Ellie Nesler, 56, who sparked a national debate about vigilantism after killing her son's accused molester in a courtroom in 1993, died of breast cancer last Friday in Sacramento, Calif. Nesler made headlines when she shot Daniel Driver five times in the head in a Tuolumne County courtroom during a break in his preliminary hearing for allegedly molesting four boys, including her then-6-year-old son, William, at a Christian camp. Some hailed her for exacting her own justice, while others condemned her for taking the law into her own hands. Nesler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, but her 10-year sentence was later overturned because of jury misconduct. She cut a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to manslaughter and get out after serving three years because she had breast cancer. In 2002, Nesler was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to selling and possessing methamphetamine. She was released in 2006. Her son was convicted of first-degree murder in 2005 for stomping to death a man hired to clean the family's property in Sonora. The 23-year-old said he believed David Davis was letting people pick through the family's belongings. He is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence.

Freddie Hubbard, 70, the Grammy-winning jazz musician whose style influenced a generation of trumpet players and who collaborated with such greats as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, died Monday in Los Angeles a month after suffering a heart attack. A towering figure in jazz circles, Hubbard played on hundreds of recordings in a career dating to 1958, the year he arrived in New York from Indianapolis, where he had studied at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music and with the Indianapolis Symphony.

ASSOCIATED PRESS