National Roundup

North Carolina
Family sues after football player died
ROLESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The family of a North Carolina high school football player who died after sustaining a head injury during practice is suing the Wake County school system and members of the athletic staff.

The News & Observer reports 17-year-old Isaiah Langston died in September 2014 from a stroke caused by the head injury five days prior. The lawsuit says Rolesville High School did not follow the state’s concussion protocol and did nothing as the teen complained of headaches days before his collapse.

State law dictates that student-athletes displaying concussion symptoms must be cleared by a medical doctor or licensed athletic trainer to return to practice.

Attorneys for the school deny that school employees knew Langston had suffered a concussion or that he had complained of headaches before he collapsed.

Nevada
Trial date delayed for Bundy and sons in standoff case
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal judge in Las Vegas is pushing back the trial date for Nevada rancher and states’ rights advocate Cliven Bundy, four of his sons and six other defendants until after a retrial for at least four men whose prosecution ended with a hung jury.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro ruled Thursday that the same defendants whose trial ended April 24 with two found guilty of some charges and no decision for four others should be tried first.

The judge says trial for Bundy, two sons and two other defendants will begin a month after that trial ends.

The judge has not yet ruled on prosecutors’ requests to dismiss remaining charges against the two men who were found guilty, Gregory Burleson of Arizona and Todd Engel of Idaho.


Maryland
Terror suspect interrogated by CIA won’t testify
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — The first CIA captive subjected to harsh interrogation after the Sept. 11 attacks did not testify Friday about conditions inside the Guantanamo Bay detention center after a late-night discussion with his lawyers, who did not want him to take the stand.

It would have been the first time terror suspect Zayne Abu Zubaydah had spoken publicly since he was captured in 2002. He has never been charged. In August 2003, he was subjected to 83 rounds of waterboarding, an interrogation practice that simulates drowning.

Zubaydah had expressed a desire to be a witness at a court hearing for fellow detainee Ramzi Binalshibh, who is one of five Guantanamo prisoners facing trial by a military commission for their alleged roles in planning and providing logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Binalshibh has accused guards of causing noises and vibrations intended to disrupt his sleep and making it difficult for him to participate in his legal case, and his lawyer wanted Zubaydah to testify about how detainees have been treated.

“His attorneys have advised him not to testify,” James Harrington, a civilian lawyer appointed to represent Binalshibh, told Army Col. James Pohl, the judge presiding over the hearing. “The decision last night ... was not made until the last minute.”

Zubaydah, 46, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. When he was captured, authorities suspected he was a high-ranking member of al-Qaida, though they have more recently described him in official documents as only a “facilitator” for the terror network. He has been held at Guantanamo since September 2006.

Earlier this month, Zubaydah’s lawyer, Mark Denbeaux, said his client would take the stand “unafraid of the truth that will emerge, confident that the world will come to know that he has committed no crimes.” But in a statement on Friday, he said that government prosecutors made it impossible for his client to testify because what he said could be used against him if he is ever tried.

“The government sought not truth, but stacked the deck in a way that made it impossible for my client to be presented fairly and accurately,” Denbeaux’s law firm said in a statement. “For those reasons, we have respectfully abstained from taking part in this dog and pony show.”


Nebraska
Court finds college not liable for student’s disappearance
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld a ruling that a Peru State College was not liable for the 2010 disappearance of one of its students.

The court issued its ruling Friday in the lawsuit filed by the parents of Tyler “Ty” Thomas against the Nebraska State College System’s governing board. The lawsuit contends the college failed to protect Thomas from harm.
The 19-year-old disappeared after encountering Joshua Keadle, a fellow Peru State student now serving prison time for raping another teenage girl.

Thomas was a freshman at the southeast Nebraska college when she disappeared after leaving a party. Authorities say Keadle told them he and Thomas had sex in his vehicle that night. Keadle has not been charged in her disappearance, but a jury found him liable in a lawsuit.

Hawaii
Suit seeks to stop hotel renovation after bodies found
HONOLULU (AP) — The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. has filed a lawsuit to temporarily stop the renovation of a Waikiki hotel after the remains of two people were found below an elevator shaft.

The lawsuit was filed last week. It calls the Pacific Beach Hotel property a “burial site for Native Hawaiians during lengthy pre-contact and post-contact periods of time,” the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The firm also writes in the lawsuit that it believes the state Department of Land and Natural Resources undermined a Hawaii law set in place to protect burials.

The firm wants a survey to be done to check for more human burials, and it wants the Oahu Island Burial Council involved.

The firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of Oahu resident Paulette Kaleikini, who has been involved in other cases protecting burial remains. She is a recognized cultural descendant of Hawaiians who long ago lived in the area where the hotel now resides.

“She is very concerned that more kupuna (ancestors) will be impacted should the project continue without a proper survey,” the firm wrote in a statement.

The hotel’s renovations are being done while it is still open. All 839 guest rooms have been refurbished, the “Oceanarium” is being renovated and a new pool deck and two restaurants are being added, among other additions.