National Roundup

Ohio
Woman with prosthetic leg gets ‘rude’ note
MIAMISBURG, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio woman with a prosthetic leg is fighting back after getting a “rude” note over a handicapped parking spot.

Ashley Brady lost her leg in an accident last year, and has had to learn how to walk again with a prosthetic.

Her Miamisburg apartment complex created a handicapped parking spot for her.

She says she got her spot last Thursday, and two days later someone was parked there with no placard.

Brady says she left a note, and then got one in return that read in part, “Hey handicap! First, you never place your hands on my car again! Second, honey you ain’t the only one with ‘struggles.’”

WKEF-TV reports Brady’s sisters posted a picture of the note on Facebook. It has been shared more than 1,000 times.

Virginia
Governor wants arrest of student investigated
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — About 1,000 students gathered at the University of Virginia campus Wednesday night to demand justice for a student who was injured during an arrest and appears in a photo with a bloody face as an officer holds him down.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has called for an investigation into the early-morning arrest of Martese Johnson. His lawyer says he needed 10 stitches in his head.

Court records show that Martese Johnson was charged on two counts: obstruction of justice without force, and public swearing or intoxication.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control agent who made the arrest, listed in court records as J. Miller, said in the arrest report that Johnson “was very agitated and belligerent.”

But a group calling itself “Concerned Black Students” says Johnson’s arrest was unprovoked and extreme.

Delaware
Mom pleads after girl takes h­e­roin to day care class
GEORGETOWN, Del. (AP) — A Delaware woman has pleaded guilty to child endangerment after authorities say her 4-year-old daughter handed out heroin at her day care thinking it was candy.

Ashley Tull entered the plea Wednesday and Superior Court Judge E. Scott Bradley sentenced her to one year of probation. WXDE-FM reports the judge also ordered a substance abuse evaluation. Bradley says Tull must cooperate with the Division of Family services or risk having the girl and two other children removed from her home.

Tull was charged in October after police said the girl unknowingly took 250 packets of heroin to a Selbyville day care, then passed them out to several children. When workers realized the baggies contained heroin, they collected the baggies and called police.

South Carolina
Stripper shot at club to get to workers’ comp
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s high court says an exotic dancer who was shot at a Columbia nightclub is entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for her injury.

The State newspaper reports  that the Supreme Court made that ruling Wednesday in the case of LeAndra Lewis.

The court said Lewis was an employee of the Boom Boom Room Studio 54, not an independent contractor. That distinction makes her eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits.

The justices did not set an amount Lewis should be paid for injuries from the 2008 shooting, sending that question back to the Court of Appeals.

Court records show a stray bullet struck Lewis in the abdomen after a fight broke out at the club, harming her organs and resulting in loss of a kidney.

Ohio
911 dispatcher’s outgoing call is public record
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a recording of an outgoing call by a 911 dispatcher is a public record.

The court’s decision came in the case of a southwest Ohio dispatcher’s return call to a man who then confessed to fatally stabbing his stepfather.

The court’s 6-1 ruling Thursday in a lawsuit brought by The Cincinnati Enquirer rejected arguments by Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser (MOH’-zur) that the return call was a confidential investigatory record.

Justice Judi French, writing for the majority, said Gmoser failed to show that releasing the record would violate the Constitution or state law.

French also said the Enquirer should be awarded attorneys’ fees and ordered a lower-court hearing to determine the amount.

Texas
Inmate on death row for murder loses appeal
HOUSTON (AP) — A 30-year-old Fort Worth man on death row for an assistant manager’s slaying during a robbery at an amusement center more than eight years ago has lost a federal court appeal.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday refused arguments that Paul David Storey’s trial attorneys were deficient during the sentencing phase of his 2008 trial in Fort Worth for not pursuing more evidence of his depression and low intellectual functioning. The appeal also contended a black juror improperly was excluded because of race.

Storey is black. The victim in the October 2006 shooting at a Putt-Putt mini-golf center in Hurst, 28-year-old Jonas Cherry, was white.

Storey previously worked there. He and a companion, who pleaded guilty and took a life sentence, collected about $150 in the robbery.

Arkansas
State high court upholds lethal injection law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas’ highest court has upheld the state’s lethal injection law, ruling the Legislature did not give prison officials too much authority in setting the protocols for executions.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a Pulaski County judge’s decision last year that the 2013 law gave the Correction Department too much leeway to decide what drugs to use and how they should be administered. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen had put the state’s executions on hold.

Arkansas hasn’t executed an inmate since 2005, and has 32 inmates on death row.

The Arkansas Legislature rewrote the lethal injection law in 2013 after the state Supreme Court invalidated an earlier version on grounds that legislators gave too much discretion to the Correction Department.