National Roundup

Rhode Island
Judge assigned to 38 Studios case steps aside
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge has recused himself from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit over the state’s $75 million deal with 38 Studios, the failed video game company owned by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

WPRI-TV reports that U.S. District Judge William Smith was randomly assigned to the case when the agency filed suit last week against the Rhode Island Commerce Corp., Wells Fargo and others. The SEC says they defrauded investors by making misleading statements when they sold the bonds used to fund the deal.

Smith says his wife works for Commerce, the state economic development agency, so recusing himself was appropriate.

David DiMarzio, the clerk of court, says recusals are not unusual.

The case has now been assigned to U.S. District Judge Jack McConnell.

Alabama
Settlement reached in ‘rape bait’ case
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An attorney says both sides have reached a settlement in a lawsuit involving a teenager who says she was raped after a school worker tried to use her as bait to catch an alleged sexual predator.

Al.com reports that Eric Artrip, an attorney for the girl’s guardian, said the agreement means claims against Madison County school officials would be dismissed in exchange for money. Artrip said the amount is confidential.

Evidence shows a teacher’s aide asked the then-14-year-old girl to go into a bathroom at Sparkman Middle School so a 16-year-old eighth-grader with a history of sexual harassment could be caught trying to have sex with her and disciplined.

The plan backfired and the girl later said she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom stall.

Mississippi
Judge: Is court proper place for flag debate?
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge is ordering attorneys to file arguments over whether courts have standing to decide if Mississippi should remove the Confederate battle emblem that has been on the state flag since 1894.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves has set a deadline next Monday for briefs by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who’s defending the state, and Carlos Moore, a private attorney who sued the state seeking to have the flag declared an unconstitutional vestige of slavery.

In his scheduling order filed late Monday, Reeves also told Moore to stop making “false or misleading public statements,” such as saying African-Americans could be entitled to reparations if the flag is found unconstitutional or that Reeves will change the flag because he is African-American. Moore said both things during a change-the-flag rally last week outside the state Capitol.

At the rally, Moore said he believes the flag will come down because, “God has set it up in his own perfect plan” by having the U.S. elect its first black president in 2008 and by having President Barack Obama nominate Reeves, a graduate of historically black Jackson State University, to the federal bench. Moore also said it was part of a divine plan that Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court’s staunchest conservatives, had died.

“When we get that fifth liberal progressive on the court, after Judge Reeves takes it down, it’s going to stay down,” Moore said of the flag during the March 8 rally.

Reeves said such statements “impugn the independence and fairness of the judiciary,” and he told Moore and other attorneys working on the case that the race, educational background and judicial philosophy of the judges and justices, and the president who nominated them, “will have no bearing” on the outcome of the case.

“It would be inappropriate to suggest that a white judge would necessarily uphold the Mississippi flag, so it is equally inappropriate for plaintiff and his counsel to have suggested that an African-American judge who attended an HBCU (historically black college or university) will necessarily find the flag unconstitutional. That is the very definition of prejudice,” Reeves wrote.

Mississippi is the last state with a flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem — a red field topped by a blue X dotted with 13 white stars. The banner and other Confederate symbols have come under sharp debate since last June, when nine black worshippers were massacred at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The white man charged in the killings had previously posed with a rebel flag in photos published online.

Since the Charleston attack, several Mississippi cities and counties, and some universities, have stopped flying the state flag. However, legislative leaders said they couldn’t get consensus this year on bills that would have either redesigned the flag or taken state money away from public entities that refuse to fly the current banner.

Colorado
Monitor urges penalty for crime database abuse
DENVER (AP) — Denver police officers caught using confidential criminal databases for personal reasons get only light punishments, allowing the potentially dangerous abuse to continue, the city’s independent police monitor wrote in a report released Tuesday.

The problem involves the National Crime Information Center, a database used by tens of thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country to catch criminals, recover stolen property and identify terrorism suspects. Its users seek information on stolen guns and cars, fugitives, sex offenders and other subjects.

Denver Police Department policy warns officers that they can be criminally prosecuted for using the database and its Colorado equivalent for personal reasons. But such abuses continue, in part because the light sanctions aren’t enough to deter future misconduct, Independent Monitor Nicholas Mitchell wrote.

Mitchell said 25 officers have been punished for inappropriate use of the databases since 2006. But most of them received reprimands, rather than the harsher penalties some police agencies impose for the same offense. None of the 25 was charged with a crime.

The Denver cases include an officer who looked up the phone number of a female hospital employee with whom he chatted during a sex assault investigation and called her at home against her wishes. Another officer ran a man’s license plate seeking information for a friend, who then began driving by the man’s house and threatening him, according to the monitor’s report.

A third officer who ran a man’s license plate number on behalf of a tow truck driver who wanted information for personal reasons received no punishment at all after he told investigators the tow truck driver needed the information as part of her official duties.

It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, but the cases show a need for stronger punishment, Mitchell said.