National Roundup

North Dakota
High court hears challenge of refinery near national park
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The North Dakota Supreme Court has heard the first of two legal challenges to an oil refinery planned near Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Tuesday’s arguments involve a lawsuit brought by the National Parks Conservation Association. It’s concerned about how the state will regulate emissions from the Davis Refinery under a permit issued last year by health officials. The association says the permit lacks safeguards that would protect the park and its visitors from air pollution.

The Bismarck Tribune reports the state maintains that the permit it issued does adequately control emissions, in part by requiring a leak detection system.

A second legal challenge to the refinery will be heard before the Supreme Court next week. A pair of environmental groups are suing over issues surrounding the site of the refinery.

Arizona
Man convicted of 2016 murder still not sentenced
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — A Maricopa man convicted of a 2016 murder is awaiting sentencing.

The Casa Grande Dispatch reports 19-year-old Arthur Magana’s sentencing is affected by the fact he was 16 at the time of the fatal shooting.

According to a 2016 Supreme Court ruling, life without the possibility of parole can no longer be mandatory for defendants who were juveniles at the time of the crime.

On Monday, a Pinal County Superior Court judge continued Magana’s sentencing until sometime in the future, perhaps in June.

Magana was convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery in November 2018.

Authorities say 20-year-old Wyatt Miller was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds inside his truck in November 2016.

Mississippi
2nd white man sentenced in cross burning
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A second white man has been sentenced to federal prison for his part in burning a cross in 2017 in the yard of an African American family in south Mississippi.

During a hearing Tuesday in Hattiesburg, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett sentenced Graham Williamson, 38, to three years in prison.

Williamson pleaded guilty Aug. 5 to intimidating and interfering with fair housing and conspiring to use fire or explosives to commit a felony. The housing charge is a federal civil rights violation.

Prosecutors said Williamson and another man, Louie Bernard Revette, built a wooden cross and burned it near the home of an African American teenager on Oct. 24, 2017, “with the intention of intimidating and frightening” black residents of Seminary, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Jackson.

“The defendant invoked a terrifying symbol of racial violence to threaten and intimidate the victims for no other reason than their race and where they lived,” Eric Dreiband, assistant U.S. attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement after Williamson was sentenced. “Hate crimes like this contravene our society’s well-established principles of equality and freedom from race-based intimidation.”

Revette received an 11-year sentence in September, months after pleading guilty to interfering with housing rights and using fire during commission of a federal felony.

Cross burnings have historically been used by racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to rally supporters and terrorize black people in the South and elsewhere.

In 2017, a man pleaded guilty to federal charges after prosecutors said he and three other men burned a cross more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) high in the front yard of an interracial couple’s home in Port Richey, Florida, in 2012.

Michelle A. Sutphin, special agent in charge of the Jackson Division of the FBI, said in a statement Tuesday that prosecuting civil rights violations remains a priority for the bureau in Mississippi.

“When people violate the civil rights of others for the sole purpose of intimidation, specifically burning a cross as in this case, it terrorizes an entire community,” Sutphin said. “Mississippians shouldn’t have to fear for their safety within their own neighborhoods, and this case should send a strong message to those who threaten others based on race or color.”

Texas
Judge fines state $50K a day in ‘shameful’ foster care case
DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge who ruled that Texas’ embattled foster care system was unconstitutionally broken said Tuesday she will fine the state $50,000 a day for ignoring her orders to have foster children in group settings supervised around-the-clock by an adult who is awake.

At a hearing in Dallas on the case focused on those in long-term foster care, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack on Tuesday rebuked the state’s actions as “shameful.” The fines will begin Friday and double later this month until court-appointed monitors confirm compliance.

She said Tuesday that she no longer finds the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services “credible” and that the state has “lied to me at almost every level.”

Jack in 2015 ruled that Texas’ foster care system was unconstitutionally broken . Court-appointed monitors are overseeing reforms ordered by Jack and affirmed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Texas attorney general’s office, which has argued the case for the state, said after the hearing that DFPS along with Texas Health and Human Services had “sought clarification concerning the broad order at issue” and had “demonstrated that they are working expeditiously to comply with the court’s order.”

During the hearing, Jack scolded officials with DFPS who testified because they could not answer questions concerning the conditions in placements for foster care children.

Missouri
Prosecutor’s office says 100 criminal cases under review
CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — The St. Louis County prosecutor’s office says a pattern of improper analysis in the police department’s crime lab by a fired forensic scientist has led to a review of at least 100 criminal cases.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that crime lab supervisors had identified problems with DNA analysis by the scientist more than two years ago, when Robert McCulloch was the prosecuting attorney. Wesley Bell defeated McCulloch last year. Bell’s chief of staff, Sam Alton, said Tuesday in announcing the review that staff was not made aware of the issue after the election.

McCulloch described the situation as “just another lie made up by the Alton-Bell crowd to cover their own misdeeds” in a voice message to a Post-Dispatch reporter. The reviewed cases involve DNA evidence.