ReportWire

Tag: Courts

  • Saakashvili fears for his life in Georgian detention

    Saakashvili fears for his life in Georgian detention

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili says he fears for his life in detention by the authorities in Tbilisi, while medical reports seen by POLITICO reveal traces of “mercury and arsenic” in his hair and nails, and lacerations “throughout his body.”

    A personal enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saakashvili was arrested when he returned to his homeland from a self-imposed exile in October 2021. In exclusive audio tapes obtained by POLITICO, the pro-Western, U.S.-educated lawyer said he lost consciousness on several occasions after beatings by his captors.

    Increasing evidence about his worsening condition is likely to ramp up international pressure on the government in Tbilisi, led by the Georgian Dream party, which many Georgians fear is seeking to preserve good relations with the Kremlin. In a sign that the treatment of Saakashvili could also throw up a significant hurdle to the country’s EU bid, the European Parliament passed a resolution last week seeking his release on “humanitarian grounds.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also called for Saakashvili to be set free, offering him a place in a Ukrainian clinic and saying his continued detention by the Georgian authorities is an act of cruelty.

    In a sign of his frailty, Saakashvili appeared gaunt and emaciated in a video appearance before a Georgian court on Thursday.

    A few weeks ago, he was visited by his American lawyer, Massimo D’Angelo, and two doctors, in the Tbilisi clinic where he is held. Recordings of their conversations were shared with POLITICO. 

    Asked whether he was “in constant fear for (his) life and safety,” Saakashvili answered: “Yes, for sure.”

    The former president said he “lost consciousness” on several occasions, after “many episodes” where he was “beaten” by prison guards.

    ‘Then I blacked out’

    “They tried to squeeze my hands and to grab me and to pull me down to the floor,” he recounted. “And then I blacked out.”

    These events “have clinical features highly suggestive of seizures,” according to the report from one of the physicians who examined Saakashvili. He had “lacerations … throughout his body, including the left arm and forearm,” the report added.

    Traces of “mercury and arsenic” were found in his hair and nail samples, which were collected during that visit, according to a toxicology report seen by POLITICO. 

    It concludes that Saakashvili suffers from “heavy metal poisoning,” putting him at a “significant increased risk of mortality if he is not immediately transferred out of Georgia and properly treated.”

    In a statement published on Facebook on Tuesday, the Georgian Penitentiary service said it offered to conduct its own toxicology analysis in late November, but claims Saakashvili refused.

    Asked if he suspected he was being poisoned, Saakashvili said: “Well, everything could happen here. But I don’t know.” 

    ‘Hung by his balls’

    Saakashvili became president at 37, in January 2004 — just weeks after storming parliament in Tbilisi along with thousands of demonstrators, forcing his predecessor to resign.

    He served two consecutive terms until 2013, pushing a pro-Western agenda in the Caucasian republic.

    Saakashvili became a personal enemy of Putin, who famously accused Saakashvili of triggering the war between the two countries in August 2008 and said he should be “hung by his balls.”

    He then fled his country in 2014, and spent most of his next seven tumultuous years in exile in Ukraine, where he was briefly appointed governor of the Odesa region, later arrested for forming a “criminal group” and then freed three days later.

    In 2018, he was sentenced in absentia by a Georgian court to a six-year prison term on abuse of power charges, which he says are politically motivated.

    The ex-president was arrested in Georgia in October 2021, shortly after he had returned home in an unexpected effort to boost his United National Movement party in municipal elections.

    After his arrest, Saakashvili went on a 50-day hunger strike, which caused significant damage to his health.

    He has been detained ever since.

    European Dream imperiled

    The case now looks set to hamper Georgia’s efforts to join the European Union. 

    Georgia applied for membership last March, together with Ukraine and Moldova. But, unlike the other two, it was not granted candidate status, and will have to implement several reforms first.

    Saakashvili’s situation is “symbolic” and “one of the main indicators of how the Georgian judiciary works,” together with that of another jailed political opponent, broadcaster Nika Gvaramia, European lawmaker Anna Fotyga told POLITICO.

    These “will be important factors while assessing Georgia’s application,” said Fotyga, who sits in the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Association Committee.

    MEP Raphaël Glucksmann warned: “If Saakashvili dies in jail, it’s the end of Georgia’s European fate, and a shame for European leaders.”

    “Doors are wide open for Georgia if the government makes gestures that can reassure us on rule of law issues,” added the Frenchman, who is a former adviser and “personal friend” of Saakashvili.

    Earlier this month, Georgian Dream Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze said Saakashvili could not be released because it would “destabilize the country,” Georgian news agency InterPressNews reported.

    Last week, Kobakhidze called the European Parliament’s resolution asking for Saakashvili’s release a “manifestation of corruption,” according to InterPressNews.

    Pointing to the corruption scandal that is rocking the EU, he said the resolution reflected “corruption problems and oligarchic influences that are clearly visible in the European Parliament.”

    If the authorities do not budge, it will pit them against their own people, Glucksmann said. According to the latest polls, 85 percent of Georgians support EU membership.

    ‘All about politics’

    Yet, a growing number of Georgians fear that their government is moving closer to Moscow under Georgian Dream, the ruling party, in power since 2012.

    Its founder, former chairman and ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has close ties to Russia, where he built his fortune in the 1990s. 

    Officially no longer involved in politics, the billionaire is still widely believed to be pulling the strings.

    Saakashvili claims he is a “political prisoner” and says his incarceration “is all about politics.”

    “He is dying in a Georgian jail, at the hands of an oligarch that made his fortune in Russia,” said Glucksmann, the French MEP, calling it “an incredible injustice.”

    “He was Putin’s personal enemy. Now, he’s Putin prisoner,” Glucksmann added.

    Contacted by POLITICO, Georgian Dream Chairman Kobakhidze was not available for comment.

    Dato Parulava contributed reporting.

    [ad_2]

    Nicolas Camut

    Source link

  • Today in History: December 18, first Trump impeachment

    Today in History: December 18, first Trump impeachment

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Sunday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2022. There are 13 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 18, 2019, the U.S. House impeached President Donald Trump on two charges, sending his case to the Senate for trial; the articles of impeachment accused him of abusing the power of the presidency to investigate rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election and then obstructing Congress’ investigation. (It was the first of two Trump impeachment trials that would end in acquittal by the Senate.)

    On this date:

    In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, was declared in effect by Secretary of State William H. Seward.

    In 1892, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” publicly premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia; although now considered a classic, it received a generally negative reception from critics.

    In 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” and sent it to the states for ratification.

    In 1940, Adolf Hitler signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. (Operation Barbarossa was launched in June 1941.)

    In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the government’s wartime evacuation of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast while at the same time ruling that “concededly loyal” Americans of Japanese ancestry could not continue to be detained.

    In 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went on line. (It was taken out of service in 1982.)

    In 1958, the world’s first communications satellite, SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment), nicknamed “Chatterbox,” was launched by the United States aboard an Atlas rocket.

    In 1969, Britain’s House of Lords joined the House of Commons in making permanent a 1965 ban on the death penalty for murder.

    In 1992, Kim Young-sam was elected South Korea’s first civilian president in three decades.

    In 2003, two federal appeals courts ruled the U.S. military could not indefinitely hold prisoners without access to lawyers or American courts.

    In 2011, the last convoy of heavily armored U.S. troops left Iraq, crossing into Kuwait in darkness in the final moments of a nine-year war. Vaclav Havel, 75, the dissident playwright who became Czechoslovakia’s first democratically elected president, died in the northern Czech Republic.

    In 2020, the U.S. added a second COVID-19 vaccine to its arsenal, as the Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency rollout of the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health; a vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech was already being dispensed.

    Ten years ago: Classes resumed in Newtown, Connecticut, except at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the scene of a massacre four days earlier. Two bank robbers pulled off a daring escape from downtown Chicago’s high-rise jail by scaling down 17 stories using a makeshift rope. (Kenneth Conley and Jose Banks were later recaptured.) Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to be voted The Associated Press Player of the Year in college football.

    Five years ago: An Amtrak train making the first-ever run along a faster route hurtled off an overpass south of Seattle and spilled some of its cars onto the highway below; three people were killed and dozens were hurt. (Investigators found that the train was traveling 80 mph in a 30 mph zone.) A fire and blackout at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest, forced the cancellation of more than 1,500 flights just days before the start of the Christmas rush; airlines said some of the grounded travelers would have to wait days before there would be available seats on flights. The Los Angeles Lakers retired numbers 8 and 24, both of the jersey numbers worn by Kobe Bryant, the leading scorer in franchise history.

    One year ago: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said all of the people reported missing in Kentucky after tornadoes swept through the state a week earlier had been accounted for; more than 90 people were confirmed dead in five states, including 81 in Kentucky. Nations across Europe moved to reimpose tougher measures to stem a new wave of COVID-19 infections spurred by the highly transmissible omicron variant, with the Netherlands leading the way by imposing a nationwide lockdown. “Saturday Night Live” aired without a live audience, and with only limited cast and crew, due to a recent spike in the omicron variant.

    Today’s Birthdays: Rock musician Keith Richards is 79. Writer-director Alan Rudolph is 79. Movie producer-director Steven Spielberg is 76. Blues artist Rod Piazza is 75. Movie director Gillian Armstrong is 72. Movie reviewer Leonard Maltin is 72. Rock musician Elliot Easton is 69. Comedian Ron White is 66. R&B singer Angie Stone is 61. Actor Brad Pitt is 59. Professional wrestler-turned-actor “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is 58. Actor Shawn Christian is 57. Actor Rachel Griffiths is 54. Singer Alejandro Sanz is 54. Actor Casper Van Dien is 54. Country/rap singer Cowboy Troy is 52. International Tennis Hall of Famer Arantxa Sanchez Vicario is 51. DJ Lethal (Limp Bizkit) is 50. Pop singer Sia is 47. Country singer Randy Houser is 46. Actor Josh Dallas is 44. Actor Katie Holmes is 44. Actor Ravi Patel is 44. Singer Christina Aguilera is 42. Actor Ashley Benson is 33. NHL defenseman Victor Hedman is 32. Actor-singer Bridgit Mendler is 30. MLB outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. is 25. Electro-pop singer Billie Eilish is 21. Actor Isabella Crovetti is 18.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Turkey’s courts to fix any errors after Imamoglu jailing: Erdogan

    Turkey’s courts to fix any errors after Imamoglu jailing: Erdogan

    [ad_1]

    Opposition figure Ekrem Imamoglu was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for insulting public officials.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the courts would correct any mistakes in an appeal process after a court sentenced the mayor of Istanbul to more than two-and-a-half years in prison on charges of insulting members of the Supreme Electoral Council.

    Erdogan made his first direct comments after the court on Wednesday sentenced Ekrem Imamoglu, a key opposition politician and a potential challenger to Erdogan, to two years and seven months in prison and handed him a political ban.

    Imamoglu was prosecuted for insulting public officials in 2019 when he criticised a decision to cancel the first round of municipal elections that he won and became the mayor of Istanbul. His win was seen as a blow to Erdogan and his AK Party.

    “There’s still no final court decision yet. The case will go to the Court of Appeals and the Court of Cassation,” Erdogan said. “If the courts have made a mistake, it will be corrected. They’re trying to pull us into this game.”

    Erdogan also said he did not care who the opposition candidate in next year’s elections is.

    On Friday, thousands of people in Istanbul gathered to protest against the conviction and political ban, voicing criticism of Turkey’s government ahead of elections next year that are set to pose a big test to Erdogan’s 20-year rule.

    “There have been many court rulings that we have harshly criticised ourselves, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to insult judges or to ignore court rulings,” Erdogan told a rally at Mardin in Turkey’s southeast.

    Imamoglu himself called the sentence “political and unlawful”.

    Imamoglu was tried for defamation over a speech after the Istanbul mayoral elections in June 2019 in which he said those who annulled an initial vote held three months earlier were “fools”. The AK Party refused to acknowledge Imamoglu’s initial win.

    Critics say Turkey’s judiciary has been bent to Erdogan’s will to punish his critics. The government says they are independent.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

    US court rejects maintaining COVID-19 asylum restrictions

    [ad_1]

    REYNOSA, Mexico — Restrictions that have prevented hundreds of thousands of migrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. in recent years remained on track to expire in a matter of days after an appeals court ruling Friday, as thousands more migrants packed shelters on Mexico’s border with the U.S.

    The ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals means the restrictions known as Title 42 are still set to be lifted Wednesday, unless further appeals are filed.

    A coalition of 19 Republican-leaning states were pushing to keep the asylum restrictions put in place by former President Donald Trump at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The public-health has left some migrants biding time in Mexico.

    Advocates for immigrants had argued that the U.S. was abandoning its longstanding history and commitments to offer refuge to people around the world fleeing persecution, and sued to end the use of Title 42. They’ve also argued the restrictions were a pretext by Trump for restricting migration, and in any case, vaccines and other treatments make that argument outdated.

    A judge last month sided with them and set Dec. 21 as the deadline for the federal government to end the practice. Conservative states trying to keep Title 42 in place had pushed to intervene in the case. But a three-judge panel on Friday night rejected their efforts, saying the states had waited too long. Louisiana’s Attorney General expressed disappointment with the decision and said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.

    Border cities, most notably El Paso, Texas, are facing a daily migrant influx that the Biden administration expects to grow if asylum restrictions are lifted. Tijuana, the largest Mexican border city, has an estimated 5,000 people in more than 30 shelters, Enrique Lucero, the city’s director of migrant affairs said this week.

    In Reynosa, Mexico, near McAllen, Texas, nearly 300 migrants — mostly families — crammed into the Casa del Migrante, sleeping on bunk beds and even on the floor.

    Rose, a 32-year-old Haitian, has been in the shelter for three weeks with her daughter and 1-year-old son. Rose, who did not provide her last name because she fears it could jeopardize her safety and her attempts to seek asylum, said she learned on her journey of possible changes to U.S. policies. She said she was happy to wait a little longer in Mexico for the lifting of restrictions that were enacted at the outset of the pandemic and that have become a cornerstone of U.S. border enforcement.

    “We’re very scared, because the Haitians are deported,” said Rose, who is worried any mistakes in trying to get her family to the U.S. could get her sent back to Haiti.

    Inside Senda de Vida 2, a Reynosa shelter opened by an evangelical Christian pastor when his first one reached capacity, about 3,000 migrants are living in tents pitched on concrete slabs and gravel. Flies swarm everywhere under a hot sun beating down even in mid-December.

    For the many fleeing violence in Haiti, Venezuela and elsewhere, such shelters offer at least some safety from the cartels that control passage through the Rio Grande and prey on migrants.

    In McAllen, about 100 migrants who avoided asylum restrictions rested on floor mats Thursday in a large hall run by Catholic Charities, waiting for transportation to families and friends across the U.S.

    Gloria, a 22-year-old from Honduras who is eight months pregnant with her first child, held onto a printed sheet that read: “Please help me. I do not speak English.” Gloria also did not want her last name used out of fear for her safety. She expressed concerns about navigating the airport alone and making it to Florida, where she has a family acquaintance.

    Andrea Rudnik, co-founder of an all-volunteer migrant welcome association in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico, was worried about having enough winter coats for migrants coming from warmer climates.

    “We don’t have enough supplies,” she said Friday, noting donations to Team Brownsville are down.

    Title 42, which is part of a 1944 public health law, applies to all nationalities but has fallen unevenly on those whom Mexico agrees to take back — Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans and, more recently, Venezuelans, in addition to Mexicans. Illegal border crossings of single adults dipped in November, according to a Justice Department court filing released Friday, though it gave no explanation for why. It also did not account for families traveling with young children and children traveling alone.

    According to the filing, Border Patrol agents stopped single adults 143,903 times along the Mexican border in November, down 9% from 158,639 times in October and the lowest level since August. Nicaraguans became the second-largest nationality at the border among single adults after Mexicans, surpassing Cubans.

    Venezuelan single adults were stopped 3,513 times by Border Patrol agents in November, plunging from 14,697 a month earlier, demonstrating the impact of Mexico’s decision on Oct. 12 to accept migrants from the South American country who are expelled from the U.S.

    Mexican single adults were stopped 43,504 times, down from 56,088 times in October, more than any other nationality. Nicaraguan adults were stopped 27,369 times, up from 16,497. Cuban adults were stopped 24,690 times, up from 20,744.

    In a related development, a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, ruled Thursday that the Biden administration wrongly ended a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. The ruling had no immediate impact but could prove a longer-term setback for the White House.

    White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said immigration laws would continue to be enforced at the border and the Biden administration would work to expand legal pathways for migrants but discourage “disorderly and unsafe migration.”

    “To be clear: the lifting of the Title 42 public health order does not mean the border is open,” he said. “Anyone who suggests otherwise is doing the work of smugglers spreading misinformation to make a quick buck off of vulnerable migrants.”

    ———

    Santana reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today in History: December 17, Wright Brothers’ first flight

    Today in History: December 17, Wright Brothers’ first flight

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Saturday, Dec. 17, the 351st day of 2022. There are 14 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, conducted the first successful manned powered-airplane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, using their experimental craft, the Wright Flyer.

    On this date:

    In 1777, France recognized American independence.

    In 1933, in the inaugural NFL championship game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23-21, at Wrigley Field.

    In 1944, the U.S. War Department announced it was ending its policy of excluding people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.

    In 1957, the United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

    In 1969, the U.S. Air Force closed its Project “Blue Book” by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

    In 1975, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was sentenced in Sacramento, California, to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Gerald R. Ford. (She was paroled in Aug. 2009.)

    In 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a Black insurance executive, was beaten by police after leading them on a chase with his motorcycle in Miami. McDuffie died in a hospital four days later. (Four white police officers accused of beating McDuffie were later acquitted, sparking riots.)

    In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (muhl-ROO’-nee) and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (sah-LEE’-nuhs deh gohr-TAHR’-ee) signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies. (After President Donald Trump demanded a new deal, the three countries signed a replacement agreement in 2018.)

    In 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died after more than a decade of iron rule; he was 69, according to official records, but some reports indicated he was 70.

    In 2014, the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations, sweeping away one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.

    In 2018, a report from the Senate intelligence committee found that Russia’s political disinformation campaign on U.S. social media was more far-reaching than originally thought, with troll farms working to discourage Black voters and “blur the lines between reality and fiction” to help elect Donald Trump.

    In 2020, a government advisory panel endorsed a second COVID-19 vaccine, paving the way for the shot from Moderna and the National Institutes of Health to be added to the U.S. vaccination campaign.

    Ten years ago: Newtown, Connecticut, began laying its dead to rest, holding funerals for two 6-year-old boys, the first of the 20 children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. A pair of NASA spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, were deliberately crashed into a mountain near the moon’s north pole, ending a mission that peered into the lunar interior. Longtime Democratic U.S. senator and World War II hero Daniel Inouye (ih-NOH’-way) of Hawaii died in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 88.

    Five years ago: Facing an investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct and using racist language, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced that he would sell the NFL team after the season. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” took in $220 million in its debut weekend in North America, good for the second-best opening ever and behind only its predecessor, “The Force Awakens.” French sailor Francois Gabart broke the record for sailing around the world alone, circumnavigating the planet in just 42 days and 16 hours.

    One year ago: A federal appeals court panel ruled that President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for larger private employers could take effect. (Weeks later, the Supreme Court rejected that mandate.) A Florida man, 54-year-old Robert Palmer, who had attacked police officers trying to hold back the angry mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to more than five years behind bars. The National Labor Relations Board confirmed a vote to form a union at a Starbucks store in Buffalo; the coffee retailer, for the first time, would have to bargain with organized labor at a company-owned U.S. store. A fire that spread from a fourth-floor mental clinic in an eight-story building in downtown Osaka in western Japan left 25 dead. (A clinic patient suspected of starting the fire died two weeks later at a hospital where he was being treated for burns and smoke inhalation.)

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Armin Mueller-Stahl is 92. Pope Francis is 86. Singer-actor Tommy Steele is 86. Actor Bernard Hill is 78. Actor Ernie Hudson is 77. Comedian-actor Eugene Levy is 76. Actor Marilyn Hassett is 75. Actor Wes Studi is 75. Pop musician Jim Bonfanti (The Raspberries) is 74. Actor Joel Brooks is 73. Rock singer Paul Rodgers is 73. R&B singer Wanda Hutchinson Vaughn (The Emotions) is 71. Actor Bill Pullman is 69. Actor Barry Livingston is 69. Country singer Sharon White is 69. Producer-director-writer Peter Farrelly is 66. Rock musician Mike Mills (R.E.M.) is 64. Pop singer Sarah Dallin (Bananarama) is 61. Country singer Tracy Byrd is 56. Country musician Duane Propes is 56. Actor Laurie Holden is 53. DJ Homicide (Sugar Ray) is 52. Actor Sean Patrick Thomas is 52. Actor Claire Forlani is 51. Pop-rock musician Eddie Fisher (OneRepublic) is 49. Actor Sarah Paulson is 48. Actor Marissa Ribisi is 48. Actor Giovanni Ribisi is 48. Actor Milla Jovovich (YO’-vuh-vich) is 47. Singer Bree Sharp is 47. Singer-songwriter Ben Goldwasser (MGMT) is 40. Rock singer Mikky Ekko is 39. Actor Shannon Woodward is 38. Actor Emma Bell is 36. Actor Vanessa Zima is 36. Rock musician Taylor York (Paramore) is 33. Actor Graham Rogers is 32. Actor-singer Nat Wolff is 28.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Washington man gets 2 years for threatening Black shoppers

    Washington man gets 2 years for threatening Black shoppers

    [ad_1]

    EVERETT, Wash. — A suburban Seattle man was sentenced Friday to two years in federal prison for threatening to shoot Black customers at grocery stores in Buffalo, New York, and at businesses in other states.

    Joey George of Lynnwood pleaded guilty in November to making interstate threats and the hate crime of interference with a federally protected activity, The Daily Herald reported.

    As part of a plea agreement George admitted he made phone calls threatening to shoot Black customers at grocery stores in Buffalo, restaurants in California and Connecticut, and a marijuana dispensary in Maryland.

    According to the plea agreement, George started making calls in July — telling staff at one store to “take him seriously” as he was “preparing to shoot all Black customers.” One store closed.

    In May, a man massacred 10 Black shoppers and employees and hurt several others at Tops Friendly Supermarket in Buffalo. A 19-year-old white man, Payton Gendron, has pleaded guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    George did not call the same store but referenced it in threats, prosecutors said.

    His calls to businesses in other states also involved threats to Black people and in one case, Hispanic people, prosecutors said.

    “What he did in this case was deplorable,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods said at sentencing Friday.

    George’s public defender, Mohammad Hamoudi, said his client has autism and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after a traumatic, abusive childhood that caused him to disassociate from reality.

    While at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, George has been seeing a psychologist, Hamoudi said.

    In court Friday, George said he regrets his actions.

    “What I did was wrong, and there is no excuse,” he said. “And I feel bad for the people that I scared.”

    U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez sentenced George to two years, the middle of the sentencing guidelines range. He called George’s actions “nothing other than terrorizing to the victims on the other end of those calls.”

    Martinez also said the case shows the need for more mental health care.

    “The fact that intellectually disabled people with severe mental health challenges end up in courtrooms and courthouses, rather than in places where they can be taken care of and perhaps helped, is one of the most difficult things in today’s society,” the judge said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Records access sought in case of inmate who severed penis

    Records access sought in case of inmate who severed penis

    [ad_1]

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee judge on Friday promised to rule quickly on a request for public access to records that detail the treatment of a death row prisoner who cut off his penis while on suicide watch in October.

    In a lawsuit filed in Chancery Court in Nashville, inmate Henry Hodges accused the state of providing inadequate medical and mental health care.

    The inmate, who was sentenced to die for the 1990 killing of a telephone repairman, also accused the state of cruel and unusual punishment for his treatment upon his return to the prison from the hospital. That included keeping him naked and tied down with restraints on a thin vinyl mattress over a concrete slab in a room where the lights were always on and there was no TV or radio.

    Hodges was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where surgeons reattached his penis. After a few weeks in the hospital, he was returned to the prison. Hodges ended up having to return to the hospital to have his penis surgically removed after necrosis set in, according to court filings.

    The state has asked for a court order that would protect broad categories of documents from public disclosure, including all video recordings of Hodges’ treatment while inside the prison. The Associated Press and the Nashville Banner are asking for those records to be open.

    In court on Friday, Assistant Attorney General Dean Atyia argued that state law exempts certain categories of documents from public disclosure. Those include investigative reports, surveillance video, and other document directly related to the security of the prison.

    The state has filed an affidavit by Ernest Lewis, the associate warden of security at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, stating that public disclosure of the prison records “could pose a severe security risk to both inmates and staff.”

    “We have to protect the public,” Atyia said. “We have to keep prison transportation safe, keep prison officials safe, keep contraband out of the prisons.”

    Nashville Banner attorney Daniel Horwitz argued that the state’s assertions of a vague security risk and the single-page affidavit from Lewis are not nearly sufficient to justify keeping the records secret. Officials have to demonstrate specific harm that would come from release of specific documents, rather than broad, conclusory allegations.

    “The state has concerns about prisoner transportation?” he said. “Great. Let us know where that is” in the videos.

    Hodges’ attorney, Kelley Henry, spoke in favor of disclosure, saying that videos of the prison interior are already public on the Tennessee Department of Correction’s own YouTube channel.

    “By putting it on the internet, that shows it doesn’t compromise safety and security,” she stated.

    In addition, the videos refute the state’s version of events about Hodges’ actions and his treatment by prison officials, she said.

    In addition, there is an exception to the statute that protects video and other records deemed to implicate security. They can be released in several cases, including where they show possible criminal activity, said Paul McAdoo, an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who is representing The AP.

    Henry, who has seen the videos in question, suggested in court that Hodges’ treatment by prison officials could be considered criminal, although she did not go into detail.

    No official has been charged with a crime.

    Prison security is important, McAdoo argued, but it is up to the judge to review the records the state wants to keep private and determine whether security is likely to be compromised by them.

    Hodges has said he wants all the records open to the public, including his medical records. Atyia said they would not oppose the release of the medical records.

    A Nashville jury convicted Hodges of murder in 1992 and sentenced him to death for the killing of the repairman, Ronald Bassett. Hodges also was sentenced to 40 years in prison for robbing Bassett.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Court upholds Connecticut’s transgender athlete policy

    Court upholds Connecticut’s transgender athlete policy

    [ad_1]

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a challenge to Connecticut’s policy of allowing transgender girls to compete in girls high school sports, rejecting arguments by four cisgender runners who said they were unfairly forced to race against transgender athletes.

    A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld a lower court judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the policy. The panel said the four cisgender athletes lacked standing to sue — in part because their claims that they were deprived of wins, state titles and athletic scholarship opportunities were speculative.

    “All four Plaintiffs regularly competed at state track championships as high school athletes, where Plaintiffs had the opportunity to compete for state titles in different events,” the decision said. “And, on numerous occasions, Plaintiffs were indeed “champions,” finishing first in various events, even sometimes when competing against (transgender athletes).”

    The judges added, “Plaintiffs simply have not been deprived of a ‘chance to be champions.’”

    The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Council argued its policy is designed to comply with a state law that requires all high school students be treated according to their gender identity. It also said the policy is in accordance with Title IX, the federal law that allows girls equal educational opportunities, including in athletics.

    The American Civil Liberties Union defended the two transgender athletes at the center of the lawsuit — Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood.

    “Today’s ruling is a critical victory for fairness, equality, and inclusion” Joshua Block, a lawyer for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “This critical victory strikes at the heart of political attacks against transgender youth while helping ensure every young person has the right to play.”

    Transgender athletes’ ability to compete in sports is the subject of a continuing national debate. At least 12 Republican-led states have passed laws banning transgender women or girls in sports based on the premise it gives them an unfair competitive advantage.

    Transgender rights advocates counter such laws aren’t just about sports, but another way to demean and attack transgender youth.

    Christiana Kiefer, a lawyer with the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom who represented the four Connecticut cisgender athletes, said she and other alliance attorneys are considering how to respond, including possibly asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review Friday’s decision.

    “Our clients, like all female athletes across the country, deserve fair competition,” Kiefer said in a phone interview. “And that means fair and equal quality of competition, and that just does not happen when you’re forced to compete against biological males in their sports.”

    Kiefer added, “The vast majority of the American public recognizes that in order to have fair sports, we have to protect the female category, and I think you’re seeing that trend increasingly with states across the country passing laws to protect women’s sports. … This is certainly not the end of the road in the fight for fairness for female athletes.”

    The plaintiffs sought injunctions to bar enforcement of the state policy on transgender athletes and to remove records set by transgender athletes from the books, as well as money damages.

    In arguments before a federal judge in Connecticut in February 2021, Roger Brooks, another lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said Title IX guarantees girls “equal quality” of competition, which he said is denied by having to race people with what he described as inherent physiological advantages.

    Brooks said the transgender sprinters improperly won 15 championship races between 2017 and 2020 and cost cisgender girls the opportunity to advance to other races 85 times.

    Miller and Yearwood, the transgender sprinters from Bloomfield and Cromwell, respectively, frequently outperformed their cisgender competitors.

    The plaintiffs competed directly against them, almost always losing to Miller and usually finishing behind Yearwood. One of the plaintiffs, Chelsea Mitchell of Canton High School, finished third in the 2019 state championship in the girls 55-meter indoor track competition behind Miller and Yearwood.

    All the athletes have since graduated from high school.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FBI: Minnesota man was making arsenal, revered mass shooters

    FBI: Minnesota man was making arsenal, revered mass shooters

    [ad_1]

    MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man who said he idolized the shooter who killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs and was building an arsenal of automatic weapons to use against police was arrested this week as he tried to buy grenades from an FBI informant, according to charges filed this week.

    River William Smith, who also expressed interest in joining neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and fired an assault-style rifle in a 2019, leaving his grandmother with a hand injury, faces federal weapons charges, The U.S. Attorney General’s office announced in a news release. FBI agents arrested the 20-year-old man on Wednesday after he purchased three hand grenades and four auto sears from an FBI informant, the AG’s office said. An auto sear is a device that turns a firearm into an automatic weapon.

    Smith, who lives in the Minneapolis suburb of Savage, had told the informant that the shooter who killed five people at an LGBTQ nightclub last month was a “hero,” called Black people “agents of satan,” and said he was ready to engage the police “with armor and full autos,” an FBI agent said in an affidavit.

    Smith is in custody and is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. Online court records show he is being represented by the Office of the Federal Defender. Phone and email messages seeking comment on his behalf were not immediately returned Friday.

    Authorities say Smith came to the attention of the FBI after he frequented a firearm range and gun club this fall wearing tactical gear, body armor and a “Punisher” mask, which the FBI said has been used by right-wing extremist groups to reference “the last thing a victim sees.”

    A retired police officer who worked at the gun range contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center on Sept. 27 after he saw Smith wearing body armor, shooting from behind a plywood barricade he had assembled and practicing rapid reloads of his handgun, according to the affidavit.

    As the FBI surveilled Smith in November, agents saw Smith’s grandmother drive him to the gun range and wait in the car while he shot. She had also purchased pistol ammunition for him, according to the federal affidavit.

    It wasn’t the first time Smith came to the attention of law enforcement.

    In 2019, when he was 17, Smith was put on probation after he fired an AK-47-style assault rifle in a house he shared with his grandparents, according to court documents. His grandmother, who received a minor injury to her hand, told police officers at the time that she had taken two pistols from Smith and hidden them in her closet. The grandparents told police they were concerned for their safety if Smith was released from custody.

    The grandmother added that Smith seemed “possessed” that night, according to legal documents, and she described him as “big and scary and strong.”

    During follow-up searches, police found tactical equipment, 15 fully loaded magazines, full ammunition cans and a go-bag of water and canned goods that suggested to them he could have been preparing for a prolonged standoff. An affidavit also says police reviewing his electronic devices found searches about Adolf Hitler and videos of homosexuals being killed, as well as files about bomb-building on an external hard drive.

    In a post-arrest interview, Smith told investigators he was not a “super terrorist,” according to the federal affidavit.

    As part of the February 2020 probation agreement, Smith was barred from using or possessing any firearms until he turned 19. Within two years, he was stockpiling an arsenal of firearms, authorities said.

    Smith told an FBI informant that he was “pro mass shooting in general,” and that he wanted to add the hand grenades to his tactical vest, the Attorney General’s Office said. He said it was part of a personal arsenal that included a note cursing police officers in a pouch attached to his gear, authorities said.

    “They can find that once they get me,” he told the informant in a recorded conversation, according to authorities. “When they’re scooping their boys up.”

    ———

    Groves reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • In 2021, judge warned of gay bar attacker’s shootout plans

    In 2021, judge warned of gay bar attacker’s shootout plans

    [ad_1]

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A judge who dismissed a 2021 kidnapping case against the Colorado gay nightclub shooter warned last year that the defendant had been stockpiling weapons and planning a shootout, and needed mental health treatment or “it’s going to be so bad.”

    The comments made by Judge Robin Chittum in August last year are contained in court documents obtained by The Associated Press. They add to the warning signs authorities had about Anderson Aldrich’s increasingly violent behavior prior to the Nov. 19 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs.

    Five people were killed and 17 wounded.

    The judge’s comments came during a preliminary hearing on charges that Aldrich kidnapped their grandparents, and had previously been under a court seal that was lifted last week.

    “You clearly have been planning for something else,” Chittum told Aldrich during the hearing, after the defendant testified about an affinity for shooting firearms and a history of mental health problems.

    “It didn’t have to do with your grandma and grandpa. It was saving all these firearms and trying to make this bomb, and making statements about other people being involved in some sort of shootout and a huge thing. And then that’s kind of what it turned into,” the judge said.

    Chittum’s assistant Chad Dees said Friday that the judge declined to comment.

    The 2021 charges against Aldrich — who had stockpiled explosives and allegedly spoke of plans to become the “next mass killer” before engaging in an armed standoff with SWAT teams — were thrown out during a four-minute hearing this past July at which the prosecution didn’t even argue to keep the case active.

    Chittum, who received a letter last year from relatives of the grandparents warning that Aldrich was “certain” to commit murder if freed, granted defense attorneys’ motion to dismiss the case because a deadline was looming to bring it to trial.

    There was no discussion at that July hearing about Aldrich’s mental health treatment, violent past, or exploring options to compel Aldrich’s grandparents and mother to testify.

    Details of the failed 2021 prosecution — laid out in 13 court hearing transcripts obtained by the AP — paint a picture of potential missteps in the case against Aldrich and raise more questions about whether enough was done to stop the recent mass shooting.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US judge blocks Biden bid to end ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

    US judge blocks Biden bid to end ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

    [ad_1]

    AMARILLO, Texas — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from ending a Trump-era policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

    U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas stayed the termination until legal challenges by Texas and Missouri are settled but didn’t order the policy reinstated. The impact on the program wasn’t immediately clear.

    “It’s a common sense policy to prevent people from entering our country illegally,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted after the ruling. “Texas wins again, for now.”

    The decision comes as El Paso, Texas, and other border cities face a daily influx of migrants that could grow larger if separate asylum restrictions enacted under President Donald Trump end next week as scheduled.

    Thursday’s ruling could prove to be a temporary setback for the Biden administration, which may appeal.

    The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it disagreed with the ruling and was considering its next steps. It said the government was well within its authority to end the policy.

    Under Trump, about 70,000 asylum-seekers were forced to wait in Mexico for U.S. hearings under the policy introduced in January 2019. President Joe Biden — who said it “goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants” — suspended the policy on his first day in office.

    That sparked a long and tortured legal and administrative path.

    Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, ordered that the policy be reinstated in 2021. The Biden administration complied with the order after agreeing to changes and additions demanded by Mexico. But it didn’t enforce the policy widely and only a few thousand people were sent back to wait in Mexico.

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that Biden had the ability to end what technically are known as Migrant Protection Protocols. But it threw back to Kacsmaryk one main issue: determining whether the administration’s action was “arbitrary and capricious” and thus violated federal law for crafting regulations.

    In his 35-page ruling, the judge said it was likely an October 2021 memo that was the administration’s latest effort to nail down termination of the policy did indeed appear to violate the law.

    Among other things, the administration failed to consider the benefits of the policy, including reducing illegal immigration and “unmeritorious asylum claims,” the ruling said.

    Trump made the policy a centerpiece of border enforcement, which critics said was inhumane for exposing migrants to extreme violence in Mexico and making access to attorneys far more difficult.

    Kacsmaryk said the Biden administration memo mentioned conditions that migrants might face while in Mexico but not the hardships they face “when making the dangerous journey to the southern border” in the first place.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 10-year-old accused of killing mom makes court appearance

    10-year-old accused of killing mom makes court appearance

    [ad_1]

    MILWAUKEE — A judge has refused to lower the $50,000 bail imposed on a 10-year-old Milwaukee boy accused of intentionally killing his mother because she would not buy him a virtual reality headset.

    The boy’s attorney argued during his initial court appearance Wednesday that the bail should be lowered from $50,000 to $100 because he has no source of income, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jane Carroll refused to lower the bail amount and also imposed travel restrictions on the boy, should bail be posted.

    The boy initially told police that the Nov. 21 shooting was an accident, according to the criminal complaint. But later he said he intentionally aimed at his 44-year-old mom before shooting her because he was upset that she woke him early and did not buy him something he wanted, according to the complaint.

    The boy was charged as an adult last month with alternate counts of first-degree intentional homicide or first-degree reckless homicide.

    Wisconsin law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for certain serious crimes, though the boy’s attorneys can seek to move the case to juvenile court. The boy, who family members said has mental health issues, is being held in juvenile detention.

    The prosecutor in the case, Paul Dedinsky, asked the judge to require the boy to be released into the custody of a family member should he post bail. The judge did not impose that restriction.

    The boy’s attorney, Angela Cunningham, argued that it would be “unheard of” to require a defendant in adult court to stay in the custody of a family member on pretrial release.

    Carroll appeared to side with Cunningham on Wednesday, saying that if he is released, he should be placed on GPS monitoring.

    The boy mostly kept his head down during the hearing. Carroll ordered that he not be placed in shackles or any other kind of restraints and forbade the media from publishing any personal information about him, including his image and address.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    [ad_1]

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man who pleaded guilty to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday evening. He would become the second inmate executed in Mississippi in 10 years.

    Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, is set to receive a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. He has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against Leesa Marie Gray.

    In a late-night ruling on Dec. 7, a federal judge declined to block Mississippi from carrying out the execution amid a pending lawsuit from Loden and four Mississippi death row inmates over the state’s lethal injection protocol. Mississippi’s most recent execution was in November 2021.

    Mark McDonald, one of Loden’s attorneys, said Wednesday morning that Loden didn’t plan to seek any further delays in the execution, scheduled for 7 p.m.

    “It is not Mr. Loden’s intent at this time to make any legal challenges,” McDonald told The Associated Press.

    Officials checked on Loden at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday. “He’s in good spirits,” Karei McDonald, executive deputy commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said at a news conference.

    Once he finishes his last meal, four unnamed visitors and Loden’s two attorneys will be allowed to see him. Leading up to the execution, Loden has also requested daily visits from Maurice Clifton, the Department of Corrections chaplain, and an unnamed mental health professional.

    Officials said they spoke to Loden again at approximately 12:45 p.m. He was “remorseful to the family,” they said.

    During the summer ahead of what should have been Gray’s senior year of high school, she had worked as a waitress at her uncle’s restaurant in northeast Mississippi. On June 22, 2000, she left work after dark and became stranded with a flat tire on a rural road.

    Loden, a Marine Corps recruiter with relatives in the area, encountered Gray on the road around 10:45 p.m. He stopped and began speaking with the teenager about the flat tire. “Don’t worry. I’m a Marine. We do this kind of stuff,” he said.

    Loden told investigators he became angry after Gray allegedly said she would never want to be a Marine, and that he ordered her into his van. He spent four hours sexually assaulting her before strangling and suffocating her, according to an interview he gave investigators.

    Court records show that on the afternoon of June 23, 2000, “Loden was discovered lying by the side of a road with the words ‘I’m sorry’ carved into his chest and apparent self-inflicted lacerations on his wrists.”

    After pleading guilty in September 2001, Loden told Gray’s friends and family during his sentencing: “I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today.”

    Wanda Farris, Gray’s mother, described her daughter as a “happy-go-lucky, always smiling” teenager who aspired to become an elementary school teacher.

    “She wasn’t perfect, now, mind you,” Farris said. “But she strived to do right.”

    Farris plans on attending the execution Wednesday.

    In 2015, attorneys for the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center sued the Mississippi prison system on behalf of two death row inmates, saying the state’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane. Loden and two other Mississippi death row inmates later joined as plaintiffs.

    The Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed in court papers in July 2021 that it had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, said at a November court hearing that since 2019, only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee have conducted executions using a three-drug protocol.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 states have the death penalty. Craig said a majority of death-penalty states and the federal government used a three-drug protocol in 2008, but the federal government and most of those states have since started using one drug.

    In November, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sought a pause in executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after a series of failed lethal injections. Jeworski Mallett, deputy commissioner of institutions for the Department of Corrections, told reporters that Mississippi has done “mock executions and drills” on a monthly basis to avoid a botched execution.

    A week before Loden’s scheduled execution, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate handed down a ruling saying the execution could happen even while the lawsuit is pending. He wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a three-drug lethal injection protocol as recently as seven years ago in a case from Oklahoma.

    There are 36 inmates on death row in Mississippi. Death Penalty Action, a group opposed to capital punishment, convened a news conference Tuesday in front of the state capitol in Jackson to voice their opposition to Loden’s execution.

    “Clearly, something in him snapped for him to commit such a horrific crime,” said Mitzi Magleby, a spokesperson for the Mississippi chapter of Ignite Justice, an organization that advocates for criminal justice reform. “Mr. Loden was immediately remorseful. Shouldn’t there be room for grace and mercy in such a situation?”

    Farris told the AP on Friday that she forgave Loden years ago, but she did not believe his apology.

    “I don’t particularly want to see somebody die,” Farris said. “But I do believe in the death penalty. … I do believe in justice.”

    ___

    Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report. Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

    ___

    More of AP’s coverage of executions can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/executions

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    [ad_1]

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man who pleaded guilty to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday evening. He would become the second inmate executed in Mississippi in 10 years.

    Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, is set to receive a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. He has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against Leesa Marie Gray.

    In a late-night ruling on Dec. 7, a federal judge declined to block Mississippi from carrying out the execution amid a pending lawsuit from Loden and four Mississippi death row inmates over the state’s lethal injection protocol. Mississippi’s most recent execution was in November 2021.

    Mark McDonald, one of Loden’s attorneys, said Wednesday morning that Loden didn’t plan to seek any further delays in the execution, scheduled for 7 p.m.

    “It is not Mr. Loden’s intent at this time to make any legal challenges,” McDonald told The Associated Press.

    Officials checked on Loden at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday. “He’s in good spirits,” Karei McDonald, executive deputy commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said at a news conference.

    Once he finishes his last meal, four unnamed visitors and Loden’s two attorneys will be allowed to see him. Leading up to the execution, Loden has also requested daily visits from Maurice Clifton, the Department of Corrections chaplain, and an unnamed mental health professional.

    Officials said they spoke to Loden again at approximately 12:45 p.m. He was “remorseful to the family,” they said.

    During the summer ahead of what should have been Gray’s senior year of high school, she had worked as a waitress at her uncle’s restaurant in northeast Mississippi. On June 22, 2000, she left work after dark and became stranded with a flat tire on a rural road.

    Loden, a Marine Corps recruiter with relatives in the area, encountered Gray on the road around 10:45 p.m. He stopped and began speaking with the teenager about the flat tire. “Don’t worry. I’m a Marine. We do this kind of stuff,” he said.

    Loden told investigators he became angry after Gray allegedly said she would never want to be a Marine, and that he ordered her into his van. He spent four hours sexually assaulting her before strangling and suffocating her, according to an interview he gave investigators.

    Court records show that on the afternoon of June 23, 2000, “Loden was discovered lying by the side of a road with the words ‘I’m sorry’ carved into his chest and apparent self-inflicted lacerations on his wrists.”

    After pleading guilty in September 2001, Loden told Gray’s friends and family during his sentencing: “I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today.”

    Wanda Farris, Gray’s mother, described her daughter as a “happy-go-lucky, always smiling” teenager who aspired to become an elementary school teacher.

    “She wasn’t perfect, now, mind you,” Farris said. “But she strived to do right.”

    Farris plans on attending the execution Wednesday.

    In 2015, attorneys for the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center sued the Mississippi prison system on behalf of two death row inmates, saying the state’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane. Loden and two other Mississippi death row inmates later joined as plaintiffs.

    The Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed in court papers in July 2021 that it had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, said at a November court hearing that since 2019, only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee have conducted executions using a three-drug protocol.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 states have the death penalty. Craig said a majority of death-penalty states and the federal government used a three-drug protocol in 2008, but the federal government and most of those states have since started using one drug.

    In November, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sought a pause in executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after a series of failed lethal injections. Jeworski Mallett, deputy commissioner of institutions for the Department of Corrections, told reporters that Mississippi has done “mock executions and drills” on a monthly basis to avoid a botched execution.

    A week before Loden’s scheduled execution, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate handed down a ruling saying the execution could happen even while the lawsuit is pending. He wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a three-drug lethal injection protocol as recently as seven years ago in a case from Oklahoma.

    There are 36 inmates on death row in Mississippi. Death Penalty Action, a group opposed to capital punishment, convened a news conference Tuesday in front of the state capitol in Jackson to voice their opposition to Loden’s execution.

    “Clearly, something in him snapped for him to commit such a horrific crime,” said Mitzi Magleby, a spokesperson for the Mississippi chapter of Ignite Justice, an organization that advocates for criminal justice reform. “Mr. Loden was immediately remorseful. Shouldn’t there be room for grace and mercy in such a situation?”

    Farris told the AP on Friday that she forgave Loden years ago, but she did not believe his apology.

    “I don’t particularly want to see somebody die,” Farris said. “But I do believe in the death penalty. … I do believe in justice.”

    ___

    Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report. Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

    ___

    More of AP’s coverage of executions can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/executions

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Turkish court gives Istanbul mayor prison term, politics ban

    Turkish court gives Istanbul mayor prison term, politics ban

    [ad_1]

    ISTANBUL — A court in Turkey sentenced the mayor of Istanbul, the country’s most populous city, to two years and seven months in prison Wednesday on charges of insulting members of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council.

    The court convicted Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and also imposed a political ban that could lead to his removal from office. Imamoglu, who belongs to the main opposition Republican People’s Party, is expected to appeal the verdict.

    Critics alleged the mayor’s trial was an attempt to eliminate a key opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in June. Polls indicate a drop in Erdogan’s popularity ratings amid an economic turmoil and inflation at more than 84%.

    Imamoglu was elected to lead Istanbul in March 2019. His win was a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. The party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.

    The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won.

    Imamoglu was charged with insulting senior public officials after he described canceling legitimate elections as an act of “foolishness” on Nov. 4, 2019.

    The mayor denied insulting members of the electoral council, insisting his words were a response to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu calling him “a fool” and accusing Imamoglu of criticizing Turkey during a visit to the European Parliament.

    Thousands gathered in front of the municipal building to denounce the verdict against the popular mayor, shouting “Rights, Law, Justice!” and calling on the government and Erdogan to resign.

    “This decision is proof that the rulers of this country have no aim to bring justice and democracy to the country,” Imamoglu said as he addressed the crowd from the top of a bus. “They have stopped fighting honestly and bravely. They are resorting to all kinds of tricks to protect their order.”

    Opposition politician Meral Aksener, whose center-right party joined forces with the Republican People’s Party in the 2019 municipal elections, traveled to Istanbul from Ankara in a show of support for the mayor.

    “It’s when (governments) are afraid that they oppress and carry out injustices,” she said, standing besides Imamoglu. “A great fear lies behind this decision.”

    Aksener recalled that Erdogan had served as Istanbul’s mayor in the 1990s and was unjustly removed from office for reading a poem that the courts deemed to be a violation of Turkey’s secular laws.

    “This song won’t end here,” she said, repeating a comment that Erdogan made at the time.

    Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, cut short a visit to Germany to return to Turkey and lend his support to Imamoglu.

    During the trial, the court heard testimony from Imamoglu’s press officer, Murat Ongun, who confirmed that the mayor’s words were in response to Soylu.

    “Either before or after this event, or even on May 6 (2019), when the elections were canceled, I did not hear any negative words from Ekrem Imamoglu concerning the (Supreme Electoral Council) members,” the T24 news website quoted Ongun as saying. “All of his statements were made toward political figures.”

    But in a video posted on social media, Soylu insisted the mayor’s comments were directed at the electoral council members.

    After the 2019 elections, several mayors from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, were removed from office over alleged links to Kurdish militants and replaced by state-appointed trustees.

    Dozens of HDP lawmakers and thousands of party members were arrested on terror-related accusations as part of a government crackdown on the party.

    ———

    Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    Mississippi set to execute man for killing 16-year-old girl

    [ad_1]

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man who pleaded guilty to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday evening. He would become the second inmate executed in Mississippi in 10 years.

    Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, is set to receive a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman at 6 p.m. He has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against Leesa Marie Gray.

    In a late-night ruling on Dec. 7, a federal judge declined to block Mississippi from carrying out the execution amid a pending lawsuit from Loden and four Mississippi death row inmates over the state’s lethal injection protocol. Mississippi’s most recent execution was in November 2021.

    During the summer ahead of what should have been Gray’s senior year of high school, she had worked as a waitress at her uncle’s restaurant in northeast Mississippi. On June 22, 2000, she left work after dark and became stranded with a flat tire on a rural road.

    Loden, a Marine Corps recruiter with relatives in the area, encountered Gray on the road around 10:45 p.m. He stopped and began speaking with the teenager about the flat tire. “Don’t worry. I’m a Marine. We do this kind of stuff,” he said.

    Loden told investigators he became angry after Gray allegedly said she would never want to be a Marine, and that he ordered her into his van. He spent four hours sexually assaulting her before strangling and suffocating her, according to an interview he gave investigators.

    Court records show that on the afternoon of June 23, 2000, “Loden was discovered lying by the side of a road with the words ‘I’m sorry’ carved into his chest and apparent self-inflicted lacerations on his wrists.”

    After pleading guilty in September 2001, Loden told Gray’s friends and family during his sentencing: “I hope you may have some sense of justice when you leave here today.”

    Wanda Farris, Gray’s mother, described her daughter as a “happy-go-lucky, always smiling” teenager who aspired to become an elementary school teacher.

    “She wasn’t perfect, now, mind you,” Farris said. “But she strived to do right.”

    Farris plans on attending the execution Wednesday.

    In 2015, attorneys for the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center sued the Mississippi prison system on behalf of two death row inmates, saying the state’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane. Loden and two other Mississippi death row inmates later joined as plaintiffs.

    The Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed in court papers in July 2021 that it had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, said at a November court hearing that since 2019, only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee have conducted executions using a three-drug protocol.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 states have the death penalty. Craig said a majority of death-penalty states and the federal government used a three-drug protocol in 2008, but the federal government and most of those states have since started using one drug.

    In November, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sought a pause in executions and ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after a series of failed lethal injections.

    A week before Loden’s scheduled execution, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate handed down a ruling saying the execution could happen even while the lawsuit is pending. He wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a three-drug lethal injection protocol as recently as seven years ago in a case from Oklahoma.

    Loden’s attorneys did respond to requests for comment.

    There are 36 inmates on death row in Mississippi. Death Penalty Action, a group opposed to capital punishment, convened a news conference Tuesday in front of the state capitol in Jackson to voice their opposition to Loden’s execution.

    “Clearly, something in him snapped for him to commit such a horrific crime,” said Mitzi Magleby, a spokesperson for the Mississippi chapter of Ignite Justice, an organization that advocates for criminal justice reform. “Mr. Loden was immediately remorseful. Shouldn’t there be room for grace and mercy in such a situation?”

    Farris told The Associated Press on Friday that she forgave Loden years ago, but she did not believe his apology.

    “I don’t particularly want to see somebody die,” Farris said. “But I do believe in the death penalty. … I do believe in justice.”

    ———

    Emily Wagster Pettus contributed to this report. Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Bail set at $1M for man accused in armed courthouse standoff

    Bail set at $1M for man accused in armed courthouse standoff

    [ad_1]

    EVERETT, Wash. — A man suspected of carrying guns into a courthouse in Washington state earlier in the week, prompting a standoff and a three-hour lockdown before his arrest, had bail set Tuesday at $1 million.

    Snohomish County District Court Presiding Judge Jennifer Rancourt set bail during a first court appearance for 32-year-old David Hsu, The Daily Herald reported.

    Hsu’s attorney, Lorcan Malone, had requested little to no bail, noting Hsu has no criminal history and wasn’t accused of any violent offenses. Hsu, of Woodinville, remained jailed Tuesday afternoon.

    Rancourt said she found probable cause to hold Hsu on investigation of resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, disorderly conduct, and unlawful display of a weapon.

    Wearing a protective vest, Hsu had entered the Snohomish County Courthouse lobby in Everett at about 12:30 p.m. Monday with guns and ammunition, the county sheriff’s office said. Hsu demanded to see two judges and the sheriff to change arrangements for custody of his child, detectives said in court documents.

    Hsu was immediately confronted by law enforcement officers who ordered him to drop his weapons, authorities said, adding he placed two rifles on the ground, but refused to relinquish additional firearms and weapons and leave the building.

    After hours of negotiations with law enforcement, Hsu was arrested. No one was hurt.

    Sheriff’s office detectives said they recovered two rifles, four handguns, more than 300 rounds of ammunition, a ballistic armor vest, six knives, a hatchet and brass knuckles from the lobby of the courthouse.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Alaska law officer killed in muskox attack outside his house

    Alaska law officer killed in muskox attack outside his house

    [ad_1]

    JUNEAU, Alaska — A court services officer with the Alaska State Troopers died Tuesday after being attacked by a muskox outside his home near Nome, the agency said.

    Curtis Worland was trying to scare away a group of muskox from near a dog kennel at his home when one of the animals attacked him, according to a statement from the troopers that said Worland was declared dead at the scene.

    Court services officers are law enforcement officers that provide prisoner transport services, courthouse security and court document service, troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel said. He could not immediately say how many animals were part of the group that Worland was trying to keep away.

    The Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Wildlife Troopers and state Department of Fish and Game are investigating.

    Muskoxen are stocky, long-haired animals with slight shoulder humps and horns and can weigh up to 800 pounds (363 kilograms), according to the fish and game department.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • “I Can’t Believe I Have To Come Up Here And Do This”: Megan Thee Stallion Takes the Stand in Tory Lanez’s Shooting Trial

    “I Can’t Believe I Have To Come Up Here And Do This”: Megan Thee Stallion Takes the Stand in Tory Lanez’s Shooting Trial

    [ad_1]

    On Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, Megan Thee Stallion took the witness stand in Tory Lanez’s shooting trial. In the two-plus years since the altercation that took place after a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s Los Angeles home in July 2020, the rapper has given her account of the night on multiple occasions in interviews and on social media, claiming that Lanez shot at her feet outside of an SUV. Now, with Lanez pleading not guilty on three assault and gun charges related to the alleged shooting, she said she was disturbed to be telling the story again. 

    “I just don’t feel good,” Megan said as she began her testimony, according to Rolling Stone. A prosecutor had asked if she was nervous. “I can’t believe I have to come up here and do this.”

    Megan arrived at the courthouse in a purple Sergio Hudson suit and was greeted by a small group of supporters holding a sign reading, “I Stand With Megan,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

    In her testimony, she went on to recount the details of how the fight between her and Lanez began. Megan said that while she, Lanez, and her former friend and assistant Kelsey Harris were in the car, Lanez revealed that he and Megan had had a sexual relationship. “Because I knew Kelsey had a crush on Tory, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” she reportedly testified, “and I didn’t want her to know that I had dealt with him in any kind of way.”

    As the fight escalated, Megan said, they began arguing about the state of their rap careers. “Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t shit,” she testified, according to Rolling Stone, “and I said, ‘Actually, You ain’t shit. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.’ And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way.”

    Megan said she began walking away from the car and that Lanez said, “Dance, bitch!” before shooting her in the feet. She testified that Lanez immediately tried to cover his tracks: “He’s saying, ‘Please don’t say anything. I’ll give y’all a million dollars. I can’t go to jail. I already got caught with a gun before.’”

    The rapper testified that she initially told police she stepped on glass. “This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd, and if I said this man just shot me, I didn’t know if they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she said, according to Rolling Stone. “In the Black community, in my community,” she went on, “it’s not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers.” Megan also testified that as a woman in her industry, “people have a hard time believing you anyway.”

    The trial is expected to last until the beginning of next week. Lanez faces more than 22 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

    [ad_2]

    Dan Adler

    Source link

  • Court hears arguments in Alaska refuge road dispute

    Court hears arguments in Alaska refuge road dispute

    [ad_1]

    JUNEAU, Alaska — A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in a dispute over a land exchange proposed during the Trump administration that is aimed at building a road through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska that residents of a remote Alaska community see as a critical health and safety issue.

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month vacated a decision by a divided three-judge appeals panel that reversed a ruling rejecting a proposed land exchange. In setting aside the decision from the three-judge panel, the court also agreed to a rehearing of the matter by a fuller panel of judges. Conservation groups had petitioned for the rehearing, which took place Tuesday in California.

    During the hearing, attorneys for the U.S. government, state of Alaska and conservation groups were peppered with narrowly tailored questions.

    Residents of the remote community of King Cove have long sought a land connection through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to Cold Bay, which is about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away and has an all-weather airport. King Cove residents contend this is a health and safety issue. The refuge, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, contains internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl.

    In 2013, during the Obama administration, Interior Department officials, including then-Secretary Sally Jewell, declined a land exchange, citing an environmental review that showed construction of a road would lead to “significant degradation of irreplaceable ecological resources.” Efforts to move forward with an exchange during the Trump administration faced legal challenges, including a 2019 agreement advanced by then-Secretary David Bernhardt that is the subject of the current litigation.

    Last year, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, in arguing a position taken under the Trump administration, told an appeals court panel President Joe Biden’s Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, planned to review the record and visit King Cove before taking her own position.

    Haaland visited King Cove earlier this year and at the time of her Alaska visit told reporters she was “in a learning process” regarding the issue. Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said by email Tuesday she had no updates to share on the matter.

    Attorneys for the U.S. government, in court documents, argued against a rehearing of the case. They said the ruling from the three-judge panel in March “correctly concluded that Secretary Bernhardt assumed the facts that motivated Secretary Jewell remained the same, but placed more weight on the health and well-being of the people of King Cove than the other factors.”

    Bridget Psarianos, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which is representing a consortium of conservation groups in the case, said last month that in agreeing to review the matter, the court “signaled that there are significant legal questions with the split panel’s ruling that an unelected Interior Secretary may overrule Congress by giving away lands designated as Wilderness.”

    The court did not indicate Tuesday when it might rule.

    [ad_2]

    Source link