New Mexico
State Supreme Court upholds conviction in 2013 slayings
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The New Mexico Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man who fatally shot a father and daughter in 2013.
Jordan Hurd had appealed his conviction on first-degree murder and aggravated battery charges, saying crime scene photographs should not have been admitted as evidence during his trial. He also argued there was not enough evidence to convict him.
Justices rejected his arguments in a ruling Thursday.
Authorities say Hurd is serving life in prison for the shooting deaths of Wesley Hobbs and his daughter Amanda in Jarales.
Amanda Hobbs' mother, Patricia Hobbs, was wounded in the shooting that authorities say came as Hurd and two other men tried to sell a stolen motorcycle to Wesley Hobbs and obtain drugs at his family's home.
Tennessee
State to appeal federal ruling over license revocations
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee is appealing a landmark federal court ruling that says it's unconstitutional for the state to revoke or suspend driver's licenses over unpaid court costs.
David Purkey, commissioner of the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security, filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, The Tennessean reported. The motion asks the U.S. Court of Appeals to review U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger's ruling from earlier this month.
Trauger concluded that the revocations are powerfully counterproductive and deprive constitutional due process and equal protection. Her ruling could have wider implications for dozens of other states, since more than 40 allow similar suspensions.
On Thursday, the state attorney general's office filed a motion for partial stay pending the appeal. In a court filing, the state says it's not revoking any licenses due to unpaid court fees and has administratively lifted about 237,000 revocations affecting about 118,000 drivers. Older revocations that predate the current computer system are being manually lifted when drivers contact the state, the filing says.
The state is requesting a temporary halt, pending appeal, on its 60-day deadline from the date of the ruling to submit plans for lifting revocations, including automatic reinstatement where legally appropriate.
The state says that plans for automatic restoration would require review of driver's license records on an individual-by-individual basis, which would be a potentially wasteful use of government resources given the possibility of a reversal.
Tennessee revoked 146,211 driver's licenses from July 2012 to June 2016 under state law for failure to pay court debts, according to Trauger's ruling. Only about 7 percent of those licenses were reinstated.
"If a person has no resources to pay a debt, he cannot be threatened or cajoled into paying it; he may, however, become able to pay it in the future. But taking his driver's license away sabotages that prospect," Trauger wrote.
Josh Spickler is the executive director for Memphis-based advocacy organization Just City and an attorney on the case representing people who have lost their licenses. He said it's disappointing to see the state challenge the ruling "instead of working to develop better public policy and have more Tennesseans driving safely and legally."
Megan Buell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, declined to comment on the appeal.
U.S. Supreme Court
Retiring Justice Kennedy sees European ties as vital
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - Retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Thursday said he believes it is vital to maintain close ties with Europe and is concerned the U.S. appears to be drifting away.
Kennedy, who announced his retirement last month, made the remarks Thursday at a conference of judges and lawyers in Southern California.
"Europe is a place where I think we must always remain close to. It is of great concern to me that we seem to be drifting away from Europe," Kennedy told the audience at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Anaheim, California, adding that "we can't be an island."
His comments came shortly after President Donald Trump's tumultuous trip across Europe where he insulted allies and raised doubts about his commitment to the NATO alliance.
Kennedy, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, has in recent years been the Supreme Court's decisive vote in contentious cases on issues such as gay rights and abortion.
After he said he was retiring to spend more time with his family, Trump nominated District of Columbia federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh - who was once a clerk for Kennedy - to be his replacement.
Without Kennedy, the court will be split between four liberal justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents and four conservatives who were named by Republicans.
Kennedy has sided with liberal justices on gay and abortion rights. But he was a key vote for conservatives on the outcome of the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush, on gun rights and on limiting the regulation of campaign funds.
During his remarks in California, Kennedy, 82, also said he is interested in penal reform and believes that solitary confinement is wrong and that U.S. criminal sentences are too long.
"Our sentences in this country are eight times longer than sentences for the comparative crimes in England and Western Europe," he said.
South Dakota
High court upholds sentence of man who flipped off judge
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - South Dakota's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a man who got a harsher prison sentence after he flipped the bird at the judge in his case.
The high court on Wednesday upheld the sentence of 39-year-old Shawn Ross, who had agreed to plead guilty to burglary for trying to pry a change machine off a Chamberlain car wash wall in 2017.
The circuit judge sentenced Ross to five years in prison with 3½ years suspended. But after the judge saw Ross flip him off as he left the courtroom, he re-imposed the suspended time.
When Ross filed for re-sentencing, the judge relented but reduced the suspended portion by two months. The high court upheld that sentence.
Ross could be released in November.
Published: Mon, Jul 30, 2018
