NEWPORT-Exercising the judge's discretion to accept or reject plea-bargain agreements, Circuit Judge Rex Henry Ogle rejected a proposed plea agreement in a Cosby murder case on Tuesday.

Judge Ogle said his decision was based, at least in part, on the proposal that the offense be reduced from second-degree murder to criminally negligent homicide and because the sentence called for in the agreement involved no period of incarceration, only a judicially deferred plea with two years of unsupervised probation for 43-year-old Candice Marie Griffin.

Decisions of that magnitude should be left up to a criminal court jury, the judge said.

"The court feels that, based on the state's theory of the case and the facts as related to the court, that the court will not accept it," Judge Ogle said in his ruling in criminal court on Tuesday. "To go from second-degree murder to a judicial deferral is a big leap. It sounds like a jury question."

For more details, please see the Thursday edition of the Newport Plain Talk.