National Roundup

Mississippi
Court fight over dog survives after dog’s owner dies
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that a legal fight over a lost dog could continue in Mississippi, even after the dog’s owner has died.

The dispute is over a German shepherd named Max who  escaped from his owner’s Hattiesburg home in 2015. Max got loose when people were providing medical help to his owner, Charles Holt, who had fallen and could not get up.

Holt was more than 90 years old at the time. He was hospitalized after the fall.

Max was captured weeks later, and he was impounded in an animal shelter. More weeks passed before Holt was notified that his dog was in the shelter, according to court papers. When Holt tried to reclaim his dog, the shelter refused, based on orders from the city.

A city court judge ordered the shelter to keep Max because the dog allegedly posed a threat to the people taking care of Holt. A county court judge later agreed with that decision.

Holt then filed a federal lawsuit saying the city had deprived him of his property, Max, without due process. A district court judge threw out his claim, and Holt appealed.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that although Holt has died, questions about his property claim survive. The appeals court sent it back to a district court for the possibility of further consideration.

The appeals court did not say whether Max is still alive.

North Carolina
Lawsuit: TSA agent purposely groped woman
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A woman says in a lawsuit that a security screener at a North Carolina airport intentionally groped her.

The lawsuit was filed Feb. 4 in federal court against the U.S. government as well as the female Transportation Security Administration agent.

The lawsuit says the passenger was screened in June at the Asheville Regional Airport as she prepared to fly home to Los Angeles.

The suit claims she was singled out for a search. It also said the woman explicitly asked if the search involved touching her genitals, to which the agent said “no.”

The lawsuit claims the screener deviated from a normal search and directly touched the woman’s genitals after sliding her hand inside the woman’s shorts. The suit claims that the agent did so for “sexual gratification and/or for the purpose of humiliating” the woman in “retaliation for questioning the search.”

The suit says the woman filed a complaint with the TSA in September. But it says the TSA denied it, “indicating that it would not consider the claim without additional documentation for which they were not entitled.”

The woman is suing for damages and wants a jury to decide the amount.

The agent’s full identity was not included in the lawsuit, and no lawyer was listed for her.

New Mexico
Defense against excessive force by police is viable
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A court ruling says New Mexico criminal defendants may be allowed to argue that they were trying to defend another person from excessive force by an officer.

The state Court of Appeals decision issued Tuesday in a case from Curry County overturns Sarita Jones’ convictions for battery upon a peace officer and resisting or abusing a peace officer and grants her a new trial.

The decision said the Clovis woman was entitled to seek a “defense of another” jury instruction because her case involved alleged excessive force directed by police at her son.

The Court of Appeals said a trial judge erroneously ruled that defendants claiming to have been defending another person couldn’t cite allegedly excessive force by police.

People acting to defend somebody else actually have the same limited right enjoyed by a person acting in self-defense, the Court of Appeals said.

The case stemmed from a 2017 incident in which officers went to Jones’ home in response to a domestic dispute.

According to the Court of Appeals ruling, Jones stepped in between two officers and one of her sons and grabbed one officer’s wrist as the officers drew their stun guns and pointed them at the son, who was wanted on a pending warrant and who had been yelling.

The New Mexico Supreme Court has ruled that the right to self-defense isn’t absolute because it doesn’t apply when an officer is using force necessary to make an arrest.

In Jones’ case, the Court of Appeals said, “reasonable minds could differ as to whether the officers used excessive force ...”

Maryland
Sanity phase in newspaper shooting case delayed to June
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The second phase of a trial to determine whether a man who has pleaded guilty to killing five people at a Maryland newspaper but not criminally responsible due to his mental health will be delayed until June, a judge ruled Monday.

Judge Laura Ripken set jury selection begin June 2 during a hearing in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in Annapolis, Maryland.  She set aside June 8-23 for the sanity phase of Jerrod Ramos’ trial. It’s the latest delay after repeated postponements in the case relating to the June 2018 shooting at the Capital Gazette’s office.

Attorneys for Ramos say the delay is needed, because William Davis, one of his three lawyers, cannot continue with the case due to medical issues. They say a new attorney has agreed to take his place, but more time is needed for the lawyer to prepare.

The sanity phase of the trial had been scheduled for March.

Anne Colt Leitess, the state’s attorney handling the case, said she had contacted family members of victims about the delay.

“This is very difficult for them,” Leitess said, though she added that she understood the need for the delay during the hearing in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in Annapolis, Maryland.

Ramos attended the hearing in green jail clothes. The judge asked him if he had any questions about the delay, and he said he did not. She also asked him if the postponement was OK with him.

Ramos pleaded guilty but not criminally responsible in October to killing John McNamara, Gerald Fischman, Wendi Winters, Rob Hiaasen and Rebecca Smith in the newsroom rampage.

Ramos had a well-documented history of harassing the newspaper’s journalists. He filed a lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging he was defamed in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011. The Capital published a story describing allegations by a woman who said Ramos harassed her online for months. The defamation suit was dismissed as groundless, and Ramos railed against the staff at the newspaper in profanity-laced tweets.

During a pretrial hearing in October, Ripken said a report from the state health department concluded Ramos is legally sane. But Ramos’ lawyers say experts for the defense have reached a different conclusion.