National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Police: Suspect in handcuffs stole police car
NANTY GLO, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania has been accused of stealing a state police cruiser and leading officers on a chase — after he had been handcuffed.
State police say they arrested 26-year-old Anthony Fox on drug offenses Saturday night in Nanty Glo, 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. They say he somehow got free from his seatbelt in the back of a police cruiser, got his cuffed hands in front of him and drove away.
Police say they gave chase and caught up to the Smicksburg man after he crashed the car in front of an apartment building in nearby Jackson Township.
Fox is in the Cambria County Prison on charges including escape, theft, driving under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia. Online court records don’t list an attorney for him.

New Mexico
Ex Albuquerque cop stands trial for wife’s killing
BERNALILLO, N.M. (AP) — A former Albuquerque police officer is standing trial on charges he killed his wife in 2007 with his department-issued handgun and tried to make it look like a suicide.
Opening statements in the case against Levi Chavez are to start Monday morning in Bernalillo,  just north of Albuquerque.
Chavez is accused of killing 26-year-old Tera Chavez in their Los Lunas home. He’s charged with first-degree murder and evidence tampering.
The trial is expected to last for weeks and bring attention to alleged abuses in the Albuquerque Police Department, which the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating.

Washington Court:
Judges can’t use new guidelines in case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says judges can’t use newer sentencing guidelines on an old case.
The justices ruled 5-4 for Marvin Peugh, who was convicted of five counts of bank fraud, sentenced to 70 months’ imprisonment, and ordered to pay nearly $2 million dollars in Illinois for check-kiting and fraudulently obtaining a business loan. Peugh says his sentencing was unfair because 2009 sentencing guidelines were used instead of the more lenient 1999 guidelines in effect at the time of his offenses.
The 7th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his sentencing because the guidelines used by judges are only advisory in nature.
The high court, in an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, overturned that decision and sent the case back.

Washington
High court ends torture suit against Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from two American whistleblowers who claim U.S. forces tortured them in Iraq and who want to sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The justices’ action Monday leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that found Rumsfeld cannot be held liable for actions taken by subordinates that may have crossed legal bounds.
The two men are Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, who say they were detained and tortured after they accused an Iraqi-owned company for which they worked of illegally running guns. They argued Rumsfeld personally approved interrogation methods for use by the U.S. military in Iraq, making him responsible for what happened to them during several weeks they were held in military camps.

Louisiana
Federal court to hear appeal of website owners
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments next month on whether the U.S. District Court in Lafayette went too far in shutting down a website critical of the Lafayette Police Department, the city’s police chief and other officials.
Free speech experts tell The Advocate it’s a nuanced issue that pits the right of government to quell the public dissent of employees who are suing their employer.
“They’re at a First Amendment crossroads,” Tulane University Law School professor Keith Werhan said.
Former and current police officers last year in federal court sued the department, Lafayette City-Parish Government, Police Chief Jim Craft, and other government officials.
In the lawsuit, filed June 5, 2012, the officers allege fraud, racial discrimination and other offenses within the police department and are seeking a monetary award.
The lawsuit, Marceaux et al v. Lafayette Consolidated Government et al, remains on hold while the website issue is being resolved.
In September, U.S. Magistrate Patrick Hanna issued a gag order on the parties in the lawsuit. Hanna later lifted most of the gag order, but the order shutting down the website — http://www.realcopsvcraft.com — remains in effect.
U.S. District Judge Richard Haik ratified that remaining order on March 6.
The website contained audio conversations secretly recorded within the department, Hanna wrote in a 17-page ruling, dated Sept. 18, 2012, stating his reasons for shutting down the website.
Hanna said the content of the website and leaks to the media about the case were harming the process of bringing the lawsuit to trial, Hanna wrote.
Werhan said government employees such as police officers can be censored by their bosses just like in the private sector. But only to a point. He said clamping down on employees’ speech must stop when private matters become issues of public interest.

Mississippi
Conference set in suit on abortion clinic guidelines
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge has set an Aug. 15 status conference in a lawsuit in which Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is fighting to remain open.
The suit, filed last summer, challenges a 2012 state law that requires each OB-GYN who does abortions at the clinic to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The clinic acknowledges it has been unable to get the privileges.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan allowed the law to take effect last July 1, but he blocked the state from closing the clinic while the clinic tried to get admitting privileges.
Such privileges can be difficult to obtain, because hospitals often won’t give them to out-of-state physicians. The clinic uses out-of-state OB-GYNs, including one from Chicago.
Jordan ruled in April that the state can’t close Jackson Women’s Health Organization while the clinic still has a federal lawsuit pending.
The status conference in August will be done by telephone with U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Ball.n