National Roundup

Minnesota
Ex-college ­hockey coach’s court-ordered award now $4.2M
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — A discrimination and retaliation award is growing for a former women’s hockey coach who sued the University of Minnesota Duluth.

A federal judge granted a motion Wednesday to award Shannon Miller an additional $460,000 in pay and future benefits. That brings the total award to the former coach to about $4.2 million.

A federal jury last spring awarded Miller $3.7 million in lost wages and benefits, and for emotional distress. The jury determined the university discriminated against Miller on the basis of gender and retaliated against her for making Title IX complaints regarding the disparity between the men’s and women’s hockey programs.

Miller was among the most successful women’s hockey coaches, but the school declined to renew her contract in late 2014 after 16 seasons. Miller returned to coaching with the Canadian Women’s Hockey League’s Calgary Inferno.

Missouri
Satanic Temple member loses fight on ­state abortion law
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a Satanic Temple member’s religious challenge to a state law that requires one of the nation’s longest waiting periods for abortion and mandates that women be offered an ultrasound first.

At issue is Missouri’s “informed consent” law that says women must wait three days to receive an abortion and requires those seeking abortions to be provided with a booklet that says “the life of each human being begins at conception.” Under the law, abortion providers also must give women a chance to view an ultrasound and hear the fetal heartbeat.

But Supreme Court judges wrote in their ruling that the plaintiff, an anonymous member of the Satanic Temple listed as Mary Doe in the court documents, failed to show that her religious rights were violated because Missouri law does not require women to read the booklet, receive an ultrasound or listen to a heartbeat.

“It simply provides her with that opportunity,” the judges wrote.

The woman’s attorney, James MacNaughton, said Wednesday that they’re disappointed. However, he added, there might be “some small measure of vindication” if the court ruling means women can turn down ultrasounds and still receive abortions.

He said whether that’s allowed under the law was unclear over the course of the court challenge.

Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic is the only one that currently provides abortions in Missouri. A Planned Parenthood spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The woman bringing the challenge traveled from southeastern Missouri to St. Louis in 2015 for an abortion at Planned Parenthood. The woman did eventually receive an abortion, but in a letter to her doctors included in court documents, she wrote that some of the state’s restrictions on abortion conflict with her beliefs to follow scientific understanding of the world.

The Salem, Massachusetts-based Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in a literal Satan but sees the biblical Satan as a metaphor for rebellion against tyranny.

The group has waged religious battles around the U.S. in recent years, including pushing unsuccessfully to install a statue of the goat-headed, winged creature called Baphomet outside the Arkansas and Oklahoma state capitols as counterpoints to Ten Commandments monuments. Members also proposed “After School Satan Clubs” in elementary schools from Oregon to Georgia where evangelical Christian “Good News Clubs” are operating.

Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s spokesman, Chris Nuelle, said in an email that the office applauds the ruling. Nuelle said the measure is “designed to protect women from undue pressure and coercion during the sensitive decision of whether or not to have an abortion.”

Twenty-seven states require a waiting period for an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Insti­tute, a national research group that supports abortion rights. Missouri is one of five states with the longest waiting period — 72 hours — in effect.

Utah
Ex-Weber ­County judge ends ­harassment suit with court clerk
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A former Weber County court clerk has reached a settlement to end a sexual harassment lawsuit against a former judge who wrote a love poem to her.

The Standard-Examiner reports attorneys have reached an out-of-court settlement on a punitive damages claim between ex-county justice court Judge Craig Storey and a court administrator.

Storey’s lawyers served notice in U.S. District Court the claim has been settled and a dismissal motion ending the nine-year-old case would be submitted.

Terms of the settlement aren’t being released because of a confidentiality agreement.

The settlement ends a multi-phase legal battle that also embroiled the county commission, which was accused of neglecting the court clerk when she came forward.

Storey says there was no evidence the poem was intended to harass or discriminate against the woman.

Pennsylvania
Judge being sued over calling ­immigration on couple’s ­wedding day
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man who claims he was illegally detained on his wedding day by a Pennsylvania judge who wrongly doubted he was in the United States legally is suing over alleged violations of constitutional rights.

Alexander Parker on Thursday sued Camp Hill-based District Judge Elizabeth Beckley, two court entities and an unidentified court officer Parker says told him he wasn’t free to leave.

The federal lawsuit claims Guatemala-born Parker and his fiancée went to Beckley’s court office to get married in May 2017, but Beckley’s suspicions prompted her to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Parker says that after hours of being detained, federal investigators arrived and confirmed he’s a legal resident.

Beckley eventually married the couple, who now live in Florida. Beckley didn’t return messages seeking comment.