Colorado
Court finds religious entanglement by school district
DENVER (AP) — A federal court has ruled that a Colorado school district violated the Constitution when it supported a Christian spring break mission trip in 2014.
The Denver Post reports a parent and the American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit against the Douglas County School District after it supported the trip to Guatemala by a group of students from Highlands Ranch High School’s chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote in the opinion that the district backed an “overtly Christian cause through financial donations, through sending emails and flyers to students’ families, and through hosting the supply drive during school hours over the course of a school week,” resulting in “an excessive government entanglement with religion.”
The district hasn’t responded if it intends to appeal.
Tennessee
Prosecutor censured for book about Facebook slayings
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court has censured a prosecutor who wrote a book about trying a double murder arising from a Facebook spat.
The Johnson City Press reports the court’s Board of Professional Responsibility said in a release Tuesday that Dennis D. Brooks’ book poses a conflict of interest and prejudice to the administration of justice. Brooks was lead prosecutor in the 2015 trial of Barbara Potter and Jenelle Potter, both convicted of murder in the deaths of Billy Payne and Billie Hayworth.
The board says Brooks’ book, “Too Pretty to Live: The Catfish Murders of East Tennessee,” was published before appeals had concluded. The women’s motion for a new trial after publication was denied this year.
Brooks said in a statement he disagreed with the warning but wouldn’t contest it.
Rhode Island
Rosa Parks family house set for auction next week
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The house where civil rights icon Rosa Parks sought refuge after fleeing the South amid death threats is scheduled for auction next week with a minimum bid of $1 million.
Auctioneer Guernsey’s plans to put the house up for auction July 26 in New York City, and has set a pre-auction estimate of $1 million to $3 million.
The tiny wood-framed house was going to be demolished by the city of Detroit when it was rescued by Parks’ niece and a Berlin-based American artist, who took it apart and shipped it to Germany, where he turned it into a work of art. It has since been displayed in Rhode Island and is now in storage.
Proceeds from the sale will be split between Parks’ family and artist Ryan Mendoza.
North Carolina
Prison warden sued for violence involving inmates, guards
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The former warden of one of North Carolina’s most dangerous prisons is being sued by an inmate who says his life was endangered because the administrator didn’t reduce threats posed by inmates and even guards in the gang-infested lockup.
A federal jury in Charlotte on Thursday deliberated whether to hold accountable former Lanesboro Correctional Institution superintendent Lawrence Parsons.
Lawyers for convicted killer Stacey Wynn contend that during the administrator’s tenure, violent inmates frequently attacked other prisoners with knives and officials often failed to find the weapons. Investigators found a collection of bloody blades hidden in the ceiling of the office used by one of Parsons’ unit managers.
The lawsuit is the first of five by inmates who say Lanesboro’s leaders allowed or even encouraged prisoners to attack other inmates.
Indiana
Man arraigned in 1988 killing of 8-year-old girl
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana man charged in the 1988 rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl has been arraigned in her slaying.
An Allen County judge entered a not guilty plea for 59-year-old John D. Miller Thursday morning and assigned him a public defender.
Miller, from Grabill in northeast Indiana, faces murder and child molesting charges in April Tinsley’s death. He’s being held without bond.
Court documents say Miller confessed Sunday to abducting, sexually assaulting and strangling the Fort Wayne girl in April 1988. Her body was found three days later in a ditch about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.
Investigators say DNA evidence and genealogy databases helped link Miller to April’s killing.
Nevada
Felon guilty of violating Endangered Species Act
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada felon pleaded guilty to multiple charges Wednesday including violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act after he rammed his ATV into a gate and harmed the federally protected Devils Hole pupfish at a Death Valley National Park wildlife refuge.
Trenton Sargent, 28, of Indian Hills also destroyed surveillance cameras and fired a gun at the gate in April 2016 at a detached unit of the park’s Ashe Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Amargosa Valley along the Nevada-California line, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas Wednesday to one count each of violating the Endangered Species Act, destroying U.S. property and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Violating the federal wildlife protection act is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of up to a year in prison and a $50,000 fine. Each of the other crimes, both felonies, are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine.
After failing to break through the gate at the enclosed area at Devils Hole, prosecutors say Sargent and two co-defendants scaled the fence and destroyed a sensor center for cameras and equipment, along with a National Park Service video surveillance camera.
Sargent said he then stepped into the water of Devils Hole, smashing fish eggs and larvae during the peak spawning season for endangered pupfish, who lay their eggs on the shallow shelf about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas.
It’s the only place in the world known to still be inhabited by the rare species related to fish that once lived in an ancient lake covering Death Valley, National Park Service officials said.
