National Roundup

Mississippi
Reward upped to $32,000 in shooting of judge
MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — The shooting of a judge outside a Mississippi courthouse remains unsolved, so now officials have increased the reward for information leading to an arrest.

Police said Chancery Judge Charlie Smith was shot near his abdomen as he was leaving his truck to enter the Lauderdale County Courthouse on March 16. He has been recovering after initially being hospitalized in critical condition.

The East Mississippi Crime Stoppers program is now offering $32,000 in rewards for tips, news outlets reported Tuesday. That’s up from the original $15,000 approved by the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors in late March. The new amount also includes $5,000 from the Clarke County Board of Supervisors and additional funds raised by private citizens, Lauderdale County Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun told The Meridian Star.

Investigators think the shooting was an isolated event that was personally “directed toward” Smith, according to Meridian’s Interim Police Chief, Lewis Robbins.

North Carolina
Man accused of violating virus restrictions taunts police
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man accused of violating the state’s coronavirus restrictions by leasing non-essential rentals turned himself in after taunting police on Facebook.

Shawn Thomas Johnson, 34, surrendered Tuesday after Asheville police issued an arrest warrant for him on the social media site. According to The State, an account apparently belonging to Johnson commented on the arrest warrant to ask if he can “get a reward” for telling police about his own whereabouts.

Asheville police had described Johnson as 286 pounds on the warrant, to which Johnson commented that he’s actually 235 pounds. “I’ve lost a bunch of weight,” he said.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Johnson’s real estate license was revoked in 2019 for keeping money belonging to property owners whose rentals he managed. He was also found guilty of counterfeiting by a federal court in 2010.

New Mexico
Ranchers get legal win in fight over river rights
CARLSBAD, N.M (AP) — Ranchers in a southeastern New Mexico community are claiming victory in a legal battle with a potash company over water rights connected to the Pecos River.

A state district judge ruled last week to call on the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer to show cause for issuing the company seven “preliminary authorizations” to shift its water rights from use for potash refining to sales to the oil and gas industry, the Carlsbad Current-Argus reports.

Eddy County District Judge Ray Romero said authorizations, which were issued without hearings or public participation, should be canceled as “illegal” permits.

Ken Dugan, attorney for the Carlsbad Irrigation District, said this meant the Office of the State Engineer must stop Intrepid Potash from pumping water from the Pecos River. “We are ecstatic he (Romero) upheld his ruling and did the right thing,” Dugan said.

The Denver-based Intrepid Potash recently claimed ownership of about 35,000 acre feet of water rights along the Pecos, with 19,000 identified for consumption.

Ranchers in a rural area south of Carlsbad said that move could completely drain the Pecos.

In response to the Intrepid Potash’s claims, the Carlsbad Irrigation District filed litigation intended to block Intrepid’s ownership of the water and seven “preliminary authorizations” granted by the Office of the State Engineer to change the point of diversion and manner of use of the water.

Maryland
Judge: Beach town can ban women from going topless
BALTIMORE (AP) — A popular Maryland beach town can ban women from going topless in public, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Judge James Bredar noted in his ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently maintained that physical differences between men and women provide a constitutionally sound basis for laws that treat men and women differently.

Bredar also determined that protecting the public sensibilities from the public display of areas of the body traditionally viewed as erogenous zones, including female, but not male, breasts, is an important government objective.

“Whether or not society should differentiate between male and female breasts is a separate inquiry from whether it is constitutional to do so,” wrote Bredar, adding that Ocean City’s ban on female toplessness is substantially related to protecting the public sensibilities.

Five women sued Ocean City officials in 2018, arguing that they had the right to appear topless in public like men.

The lawsuit was filed after city officials passed an emergency ordinance in 2017 prohibiting the nude display of a person’s specified anatomical areas. Those areas included the male and female genital regions and the female breast.

Local officials passed the ordinance after one of the plaintiffs sent letters to local authorities stating her intention to go topless, touching off a community debate.

Oregon
Romance writer accused of murder seeks release from jail due to virus
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A romance mystery novelist charged with killing her chef husband is asking a judge to let her leave jail and spend the rest of the coronavirus outbreak at an undisclosed guest house in the Portland area, court records show.

Lawyers for Nancy Crampton Brophy, 69, claim their client’s age and diabetic history require her immediate transfer from the Multnomah County Detention Center to what they described as “alternate confinement,” The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

The attorneys, Lisa Maxfield and Kristen Winemiller, also filed a habeas corpus petition against Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, alleging the conditions in the jails he oversees create a medically dangerous environment and threaten the defendant’s life.

Crampton Brophy has been behind bars since September 2018 after police say she shot Daniel Brophy, her husband of 27 years, at the Oregon Culinary Institute that June.

The case became international news after The Oregonian/ OregonLive revealed Crampton Brophy once wrote an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband.”