National Roundup

Mississippi
Federal jury sides with FBI in wrongful termination case
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A federal jury in Mississippi has ruled against an FBI agent who sued the agency for wrongful termination as a result of reporting racial discrimination.

Citing a U.S. Attorney’s Office statement, WDAM-TV reports the Hattiesburg jury on Friday ruled that former agent Warren Flowers failed to prove his termination was due to reporting the alleged discrimination. The statement says the office provided evidence during the trial that Flowers was actually fired for dishonesty, including falsifying a form approving the use of a confidential source.

Flowers sued the agency in 2017, saying he was discriminated against and worked at an office that had no other black employees. His claims of racial discrimination and a hostile work environment were dismissed prior to the trial starting last week.

Alabama
Roy Moore defamation lawsuit against accusers paused
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A judge has paused a defamation suit filed by Roy Moore against women who accused him during his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid of past misconduct.

Circuit Judge Albert Johnson ruled last month case will be held on the administrative docket until a related defamation case against Moore by one of the women is resolved.

During Alabama’s 2017 special Senate race, several women accused Moore of having pursued relationships with them decades ago when they were teens and he was in his 30s.  Leigh Corfman said Moore sexually touched her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old prosecutor.

Moore denied the allegations.

Moore said Friday he went to court to clear his name and the court’s decision is “very unfair.”

“Nothing that’s happened to me has been fair in court. Nothing,” Moore said.

Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore last year. Four months later, Moore later countersued her and other accusers.

Johnson says Corfman’s case will proceed first.

Moore is a former Alabama chief justice who has a strong following among some evangelical voters. He was twice removed from the bench for defying, or urging defiance, of court orders regarding same-sex marriage and the public display of the Ten Commandments in a state court building.

Support from evangelical voters helped Moore secure the GOP nomination to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate, but Moore lost the 2017 Senate race to U.S. Sen. Doug Jones amid the accusations against the ex-justice.

Moore is running for the Senate again. He is part of a crowded Republican primary field competing for the GOP nomination and the right to challenge Jones in 2020.

North Carolina
Supreme Court narrows lifetime GPS tracking of sex offenders
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Some repeat convicted sex offenders in North Carolina who’ve completed their sentences should no longer be subject to perpetual monitoring by satellite-linked bracelets because it’s unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

A majority on the state’s highest court expanded a lower appeals court decision that last year concluded GPS monitoring of Torrey Grady — collecting information on his whereabouts potentially for the rest of his life — would equate to an unreasonable search.

The justices also decided the lifetime satellite-based tracking violates Fourth Amendment rights when imposed on anyone only because the person has been convicted of multiple sex offenses and it continues after the person has finished all punishments.

About 475 convicted sex offenders in the state who aren’t currently subject to law enforcement supervision participate in lifetime satellite-based monitoring, according to North Carolina Community Corrections. Spokes­man Greg Thomas said the agency didn’t immediately know what portion of those people would no longer face such monitoring ordered solely because they had been declared a recidivist, in alignment with the decision. More than 24,000 people are currently listed in the state sex offender’s registry.

“Even if (the) defendant has no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning where he lives because he is required to register as a sex offender, he does not thereby forfeit his expectation of privacy in all other aspects of his daily life,” Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote in the majority opinion. “This is especially true with respect to unsupervised individuals like (Grady) who, unlike probationers and parolees ... have no ongoing relationship with the state.”

Earls wrote convicted sex offenders would still be subject to lifetime monitoring if they were designated by state law as a sexually violent predator, had been convicted of an aggravated offense, or were adults convicted of statutory rape or sex offense of someone under age 13.

The monitoring equipment allows law enforcement officials to collect information on the whereabouts of past sex offenders, who must wear the bracelet at all times. The bracelet must be charged daily for up to two hours, leaving the offender tethered to an electrical outlet, according to Friday’s decision.

The state’s attorneys defending the practice argued it allows law enforcement to solve crimes by excluding suspects and speeding up the apprehension of criminals. But no specific evidence was presented showing the program has helped capture or exonerate a suspect since it began with a North Carolina law in 2007, Earls wrote.

Associate Justice Paul Newby, writing a dissenting opinion, said the majority on the court failed to explain why GPS monitoring would be unconstitutional for people only declared as recidivist offenders. He said Earls’ opinion opened the door for all situations for lifetime monitoring to be struck down.

The majority “applies an unbridled analysis which understates the crimes, overstates repeat sex offenders’ legitimate expectations of privacy, and minimizes the need to protect society from this limited class of dangerous sex offenders,” Newby wrote.

Grady, who was convicted of sex-related offenses in 1997 and 2006, had already taken his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2015 declared the monitoring was a serious privacy concern. But that court left it up to states to decide whether imposed monitoring is reasonable and for how long.

Grady’s case returned to state court. A state Court of Appeals panel overturned a New Hanover County trial judge’s decision in 2016 that upheld lifetime monitoring of Grady.

Grady is now in prison for failing to register as a sex offender, according to state correction records.

Twelve states allow lifetime monitoring, Earls’ opinion said. In North Carolina, subjects can ask officials that the requirement be terminated a year after they complete their sentences, including probation and supervision.