ReportWire

Tag: Missouri state government

  • Judge blocks Missouri rule that would limit transgender care

    Judge blocks Missouri rule that would limit transgender care

    [ad_1]

    COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri judge on Monday temporarily blocked a unique rule that would require adults and children to undergo more than a year of therapy and fulfill other requirements before they could receive gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.

    St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo issued a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s emergency rule until May 15 unless she extends it. She scheduled a May 11 hearing on the lawsuit challenging the rule.

    In her ruling, Ribaudo wrote that those suing to block the rule would “be subjected to immediate and irreparable loss, damage or injury if the Attorney General is permitted to enforce the Emergency Rule, and its broad, sweeping provisions were implemented without further fact-finding or evidence.”

    She also wrote that patients are at “high risk” of having their medical care interrupted indefinitely and losing care through their current providers if the rule takes effect.

    Bailey’s office vowed in a statement to continue defending the rule.

    “We remain confident in our position because the Court even acknowledged that it deferred its consideration of the science until a later date,” his statement said, adding “six pages of endnotes” speak to the experimental nature of the care.

    Gillian Wilcox, deputy director of litigation for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which filed suit on behalf of transgender Missourians, applauded the ruling.

    Wilcox’ statement called it “a win for transgender Missourians over an unprecedented attempt by the Attorney General to unilaterally legislate and harm their right to self-expression, bodily autonomy, and access to lifesaving health care.”

    Legal experts and transgender advocates say that if the lawsuit ultimately fails and Bailey’s rule takes effect, it would make Missouri the first state to restrict gender-affirming care for adults and the first to enact such restrictions through emergency rule-making instead of through a new law.

    The lawsuit argues that the rule is discriminatory, and that Bailey sidestepped the Republican-led Legislature and exceeded his authority by attempting to regulate gender-affirming health care through Missouri’s consumer-protection law.

    Dom Frazier, a 39-year-old transgender Kansas City resident who is not a plaintiff, said Bailey’s rule is about “dehumanizing and trying to ostracize a particular group of people.” He said allowing gender-affirming care is “giving people human rights.”

    Simone Folsom, a 21-year-old transgender woman from Kansas City, said she spent “20 years emotionally deadened” until she began hormone treatments.

    “It has literally made me feel like a person for the first time in my life,” said Folsom, who said the effort limit gender-affirming health care pushed her to demonstrate.

    Bailey said the rule would shield minors from what he describes as experimental medical treatments, though puberty blockers and sex hormones have been prescribed for decades and the rule would also apply to adults.

    The attorney general’s office has said there are 12,400 Missourians who identify as transgender, the ruling noted. The office estimated that 600 to 700 Missourians would begin intervention in the next year.

    The rule was initially set to take effect last Thursday. It would require people to have experienced an “intense pattern” of documented gender dysphoria for three years and to have received at least 15 hourly sessions with a therapist over at least 18 months before they could receive puberty blockers, hormones, surgery or other treatment.

    Before receiving care, patients would also have to be screened for autism, and any psychiatric symptoms from mental health issues would have to be treated and resolved. Minors, but not adults, also would have to be screened for “social media addiction” before treatments could begin.

    Opponents called the rule discriminatory and illegal.

    Tony Rothert, an attorney for the ACLU, told Ribaudo at a hearing Wednesday that the regulations would “cause immediate, severe and potentially irreparable harm” to people who could lose access to medications like puberty blockers and sex hormones.

    “We don’t allow attorneys general to legislate, and we don’t allow them to play doctor,” Rothert said.

    He and other attorneys said transgender people who can’t get gender-affirming care are at higher risk of suicide.

    Assistant Attorney General Joshua Divine argued that Bailey’s order would not ban gender-affirming care, but provide “basic procedural guardrails.” He cited studies showing a high percentage of children seeking to transition are dealing with mental health issues, adding they should undergo “talk therapy” instead.

    Bailey issued the restrictions after launching an investigation in February into the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The probe was prompted by a former employee who alleged that the center was providing children with gender-affirming care without informed consent, a sufficient individualized case review and wraparound mental health services. The university’s internal review found no misconduct, determing the claims were unsubstantiated.

    Some transgender people have been trying to stockpile prescribed hormones or find alternative ways to get medications, fearful of losing access to the gender-affirming treatments many credit as life-saving. Some are considering leaving Missouri if the rule isn’t blocked.

    “This feels like the end of Kansas City being my home,” said Stacy Cay, an autistic transgender woman. “It feels like it’s being taken away.”

    Missouri’s Democratic House minority leader, Crystal Quade, said recently that she asked President Joe Biden and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for an executive order extending coverage to Missourians who seek gender-affirming care in other states. She also asked the Democratic governors of Kansas and Illinois if their health care systems would accept Missouri patients for such care.

    Bailey’s emergency rule on gender-affirming care come as Republicans across the country have proposed hundreds of laws aimed at transgender people. At least 13 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors.

    Bailey was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike Parson and took office in January. In a campaign email asking donors for money last week, Bailey said minors are “learning about their genders on TikTok.”

    “Think about how frightening that is!” the campaign email said. “And think about how CRAZY it is to expose children to the twisted experiments advocated by extreme transgender activists.”

    Brandon Hill, the interim president and CEO of Vivent Health, a health care provider with an LGBTQ+ and HIV focus serving Missouri and other states, questioned Bailey’s description of gender-affirming care as “experimental.” Hill said the same hormones used in gender-affirming treatment are used off-label to treat symptoms of menopause and help some cancer survivors.

    “If you’re concerned about the drug and its potential effects, you should be concerned about it for everybody,” Hill said.

    Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers are fighting over competing Missouri House and Senate bills that would ban all gender-affirming care for minors. The chambers are split over which version to send to Parson, who is threatening to force the Legislature to keep working if nothing is done on the issue before their session’s scheduled May 12 finish.

    ___

    This story was updated to correct that the judge blocked the rule from taking effect until May 15 unless she further extends her order, not until the lawsuit challenging the rule is resolved.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Justice Thomas wrote of ‘crushing weight’ of student loans

    Justice Thomas wrote of ‘crushing weight’ of student loans

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won’t have far to look if it wants a personal take on the “crushing weight” of student debt that underlies the Biden administration’s college loan forgiveness plan.

    Justice Clarence Thomas was in his mid-40s and in his third year on the nation’s highest court when he paid off the last of his debt from his time at Yale Law School.

    Thomas, the court’s longest-serving justice and staunchest conservative, has been skeptical of other Biden administration initiatives. And when the Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday involving President Joe Biden’s debt relief plan that would wipe away up to $20,000 in outstanding student loans, Thomas is not likely to be a vote in the administration’s favor.

    But the justices’ own experiences can be relevant in how they approach a case, and alone among them, Thomas has written about the role student loans played in his financial struggles.

    A fellow law school student even suggested Thomas declare bankruptcy after graduating “to get out from under the crushing weight of all my student loans,” the justice wrote in his best-selling 2007 memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He rejected the idea.

    It’s not clear that any of the other justices borrowed money to attend college or law school or have done so for their children’s educations. Some justices grew up in relative wealth. Others reported they had scholarships to pay their way to some of the country’s most expensive private institutions.

    Of the seven justices on the court who are parents, four have signaled through their investments that they don’t want their own children to be saddled with onerous college debt, and have piled money into tax-free college savings accounts that might limit any need for loans.

    Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch have the most on hand, at least $600,000 and at least $300,000, respectively, according to annual disclosure reports the justices filed in 2022. Each has two children.

    Justices Amy Coney Barrett, who has seven children, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has two, also have invested money in college-savings accounts, in which any earnings or growth is tax free if spent on education.

    None of the justices would comment for this story, a court spokeswoman said.

    Thomas wrote vividly about his past money woes in his up-from-poverty story, recounting how a bank once foreclosed on one of his loans because repayment and delinquency notices were sent to his grandparents’ house in Savannah, Georgia, instead of Thomas’ home at the time in Jefferson City, Missouri.

    Thomas was able to take out another loan to repay the bank only because his mentor, John Danforth, then-Missouri attorney general and later a U.S. senator, vouched for him.

    Thomas noted that he signed up for a tuition postponement program at Yale in which a group of students jointly paid for their outstanding loans according to their financial ability, with those earning the most paying the most.

    At the time, Thomas’ first wife, Kathy, was pregnant. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I signed on the dotted line, and spent the next two decades paying off the money I borrowed during my last two years at Yale,” Thomas wrote.

    When he was first nominated to be a federal judge in 1989, Thomas reported $10,000 in outstanding student loans, according to a news report at the time. The Biden administration has picked the same number as the amount of debt relief most borrowers would get under its plan.

    Personal experience can shape the justices’ questions in the courtroom and affect their private conversations about a case, even if it doesn’t figure in the outcome.

    “It is helpful to have people with life experiences that are varied just because it enriches the conversation,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor has said. Sotomayor, like Thomas, also grew up poor. She got a full scholarship to Princeton as an undergraduate, she has said, and went on to Yale for law school, as Thomas did.

    Keeping people from avoiding the kinds of difficult choices Thomas faced is a key part of the administration’s argument for loan forgiveness. The administration says that without additional help, many borrowers will fall behind on their payments once a hold in place since the start of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago is lifted, no later than this summer.

    Under a plan announced in August but so far blocked by federal courts, $10,000 in federal loans would be canceled for people making less than $125,000 or for households with less than $250,000 in income. Recipients of Pell Grants, who tend to have fewer financial resources, would get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.

    The White House says 26 million people already have applied and 16 million have been approved for relief. The program is estimated to cost $400 billion over the next three decades.

    The legal fight could turn on any of several elements, including whether the Republican-led states and individuals suing over the plan have legal standing to go to court and whether Biden has the authority under federal law for so extensive a loan forgiveness program.

    Nebraska and other states challenging the program argue that far from falling behind, 20 million borrowers would get a “windfall” because their entire student debt would be erased, Nebraska Attorney General Michael Hilgers wrote in the states’ main Supreme Court brief.

    Which of those arguments resonate with the court may become clear on Tuesday.

    When she was dean of Harvard Law School, Justice Elena Kagan showed her own concern about the high cost of law school, especially for students who were considering lower-paying jobs.

    Kagan established a program that would allow students to attend their final year tuition-free if they agreed to a five-year commitment to work in the public sector. While that program no longer exists, Harvard offers grants to students for public service work.

    At the time the program was created, Kagan said she wanted students to be able to go to work where they “can make the biggest difference, but that isn’t the case now.” Instead, she said: “They often go to work where they don’t want to work because of the debt burden.”

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Taxes fall, wages rise and jaywalking OK’d by new state laws

    Taxes fall, wages rise and jaywalking OK’d by new state laws

    [ad_1]

    Taxes will fall and minimum wages rise for residents in numerous states as a variety of new laws take effect Sunday that could impact people’s finances and, in some cases, their personal liberties.

    Some new laws could affect access to abortion. Others will ease restrictions on marijuana and concealed guns, or eliminate the need to pay to get out of jail.

    Jaywalkers will get a reprieve in California, thanks to a new law prohibiting police from stopping pedestrians for traffic violations unless they are in immediate danger of being hit by a vehicle.

    Here’s a look at some of the laws taking effect in the new year.

    ABORTION

    After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in June, abortion access became a state issue. Laws in place in 13 states, most of them controlled by Republicans, ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with varying exceptions. Meanwhile, more liberal states have been extending abortion protections.

    Laws taking effect in January are not wholesale policy changes but are intended to make abortion more accessible in California and New York. Abortion already is legal in those states through viability, which is about 24 weeks gestational age.

    California will allow trained nurse practitioners, midwives and physician assistants to provide abortions without supervision from a physician. In New York, a law dealing with multiple facets of health care requires private insurers that cover births to also cover abortion services, without requiring co-payments or co-insurance.

    A new Tennessee law, adopted in May, will bar dispensing abortion pills by mail or at pharmacies, instead requiring them to be given with a physician present. But advocates on both sides of the issue believe the effect will be minimal because a ban on abortions throughout pregnancy went into effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling.

    TAXES

    Thanks to large budget surpluses, about two-thirds of the states approved permanent tax cuts or one-time rebates last year. Several of those will take effect in January.

    Income tax cuts mean less money will be withheld from workers’ paychecks in Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. An Arizona income tax rate reduction to a flat 2.5% also will take effect in January, a year before originally scheduled because of strong state revenues.

    Iowa will revamp its income tax brackets as a first step toward an eventual flat tax, and it will stop taxing retirement income.

    Kansas will reduce its sales tax on groceries. Virginia will lower the tax on groceries and personal hygiene products. Colorado also will remove taxes from hygiene products, but will impose a 10-cent fee on plastic bags as a precursor to their elimination in 2024.

    Other states are providing tax incentives for law-and-order professions. Rhode Island will exempt military pensions from tax. Georgia will offer a tax credit for donations to local law enforcement foundations.

    But not all taxes will be going down. A voter-approved “millionaire tax” will take effect in Massachusetts, imposing a 4% surcharge on income of more than $1 million.

    Wyoming is taking steps to collect taxes more quickly. Producers of coal, oil, gas and uranium will have to pay taxes monthly, instead of up to 18 months after extraction. The change comes after some counties had difficulty collecting millions of dollars owed by coal companies that went bankrupt.

    WAGES

    Minimum wage workers will get a pay raise in 23 states as a result of laws passed in previous years, some of which provide annual inflationary adjustments. The increases range from an extra 23 cents in Michigan to an additional $1.50 in Nebraska, where a ballot measure approved in November will raise the minimum wage from $8 to $9.50 an hour.

    The gap continues to grow between the 20 states following the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and the 30 others requiring more. The highest state minimum wage now will be $15.74 an hour in Washington — more than double the federal rate.

    Another law taking effect with the new year will require employers in Washington to include salary and benefits information in job postings, rather than waiting until a job offer to reveal such information. Similar salary transparency laws are in place in half a dozen other states.

    Workers in Colorado and Oregon will start seeing paycheck deductions in January to fund new paid family leave programs. But Oregon residents will have to wait until September and Colorado residents until 2024 before they can claim paid time off following a serious illness in their family, the arrival of new children or recovery from sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment or stalking.

    Ohio will offer a new way for people to spend their paychecks. Sports betting will become legal, joining more than 30 states that have adopted similar laws since a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said it was OK.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE

    Cash bail will be eliminated for people accused of crimes in Illinois. Requiring bonds to be posted has long been a way to ensure people who are arrested show up for their trials, but critics say the system penalizes the poor. Eliminating cash bail puts Illinois in a group of states including California, Indiana, New Jersey, Nebraska and New York that have prohibited or restricted the practice.

    Another area where social justice meets criminal justice is relaxing marijuana laws.

    In November, voters made Maryland the 21st state to legalize recreational use by adults. That begins on July 1, 2023. As an interim step at the start of the year, possession by adults of up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis will become a civil offense punishable with a maximum fine of $100.

    In Connecticut, some provisions of a 2021 law that legalized recreational marijuana also kick in, including automatic expungement of convictions for possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana that were imposed from 2000 through September 2015. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 21 other states have expungement laws.

    Alabama will become the 25th state where it will be legal to carry a concealed handgun without a permit.

    A new Missouri law will prohibit homeless people from sleeping on state land without permission. Violators could face up to 15 days in jail and a $500 fine after an initial warning. The law also prohibits state funding from being used for permanent housing for homeless people, instead directing it toward temporary shelters and assistance with substance use and mental health treatment.

    ———

    Associated Press writers from across the U.S. contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Missouri man seeks exoneration in murder; 2 others confessed

    Missouri man seeks exoneration in murder; 2 others confessed

    [ad_1]

    ST. LOUIS — Lamar Johnson has wrongly spent nearly three decades in prison for a St. Louis killing after a witness was coerced into falsely identifying him as the shooter, an attorney for the local prosecutor’s office told a judge Monday.

    But Assistant Missouri Attorney General Miranda Loesch said detectives will testify that they never threatened or coerced anyone. “They did their job” and followed leads that pointed to Johnson as the killer, Loesch said.

    Kim Gardner, who leads the same St. Louis circuit attorney’s office that secured Johnson’s 1995 murder conviction, believes he is innocent and is seeking to set him free after nearly 28 years in prison for the shooting death of Marcus Boyd. The state attorney general’s office maintains that Johnson was rightfully convicted.

    St. Louis Circuit Judge David Mason is presiding over the hearing, which is expected to last all week. Johnson was in the courtroom on Monday, dressed in a blue shirt and tie with brown slacks. He sat quietly next to his attorneys and listened to testimony.

    Boyd was shot to death on the front porch of his home by two men wearing ski masks on Oct. 30, 1994. A man who was with Boyd, James Gregory Elking, got away.

    Johnson was convicted of killing Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence. Another man, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.

    Charles Weiss, an attorney for the St. Louis prosecutor’s office, described for Mason the circumstances that led to Johnson’s arrest.

    A woman who lived nearby told police Johnson was the only person she knew who might have had a problem with Boyd. Police put Johnson in a lineup, but Elking didn’t initially identify him, only doing so after detectives coerced him, Weiss said.

    Another detective alleged that Johnson at one point blurted out to him, “I shouldn’t have let the white guy live,” referring to Elking. Weiss said there was no recording of that conversation, but Loesch cited it as evidence of Johnson’s guilt.

    Johnson contended he was with his girlfriend, miles away, when the shooting happened. Elking recanted his identification of Johnson about 20 years ago. Campbell and another man, James Howard, later signed sworn affidavits admitting to the killing and said Johnson wasn’t involved.

    Campbell is now dead and Howard is serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder and nearly a dozen other crimes committed during an incident in 1997. He wore handcuffs and an orange prison outfit as he testified Monday.

    “How did Marcus die?” Johnson’s attorney, Jonathan Potts, asked.

    “Me and Phillip Campbell killed him on his front porch,” Howard answered.

    Howard, 46, was 17 at the time of Boyd’s killing. He testified that he and Campbell decided to go to Boyd’s house and rob him since Boyd owed drug money to another friend. They put on black clothing and black ski masks, and found Boyd and a second man on the front porch, he said.

    Howard said he grabbed Boyd. When they struggled, Campbell intervened. Howard said Campbell shot Boyd in the side, while Howard shot him in the back of the head and neck. He said they didn’t shoot the witness, Elking, because they didn’t think he could identify them.

    “Was Lamar Johnson there?” Potts asked.

    “No,” Howard answered. He said he decided around 2002 to admit to the crime and try to help Johnson get freed.

    “I was trying to right my wrongs that I had done him,” Howard said.

    While cross-examining Howard, Loesch cited inconsistencies in his version of events. Affidavits signed by Howard said he and Campbell ran back to Howard’s home after the killing and that Campbell stayed at the house for three days. Howard now says Campbell left the home on the night of the killing. Howard also admitted that an affidavit gave the wrong route the men took to Boyd’s house.

    Howard said he can’t remember every detail from 28 years ago.

    “What I can tell you is I shot him,” he said.

    Elking testified that he was at Boyd’s house trying to buy crack cocaine when two armed men in black masks ran up. He saw both gunmen shoot Boyd, then leave.

    Elking was called to view lineups of potential suspects. When he was still unable to identify anyone, he said Detective Joseph Nickerson told him, “I know you know who it is,” and urged him to “help get these guys off the street.”

    Feeling “bullied” and wanting to help police, Elking said that if investigators would tell him who they suspected, he would identify them as the shooters.

    “I hate it, and I’ve been living with it for 30, 28 years. I just wish I could change time,” Elking said, fighting back tears.

    Gardner’s investigation in collaboration with the Midwest Innocence Project also alleged prosecutor misconduct and secret payments to Elking, along with falsified police reports and perjured testimony.

    Nickerson denied Gardner’s allegations and told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he still believed Johnson was guilty.

    In March 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court denied Johnson’s request for a new trial after Schmitt’s office argued successfully that Gardner lacked the authority to seek one so many years after the case was adjudicated.

    The case led to passage of a state law that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is fresh evidence of a wrongful conviction. That law freed another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, last year. He had served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple murder.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Missouri man seeks exoneration in murder; 2 others confessed

    Missouri man seeks exoneration in murder; 2 others confessed

    [ad_1]

    ST. LOUIS — A hearing begins Monday in a case that will decide if the conviction should be overturned for a Missouri man who has spent nearly three decades in prison for a murder that two other people later confessed to committing.

    Lamar Johnson has long maintained his innocence, and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is backing his request to vacate his conviction. However, the Missouri attorney general’s office maintains Johnson was rightfully convicted in the 1994 slaying of 25-year-old Marcus Boyd and should remain in prison.

    The hearing in St. Louis Circuit Court is expected to last up to five days.

    Johnson was convicted in 1995 of fatally shooting Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence. Another suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.

    Johnson claimed he was with his girlfriend miles away when Boyd was killed. Years later, the state’s only witness recanted his identification of Johnson and Campbell as the shooters. Two other men have since confessed and said Johnson was not involved.

    Gardner launched an investigation in collaboration with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project. Their investigation found misconduct by a prosecutor, secret payments made to witness, falsified police reports and perjured testimony.

    The former prosecutor and the detective who investigated the case rejected Gardner’s allegations.

    Last week, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt asked the court to sanction Gardner, accusing her of concealing evidence. Schmitt said Gardner’s office failed to inform the attorney general’s office of gunshot residue testing on a jacket found in the trunk of Johnson’s car after his arrest. Schmitt’s filing said the evidence was hidden “because it tends to prove that Johnson is guilty.”

    Gardner, a Democrat, responded by accusing Schmitt, a Republican, of grandstanding. She said the failure to turn over a lab report on the jacket was due to an overlooked email. She also called it irrelevant since the jacket was not used in the crime.

    Johnson’s claims of innocence were compelling enough to spur a 2021 state law that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. That law freed another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, last year after a prosecutor told a court that evidence used to convict him had been recanted or disproven. He served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple murder before a judge freed him.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Prosecutor: No evidence hiding in wrongful conviction case

    Prosecutor: No evidence hiding in wrongful conviction case

    [ad_1]

    ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner on Friday accused Missouri’s attorney general of seeking sanctions against her “because he has no case” in his effort to keep Lamar Johnson in prison for a murder that Johnson has long contended he had nothing to do with.

    Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt asked a St. Louis judge on Thursday to sanction Gardner, a Democrat, accusing her of concealing evidence as she seeks to vacate Johnson’s conviction. Johnson was convicted of killing 25-year-old Marcus Boyd in 1994 in an alleged drug dispute.

    At issue in the sanction request is forensic testing on a jacket seized from Johnson’s trunk after his arrest. The crime lab in Kansas City, Missouri, recently determined the jacket contained gunshot residue. Schmitt accused Gardner of concealing that evidence, which Schmitt, in a court filing, called material “because it tends to prove that Johnson is guilty.”

    In a response motion on Friday, Gardner said the failure to disclose the gunshot residue testing was a simple oversight — and irrelevant since the jacket in question wasn’t used in the crime. Gardner said her office wasn’t even aware of the gunshot residue report until rechecking emails on Thursday, after Schmitt filed the sanction motion.

    “It concerns gunshot residue testing conducted on a red-and-black Chicago Blackhawks jacket that was not even used in the crime,” Gardner’s court filing states. “In 28 years, no eyewitness has ever mentioned a red Blackhawks jacket. Considering that Boyd was shot at close range, one would also expect the jacket to be covered in blood spatter. It’s not.”

    Her filing called Schmitt’s motion “a weak attempt to change the narrative because the Attorney General has no case.”

    Johnson was convicted of killing Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence while another suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.

    Johnson claimed he was with his girlfriend miles away when Boyd was killed. Meanwhile, years after the killing, the state’s only witness recanted his identification of Johnson and Campbell as the shooters. Two other men have confessed to Boyd’s killing and said Johnson was not involved.

    Gardner launched an investigation in collaboration with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project. She said the investigation found misconduct by a prosecutor, secret payments made to the witness, police reports that were falsified and perjured testimony.

    The former prosecutor and the detective who investigated the case rejected Gardner’s allegations.

    Schmitt’s sanctions filing states that in April, Gardner sent the jacket to the Kansas City lab. The lab report said it found no DNA on the jacket. But last month, another test determined it did contain gunshot residue. Gardner said the “unexpected and nondescript email” that provided the gunshot residue report had gone unnoticed.

    In a response filing, Schmitt’s office reiterated that sanctions should stand.

    “If an attorney is using her email for the exchange of reports and other evidence, it strains credulity to suggest that emails simply languish unread indefinitely, and it falls short of the care that should be employed when dealing with matters related to discovery in ongoing cases,” the court filing stated.

    Gardner was disciplined earlier this year amid allegations of concealing evidence in another high-profile case.

    In April, she reached an agreement with the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel in which she acknowledged mistakes in her handling of the prosecution of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. She received a written reprimand.

    In that case, Gardner conceded she failed to produce documents and mistakenly maintained that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ lawyers in the 2018 criminal case that accused him of taking a compromising photo of a woman and threatening to use it if she spoke of their extramarital relationship.

    The charge was eventually dropped, but Greitens resigned in June 2018.

    Johnson’s claims of innocence were compelling enough to spur a state law adopted in 2021 that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. The new law freed another longtime inmate last year.

    Kevin Strickland was released from prison at age 62 in November 2021 after serving more than 40 years for a triple murder in Kansas City. He maintained that he wasn’t at the crime scene, and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said her review convinced her that Strickland was telling the truth. A judge ordered Strickland freed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge denies 19-year-old’s ask to attend father’s execution

    Judge denies 19-year-old’s ask to attend father’s execution

    [ad_1]

    ST. LOUIS — A federal judge has denied a request from a 19-year-old woman to allow her to watch her father’s death by injection, upholding a Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution.

    Kevin Johnson is set to be executed Tuesday for killing Kirkwood, Missouri, Police Officer William McEntee in 2005. Johnson’s lawyers have appeals pending that seek to spare his life.

    His daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to attend the execution, and the American Civil Liberties Union had filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Kansas City. The ACLU’s court filing said the age requirement served no safety purpose and violates Ramey’s constitutional rights. But U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes ruled late Friday that Ramey’s constitutional rights would not be violated by the law.

    “I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to be with my dad in his last moments,” Ramey said in a statement. “My dad is the most important person in my life. He has been there for me my whole life, even though he’s been incarcerated.”

    While the judge acknowledged that the law would cause emotional harm for Ramey, he found that was just one part of the court’s consideration and the law did not violate her constitutional rights.

    Ramey said she was praying that Gov. Michael Parson would grant her father clemency. Johnson’s lawyers have filed appeals seeking to halt the execution. They don’t challenge his guilt but claim racism played a role in the decision to seek the death penalty, and in the jury’s decision to sentence him to die. Johnson is Black and McEntee was white.

    Johnson’s lawyers also have asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — he was 19 at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.

    In a court filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office stated there were no grounds for court intervention.

    “The surviving victims of Johnson’s crimes have waited long enough for justice, and every day longer that they must wait is a day they are denied the chance to finally make peace with their loss,” the state petition stated.

    [ad_2]

    Source link