National Roundup

New Jersey
Court overturns award for view lost to dune
HARVEY CEDARS, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s top court says an elderly couple didn’t deserve a $375,000 award because a new protective sand dune blocked their view of the ocean.
The court says a new trial is needed at which the protective benefits of the dune can be weighed against the value of the lost ocean views. The original trial considered only whether the lost views were worth money, and not whether the added protection was worth anything.
The home at the center of the case is in Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island and belongs to Harvey and Phyllis Karan. It survived Superstorm Sandy last October.
The case is being closely watched, in part, because New Jersey wants to build a dune system along its entire coastline.

Louisiana
Appeals court hears challenge on spill claims
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court is hearing BP’s bid to challenge what could be billions of dollars in settlement payouts to businesses claiming they lost money after the company’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lawyers for BP and Gulf Coast businesses and residents began arguments Monday before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
BP wants the panel to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that upheld a court-appointed claims administrator’s interpretation of the settlement.
BP claims the administrator has allowed thousands of businesses to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for inflated and fictitious losses.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers counter that BP underestimated how many claimants would qualify for payments.

Ohio
School vandal wore Spider-Man undies, say police
CINCINNATI (AP) — Authorities in Cincinnati have arrested a man who they say was vandalizing a high school while wearing only Spider-Man underwear.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that it happened early Sunday when a suspect used rocks to break several windows at Moeller High School, crawled in one of the windows and sprayed fire extinguishers around the building.
Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies say 23-year-old Thomas Williams was wearing Spider-Man underwear when he was arrested. The 6-foot-5, 295-pound Kenwood man was charged with felony vandalism and breaking and entering.
Police reports gave no explanation for Williams’ attire.
Williams was still in jail Monday morning. Online records didn’t indicate if he had an attorney.

Wisconsin
State could be only one to have 1-term justices
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin would become the only state in the nation to limit its state Supreme Court justices to a single term if a proposal put forward by a task force of attorneys becomes law.
The task force has recommended limiting justices to a single 16-year term as a way of stemming the flow of money into judicial elections. Sixteen years is about the average length justices have served in recent years.
The American Judicature Society says no states currently limit justices to a single term. The group’s research and program director, K.O. Myers, told the Wisconsin State Journal the proposal could help reduce the perception that justices rule in certain ways to pay back campaign contributors.
The state Legislature and voters must approve any state constitutional amendment.

South Carolina
Federal judge dismisses prison officer’s lawsuit
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a former South Carolina prison officer’s lawsuit accusing cellphone companies of opting not to block inmates’ outgoing phone calls — including the call organizing a hit on his life.
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed the lawsuit by Robert Johnson, who was a captain at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Monday.
Johnson, 59, was shot six times and wounded at his home in Sumter in 2010 in an attack that prosecutors say was orchestrated by inmates using illegal cellphones in prison. Johnson, a 15-year veteran of the Corrections Department, had overseen efforts to keep contraband out of Lee.
Authorities have said Johnson was the first U.S. corrections officer harmed by a hit ordered from an inmate’s cellphone. South Carolina has been seeking federal permission to jam cellular signals at state prisons, but the request has stalled before the Federal Communications Commission, which has said a 1934 law allows only federal agencies to jam public airwaves.
Cellphone companies had argued that the jamming methods suggested by South Carolina and other states could interfere with emergency communications and other legal cellphone use.
The Johnsons had sued 20 cellphone companies and cellular tower owners. The Johnsons will ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the lawsuit, according to the couple’s attorney, Robert Parker.
Cellphone providers could jam cellphone use by inmates without interfering with other communications systems, Parker said.
One man, Sean Echols, is awaiting trial on charges of using a gun during a violent crime and conspiring to murder a prison guard. U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles says Echols took on the task in exchange for $6,000. The inmate authorities say conspired with Echols has not been named.

Maine
State accused of firing dozens of shots in court
BANGOR, Maine (AP) — A Bangor man accused of firing indiscriminately from an apartment window, forcing the city’s Fourth of July parade to be rerouted, is due in court.
Police say 43-year-old Perrin Oliver sent a woman and child fleeing from his apartment Thursday and then fired about 70 shots during a standoff before police used tear gas to take him into custody.
No one was hurt in the standoff.
But one person was killed on the rerouted parade route. Police say an antique fire truck crashed into a tractor, killing the tractor’s operator in front of horrified parade-goers.
Perrin, who was due to make an initial court appearance Monday in Bangor, is charged with criminal threatening and aggravated reckless conduct with a firearm. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.?