S3 Display and soft keys stay on after using power key to mute incoming call.

OK, here's the problem.

Phone is sleeping. I get an incoming call but don't want to answer it and hit the side power button to silence the phone. The phone goes back to sleeping, display is off. This is expected, normal operation.

Now, I want to use my phone and hit the home button or side power button and wake the device up. Then, screen will then stay on and soft keys also stay lit until I hit power button. The screen will never timeout on it's own no matter what the settings are. The only way to get the display and softkeys to timeout like they are supposed to is do a phone restart or a battery pull would also fix it.
I'm on stock ROM and have done multiple factory resets with NO apps loaded or changed settings other than Verizon factory defaults. The problem always persists and is always repeatable. The phone is maybe 20 days old, I'm not sure if it's always done this since I just recently figured out what would cause the problem. Again, I can fix it but it takes a reset or I just can't use the power button to silence the phone on incoming calls. I'm not finding anyone with the same problem, which I'm very surprised since so many of the S3's out there.

Anyone???