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Tag: appeals court

  • Judge panel rules California’s open carry ban unconstitutional

    A dissenting panel of federal judges for the Ninth Circuit on Friday deemed California’s open carry ban in most counties unconstitutional.The ruling comes following a challenge by Mark Baird, who the San Francisco Chronicle identifies as a gun owner from Siskiyou County. Baird specifically challenged California’s restriction on open carry in counties with a population greater than 200,000.(Video Above: California ammunition background check law is unconstitutional)The panel ruled 2-1 in Baird’s favor. In favor of Baird, Judge Lawrence VanDyke noted that the restrictions apply to roughly 95% of the state’s population. And for those counties with populations under 200,000, the judge notes that those wanting to open carry need to apply for a license allowing them to do so, but that the ability to secure the license is “unclear.””California admits that it has no record of even one open-carry license being issued, and one potential reason is that California has misled its citizens about how to apply for an open-carry license,” the ruling’s summary states, referring to the opinions of VanDyke and Judge Kenneth K. Lee. The panel held that the open carry ban was inconsistent with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applied to states under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also referred to the standard applied in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that “historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”Judge N. Randy Smith, who dissented in part, noted that “open carry is not conduct that is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.” Smith also noted that reasoning in the Bruen case allows California to lawfully eliminate one manner of public carry to protect citizens, “so long as its citizens may carry weapons in another manner that allows for self-defense.”Smith asserted that because California allows concealed carry, it may restrict open carry.While the court primarily sided with Baird, it also rejected his related challenge to California’s licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents. Those counties may issue open-carry permits.See the full ruling here. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office slammed the ruling on social media Friday. “California just got military troops with weapons of war off of the streets of our cities, but now Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit want to replace them with gunslingers and return to the days of the Wild West. California’s law was carefully crafted to comply with the Second Amendment and we’re confident this decision will not stand,” the Newsom’s office said.KCRA 3 has reached out to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Office for comment.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    A dissenting panel of federal judges for the Ninth Circuit on Friday deemed California’s open carry ban in most counties unconstitutional.

    The ruling comes following a challenge by Mark Baird, who the San Francisco Chronicle identifies as a gun owner from Siskiyou County. Baird specifically challenged California’s restriction on open carry in counties with a population greater than 200,000.

    (Video Above: California ammunition background check law is unconstitutional)

    The panel ruled 2-1 in Baird’s favor.

    In favor of Baird, Judge Lawrence VanDyke noted that the restrictions apply to roughly 95% of the state’s population. And for those counties with populations under 200,000, the judge notes that those wanting to open carry need to apply for a license allowing them to do so, but that the ability to secure the license is “unclear.”

    “California admits that it has no record of even one open-carry license being issued, and one potential reason is that California has misled its citizens about how to apply for an open-carry license,” the ruling’s summary states, referring to the opinions of VanDyke and Judge Kenneth K. Lee.

    The panel held that the open carry ban was inconsistent with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applied to states under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also referred to the standard applied in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that “historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”

    Judge N. Randy Smith, who dissented in part, noted that “open carry is not conduct that is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.” Smith also noted that reasoning in the Bruen case allows California to lawfully eliminate one manner of public carry to protect citizens, “so long as its citizens may carry weapons in another manner that allows for self-defense.”

    Smith asserted that because California allows concealed carry, it may restrict open carry.

    While the court primarily sided with Baird, it also rejected his related challenge to California’s licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents. Those counties may issue open-carry permits.

    See the full ruling here.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office slammed the ruling on social media Friday.

    “California just got military troops with weapons of war off of the streets of our cities, but now Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit want to replace them with gunslingers and return to the days of the Wild West. California’s law was carefully crafted to comply with the Second Amendment and we’re confident this decision will not stand,” the Newsom’s office said.

    KCRA 3 has reached out to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Office for comment.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • European court faults France over sexual consent rules

    The European rights court on Thursday found France’s laws on sexual consent are insufficient, ruling against the authorities in a case involving a woman who accused her boss of coercing her into an abusive relationship.

    The plaintiff, an assistant pharmacist now in her 40s, worked on a temporary contract at a hospital in 2010, when she entered into a sado-masochistic sexual relationship with the head of the department.

    Sado-masochism typically involves one person inflicting pain or humiliating treatment on another, although the roles can switch.

    The woman, named only as E.A, born in 1983, was around a decade-and-a-half younger than the department head, named as K.B., who was born in 1967.

    She later filed a legal complaint against him, accusing him of “rape involving torture and barbaric acts” committed by a person abusing their authority, as well as “physical and psychological violence” and “harassment and sexual aggression”.

    A lower court convicted the man, but an appeals court cleared him in 2021 on the grounds that they had signed a written contract between them defining their sexual relations, which were therefore deemed consensual.

    But the plaintiff, backed by the Paris-based European Association against Violence against Women at Work (AVFT), took her case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

    She alleged the French authorities had failed in their duty to conduct an effective investigation and had subjected her to “secondary victimisation”.

    The ECHR backed the claim, and also found that current criminal statutes in France fail to provide sufficient protection against non-consensual sexual acts.

    Finding French authorities guilty of failing to respect the European human rights convention’s provisions on the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, and to the respect for private life, the court ruled for the plaintiff.

    It ordered the French state to pay her 20,000 euros ($23,000) in damages, plus legal costs.

    The ECHR said any commitment to maintain sexual relations could be revoked at any time.

    “The profound implication of this ECHR decision is how to define rape,” said Nina Bonhomme Janotto, legal advisor for the AVFT.

    The plaintiff’s lawyer, Marjolaine Vignola, said she hoped the verdict would lead the French government to make the law “more protective of women”.

    France’s parliament is currently debating a draft law that would define rape as “any non-consensual sexual act”.

    This would place the burden of proof not on presumed victims but — as is already the case in countries including Spain and Sweden — on alleged perpetrators, who would have to prove there was consent.

    burs-jh/sjw/jhb

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  • Appeals court revives lawsuit against Ojai council member

    A lawsuit accusing an Ojai City Council member of violating California’s open meeting law by disclosing confidential information from closed council sessions can proceed under an Aug. 19 appeals court decision.

    Leslie Rule could still appeal the lower court’s dismissal of the case to the Supreme Court of California, but that court accepts only a small fraction of the cases it’s asked to hear. Rule did not respond to interview requests, and her attorney declined to comment.

    A document she filed Aug. 5 with the city, asking it to pay for her legal representation, indicates that she does plan to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

    Leslie Rule

    The dispute started shortly after Rule was elected to the council in 2022. At that time, the Ojai City Council had recently approved an apartment project known as Ojai Bungalows, with 67 units spread across four different properties in the city. A citizen group called Simply Ojai sued the city to stop the development, and Ojai residents also began gathering signatures for a referendum to overturn the city’s approval.

    The City Council held a series of closed sessions in late 2022 and early 2023 related to the Simply Ojai lawsuit, the Ojai Bungalows project and the potential referendum. The Brown Act, which sets rules for open meetings for city councils and other local government agencies in California, allows legislative bodies to meet in private in certain circumstances, and discussing pending or likely lawsuits is one of them.

    Rule did not think the council was complying with the Brown Act, and she felt that behind closed doors, some council members appeared to be siding with Simply Ojai. During some of her first meetings on the council, she spoke from the dais and distributed written material to the audience that gave details of the council’s private discussions.

    This was a Brown Act violation on Rule’s part, according to an investigation by the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. The DA’s office concluded that the City Council also violated the Brown Act, as Rule had alleged, because some of its closed sessions covered topics that were not properly disclosed on the council’s published agendas. The Brown Act requires local government agencies to inform the public of the topics of closed sessions and the outcome of most votes taken in closed sessions.

    After the DA’s office released its report, the City Council voted 4-1 to acknowledge its violations and follow the Brown Act in the future. Rule voted against that motion, but the DA’s office said she pledged separately to follow the law, and it considered the matter resolved.

    Appeals ruling sends case back to trial court

    In April 2023, a group of seven people, led by Ojai resident David Byrne, sued Rule under the Brown Act. Their lawsuit also named Jon Drucker, Rule’s attorney, as a defendant, because he also spoke in City Council meetings about closed-session discussions and handed out the written descriptions of those sessions.

    In court filings, Rule and Drucker denied that they violated the Brown Act. They also asked to have the case thrown out under California’s anti-SLAPP law.

    SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” Anti-SLAPP laws like California’s provide an avenue to have a lawsuit quickly dismissed if it seeks to punish someone for exercising their free speech rights on a matter of public concern.

    In October 2023, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ben Coats ruled in favor of Rule and Drucker’s anti-SLAPP motion and dismissed the lawsuit against them. Byrne and the other plaintiffs appealed, and last month the state appeals court overturned the Superior Court ruling.

    In her ruling, which was joined by two other appeals court justices and officially published by the court on Aug. 19, Associate Justice Tari Cody wrote that the trial court did not properly analyze whether the anti-SLAPP law should apply.

    The appeals court did not rule on the underlying question of whether Rule violated the Brown Act. The case will now go back to Ventura County Superior Court, unless the California Supreme Court intervenes.

    There is a “public interest exemption” in California’s anti-SLAPP law, which states that the law does not apply to lawsuits that deal with matters in the public interest and don’t seek any special remedy for the plaintiffs themselves. The appeals court ruled that Byrne’s lawsuit should fall under that exemption.

    David Loy, the legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, said the point of the anti-SLAPP law is to make sure that lawsuits targeting protected speech don’t have “a chilling effect on speech in matters of public interest.”

    The First Amendment Coalition is a nonprofit that advocates for press freedom and open government and has brought a number of Brown Act lawsuits against government agencies.

    Loy said the Ojai case wasn’t covered by the anti-SLAPP law because “this is not about one person trying to make money off another person, trying to win a judgment that says, ‘You owe me $100,000.’ The plaintiffs are not trying to profit from this.”

    City has refused to cover Rule’s legal fees

    “My clients are not asking for any monetary damages, just for the court to tell her she’s wrong and prohibit her from doing it again,” said Sabrina Venskus, an attorney for Byrne and the other people who filed the lawsuit.

    Venskus said she disagrees with the district attorney’s conclusion that the Ojai City Council violated the Brown Act by discussing topics in private that weren’t property covered in its public agendas. Even if that was a violation, Venskus said Rule isn’t allowed to respond by disclosing confidential information. Instead, Venskus said, the proper remedy is to take the matter to the district attorney or file a lawsuit against the city.

    “There are provisions in the Brown Act to address the issue if she thinks something must be disclosed, and she did not go through those procedures,” Venskus said. “She was advised very clearly by the city attorney that this is how you go about dealing with the issue that you have, but it’s not to take it into your own hands.”

    If Rule loses in Superior Court, she may have to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees. The original court ruling called for Byrne and his fellow plaintiffs to pay Rule’s legal feels, which were about $79,000. Since that decision was overturned, they will no longer have to pay.

    Rule has repeatedly asked the city to cover her legal costs, and the city has repeatedly refused. The most recent request Rule filed was Aug. 5. It asked the city to “authorize and fund” her legal costs, including for a petition to the California Supreme Court to review her case.

    In a claim filed by Rule with the city on June 20, she said her legal fees had totaled $352,000. That claim accuses the city of retaliating against her by not funding her legal defense, and by excluding her from closed sessions and filing a brief in support of the lawsuit against her.

    Ojai Bungalows now in development

    The legal dispute over what Rule said about the closed City Council sessions has outlived the dispute over the Ojai Bungalows apartments. Work is now underway at the properties, where the developer, The Becker Group, plans to build a total of 63 new units and preserve 25 existing units on one property.

    The voter referendum that could have overturned the city’s 2022 approval of Ojai Bungalows never made it to the ballot. In August 2023, the developer, Jeff Becker of Ventura, withdrew his application, and the City Council voted to take the referendum off the March 2024 ballot.

    Becker then submitted a new development plan for the four properties, and in December 2023 the City Council approved a settlement with the developer to allow the project to move forward. A new state law that took effect in 2024 would have allowed Becker to build without City Council approval and without preserving any of the existing units, and to include fewer affordable units than were in the final development agreement, according to an explainer on the agreement posted to the city’s website.

    Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.

    This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Appeals court revives lawsuit against Ojai council member

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  • New York appeals court tosses Trump’s massive civil fraud judgment

    NEW YORK — An appeals court on Thursday tossed a roughly $500 million civil fraud judgment against President Donald Trump and his family business, marking a significant victory for the president in a case that he repeatedly derided as a political stunt by state Attorney General Tish James.

    The court, however, declined to overturn the fraud case against Trump, leaving open the possibility that he will seek to appeal the verdict to New York’s highest court. And the three separateopinions issued Thursday by the appeals court revealed disagreement within the five-judge panel that one judge described as “profound.”

    “While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” one of the judges, Peter Moulton, wrote.

    A spokesperson for James didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In February 2024, a Manhattan trial judge found that Trump and other defendants — including his adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, along with several business associates — fraudulently inflated his net worth and the value of his real estate properties to obtain favorable rates from banks and insurers.

    The three-month trial proved contentious, with Trump repeatedly lashing out at James and the judge, Justice Arthur Engoron, and earning himself a gag order as well as two fines for violating it.

    Though the decision to throw out the massive judgment against Trump was unexpected, the judges signaled during oral arguments nearly a year ago that they had serious questionsabout the legitimacy of the case.

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  • Appeals court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump

    By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press

    NEW YORK (AP) — An appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling Thursday in New York state’s lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth.

    The decision came seven months after the Republican returned to the White House. A panel of five judges in New York’s mid-level Appellate Division said the verdict, which stood to cost Trump more than $515 million and rock his real estate empire, was “excessive.”

    The Associated Press

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  • As he was about to go free, Missouri Supreme Court halts release of man with overturned conviction

    As he was about to go free, Missouri Supreme Court halts release of man with overturned conviction

    The Missouri Supreme Court halted the immediate release Wednesday of a man whose murder conviction was overturned — just as the man was about to walk free.A St. Louis Circuit Court judge had ordered Christopher Dunn, now 52, to be released by 6 p.m. CDT Wednesday and threatened the prison warden with contempt if Dunn remained imprisoned. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been fighting Dunn’s release.The situation was chaotic as the deadline set by the judge approached. Corrections Department spokesperson Karen Pojmann told The Associated Press that Dunn was out of the prison facility and waiting for a ride. His wife told the AP she was on his way to pick him up. Minutes later, Pojmann corrected herself and said that while Dunn was signing paperwork to be released, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a ruling that put his freedom on hold.St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser overturned Dunn’s murder conviction Monday, citing evidence of “actual innocence” in the 1990 killing. He ordered Dunn’s immediate release then, but Bailey appealed, and the state Department of Corrections declined to release Dunn.St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore had filed a motion Wednesday urging the judge to immediately order Dunn’s freedom.“The Attorney General cannot unilaterally decide to ignore this Court’s Order,” Gore wrote.An attorney for the Department of Corrections told a lawyer in Gore’s office that Bailey advised the agency not to release Dunn until the appeal plays out, according to a court filing. When told it was improper to ignore a court order, the Department of Corrections attorney “responded that the Attorney General’s Office is legal counsel to the DOC and the DOC would be following the advice of counsel.”Dunn’s attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, expressed her frustration.“What is this bringing to taxpayers in Missouri? What is this use of our resources and our state’s time getting us?” she said. “All it’s doing is keeping innocent people in prison.”Dunn’s wife said while driving to the prison that they were numb when he didn’t get out earlier this week.“If you know a little about the story, you know we’ve had a lot of disappointments where we thought we’d finally get his freedom and it was snatched away,” Kira Dunn said. “So we were just bracing ourselves.”Dunn’s situation is similar to what happened to Sandra Hemme.The 64-year-old woman spent 43 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a woman in St. Joseph in 1980. A judge on June 14 cited evidence of “actual innocence” and overturned her conviction. She had been the longest held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to the National Innocence Project, which worked to free Hemme.Appeals by Bailey — all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court — kept Hemme imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center. During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court with contempt of court on the table. Hemme was released later that day.The judge also scolded Bailey’s office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he ordered her to be freed on her own recognizance.Dunn, who is Black, was 18 in 1990 when 15-year-old Ricco Rogers was killed. Among the key evidence used to convict him of first-degree murder was testimony from two boys who were at the scene of the shooting. Both later recanted their testimony, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, another judge agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But that judge, William Hickle, declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.A 2021 law now allows prosecutors to seek court hearings in cases with new evidence of a wrongful conviction.Although Bailey’s office is not required to oppose such efforts, lawyers for his office said at the hearing that initial testimony from two boys at the scene who identified Dunn as the shooter was correct, even though they recanted as adults.He also raised opposition at a hearing for Lamar Johnson, who spent 28 years in prison for murder. Another St. Louis judge ruled in February 2023 that Johnson was wrongfully convicted, and he was freed.Another hearing begins Aug. 21 for death row inmate Marcellus Williams. Bailey’s office is opposing the challenge to Williams’ conviction, too. Timing is of the essence: Williams is scheduled to be executed Sept. 24.Steven Puro, professor emeritus of political science at St. Louis University, said Bailey is in a highly competitive race for the attorney general position with the primary quickly approaching on Aug. 6.“Bailey is trying to show that he is, quote, ‘tough on crime,’ which is a very important Republican conservative position,” he said. “Clearly, he’s angering members of the judicial system that he will have to argue before in the future. But he’s making the strategic notion that he needs to get his name before the voters and try to use that to win the primary election.”Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge and chief justice, agreed, saying it seems this has become political for Bailey.“But one of the things is that no matter what your beliefs are, if a court orders something to happen, it’s not your purview to say no,” he said. “The court has to be obeyed.”___Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas; Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine contributed from Columbia, Missouri.

    ST. LOUIS, Mo. (Video from: KSDK, KIRA DUNN, CNN via CNN Newsource) —

    The Missouri Supreme Court halted the immediate release Wednesday of a man whose murder conviction was overturned — just as the man was about to walk free.

    A St. Louis Circuit Court judge had ordered Christopher Dunn, now 52, to be released by 6 p.m. CDT Wednesday and threatened the prison warden with contempt if Dunn remained imprisoned. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been fighting Dunn’s release.

    The situation was chaotic as the deadline set by the judge approached. Corrections Department spokesperson Karen Pojmann told The Associated Press that Dunn was out of the prison facility and waiting for a ride. His wife told the AP she was on his way to pick him up. Minutes later, Pojmann corrected herself and said that while Dunn was signing paperwork to be released, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a ruling that put his freedom on hold.

    St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser overturned Dunn’s murder conviction Monday, citing evidence of “actual innocence” in the 1990 killing. He ordered Dunn’s immediate release then, but Bailey appealed, and the state Department of Corrections declined to release Dunn.

    St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore had filed a motion Wednesday urging the judge to immediately order Dunn’s freedom.

    “The Attorney General cannot unilaterally decide to ignore this Court’s Order,” Gore wrote.

    An attorney for the Department of Corrections told a lawyer in Gore’s office that Bailey advised the agency not to release Dunn until the appeal plays out, according to a court filing. When told it was improper to ignore a court order, the Department of Corrections attorney “responded that the Attorney General’s Office is legal counsel to the DOC and the DOC would be following the advice of counsel.”

    Dunn’s attorney, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, the executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, expressed her frustration.

    “What is this bringing to taxpayers in Missouri? What is this use of our resources and our state’s time getting us?” she said. “All it’s doing is keeping innocent people in prison.”

    Dunn’s wife said while driving to the prison that they were numb when he didn’t get out earlier this week.

    “If you know a little about the story, you know we’ve had a lot of disappointments where we thought we’d finally get his freedom and it was snatched away,” Kira Dunn said. “So we were just bracing ourselves.”

    Dunn’s situation is similar to what happened to Sandra Hemme.

    The 64-year-old woman spent 43 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a woman in St. Joseph in 1980. A judge on June 14 cited evidence of “actual innocence” and overturned her conviction. She had been the longest held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to the National Innocence Project, which worked to free Hemme.

    Appeals by Bailey — all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court — kept Hemme imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center. During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court with contempt of court on the table. Hemme was released later that day.

    The judge also scolded Bailey’s office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he ordered her to be freed on her own recognizance.

    Dunn, who is Black, was 18 in 1990 when 15-year-old Ricco Rogers was killed. Among the key evidence used to convict him of first-degree murder was testimony from two boys who were at the scene of the shooting. Both later recanted their testimony, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.

    At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, another judge agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But that judge, William Hickle, declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.

    A 2021 law now allows prosecutors to seek court hearings in cases with new evidence of a wrongful conviction.

    Although Bailey’s office is not required to oppose such efforts, lawyers for his office said at the hearing that initial testimony from two boys at the scene who identified Dunn as the shooter was correct, even though they recanted as adults.

    He also raised opposition at a hearing for Lamar Johnson, who spent 28 years in prison for murder. Another St. Louis judge ruled in February 2023 that Johnson was wrongfully convicted, and he was freed.

    Another hearing begins Aug. 21 for death row inmate Marcellus Williams. Bailey’s office is opposing the challenge to Williams’ conviction, too. Timing is of the essence: Williams is scheduled to be executed Sept. 24.

    Steven Puro, professor emeritus of political science at St. Louis University, said Bailey is in a highly competitive race for the attorney general position with the primary quickly approaching on Aug. 6.

    “Bailey is trying to show that he is, quote, ‘tough on crime,’ which is a very important Republican conservative position,” he said. “Clearly, he’s angering members of the judicial system that he will have to argue before in the future. But he’s making the strategic notion that he needs to get his name before the voters and try to use that to win the primary election.”

    Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge and chief justice, agreed, saying it seems this has become political for Bailey.

    “But one of the things is that no matter what your beliefs are, if a court orders something to happen, it’s not your purview to say no,” he said. “The court has to be obeyed.”

    ___

    Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas; Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine contributed from Columbia, Missouri.

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  • After two trials, homeless man gets 30 years to life for fatal shooting outside Brooklyn shelter

    After two trials, homeless man gets 30 years to life for fatal shooting outside Brooklyn shelter

    A homeless man who shot and killed another man during a robbery outside a Brooklyn shelter was sentenced to 30 years to life Thursday — after prosecutors flew in a witness from Poland to testify at his trial.

    Keith Brannon, 55, was convicted twice at trial of the 2015 murder of Christopher Tennison — but the first time, his verdict was tossed by an appeals court.

    The second time around a new witness was brought in to testify — a former shelter resident now living in Poland who found the gun used in the murder.

    Brannon confronted the 35-year-old Tennison outside a homeless shelter on Sackman St. near Atlantic Ave. in Brownsville on Aug. 8, 2015 and shot him point-blank in the chest.

    Text messages between the two men from before the killing showed Brannon had demanded cash from the victim.

    A resident at Brannon’s shelter found the murder weapon under his bed and turned it over to investigators, who found Brannon’s DNA on the firearm, prosecutors said.

    That resident didn’t testify at the first trial. He was living in Poland and didn’t have the money or paperwork to make the trip back to the U.S., so investigators with the D.A.’s office and the NYPD got help from federal Homeland Security Investigations officials to get him emergency documentation, prosecutors said.

    “This defendant senselessly took the life of another man and, with today’s sentence, has been held responsible for this inexcusable crime,” Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez said. “I am grateful to the dedicated prosecutors in my office, and to Homeland Security that assisted in securing a key witness, for ensuring that justice was done in this case.”

    Brannon’s initial 2017 conviction was overturned because the judge in the case, Neil Firetog, ruled that it was “only fair” prosecutors could cross-examine Brannon about his criminal record if his lawyers were going to grill the government’s witnesses about their records.

    A new jury convicted him of murder, weapon possession and attempted robbery on Sept. 14, and on Thursday, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice John Hecht sentenced him to 30 years to life.

    In victim impact statements given to the court, one of Tennison’s sisters described the “unbearable pain” of his loss, while another expressed anger and forgiveness.

    “It saddens me and hurts me to my core to know that his life ended far too soon over something so trivial, the sister said. “I’m angry with you, I’m sad about the whole situation and wish he was still here and I didn’t have to write this. But I forgive you! Jesus can and will forgive you!”

    John Annese

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