocked the small town of Ponchatoula, about 40 miles northwest of New Orleans.

The activities at the church became known when Lamonica walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Department and asked to speak with a detective in 2005, Chief of Detectives Stan Carpenter said.

For almost two hours, Lamonica, 49, told investigators how he and other church members had molested children, and taught them to have sex with each other, as well as with a dog, authorities said.

Lamonica told the detectives that he drank cat blood and poured it on the bodies of his young victims.

Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group Americans United For Separation of Church and State, which brought the lawsuit, said the ruling would have major implications for the Bush administration's policies of allowing faith-based groups to offer services to government institutions.

"This is an enormously significant case on the whole question of how government can, or in this case, cannot aid religious ministries," Lynn said.

"I think this has implications far broader than a prison in a single state because the basic framework of this decision, the way they reached the conclusion is that government can't pay for these religious social services nor can they turn over functions of government essentially to religious operations," he said.

Prison Fellowship Ministries, which contracts with InnerChange Freedom Initiatives Inc. and other organizations to conduct faith-based programs, must repay about $160,000 to the state for money received between June 2006 and June 2007, said Mark Early, the group's president.

He said the ruling would clarify how faith-based programs could work with government agencies.

"We're pleased because in this opinion there are some clarifying guidelines to help us and other faith-based organizations working in government settings, such as prisons, to be able to fashion a program and make sure they do comply with current understanding of constitutional law in this area."

Prison Fellowship operates nine programs in six states: Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and Texas. All are now privately funded through donations from individuals and foundations, he said.

The 24-hour a day, seven-day a week program at Newton immerses inmates in evangelical Christianity. Inmates who complete the 18-month program also get help after they're released from prison.

Fred Scaletta, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections, said corrections officials were reviewing the ruling with the attorney general's office to determine how the state would proceed with the operation of the program.

Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the Iowa attorney general's office, said attorneys were reviewing the ruling and considering whether to appeal.

An appeal could include asking the three-member 8th Circuit panel for clarification on issues or could seek consideration by the full 8th Circuit Court. The ruling also could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court reversed a ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prohibited the railroad, a subsidiary of CSX Corp., from challenging the method the state used to determine the value of the railroad's property.

A federal law bars states from discriminating against railroads by taxing their property more heavily than other commercial property. Chief Justice John Roberts said the law allows a railroad to go to court to try to show that the state's way of calculating market value is unfair.

Snyder was convicted of first-degree murder in August 1996 by an all-white jury in Jefferson Parish. The jury also recommended the death sentence. He was found guilty of slashing his estranged wife and a man when he found them in a car outside her mother's home in August 1995.

Lawyers for Snyder said the state illegally struck all five qualified black members from the jury pool using preemptory challenges, or challenges for which a reason does not have to be given.

Under a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, attorneys are not allowed to exclude people from a jury solely because of their race.

A split Louisiana Supreme Court rejected Snyder's challenge, with the majority saying that race had no part in the state's decisions involving potential jurors.