National Roundup

Texas
Prosecutor resigns after Facebook post seems to link protests, Nazis
HOUSTON (AP) — A longtime top Houston area prosecutor resigned Monday after posting a meme on Facebook that appeared to equate Nazis with people who have been participating in protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Kaylynn Williford, who was head of the trial bureau at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, last week posted the meme that shows a black and white picture of a wooden box full of weddings bands that were removed from Holocaust victims.

A caption above the photo reads in part, “Each ring represents a destroyed family. Never forget, Nazis tore down statues. Banned free speech. Blamed economic hardships on one group of people. Instituted gun control. Sound familiar?”

Protesters demonstrating against racism, police violence, racial inequality and the May death of Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes, have targeted Confederate monuments and other statues in cities around the world.

Various area attorneys had questioned whether the post was derogatory of the Black Lives Matter movement and if it might be racist.

“It’s in very poor taste given the context of what’s happening socially around the country,” said Mauro Beltramini, a Houston criminal defense attorney. “Something like this could cast doubt on things that the district attorney’s office is doing.”

Williford said in a statement she never intended to offend the Black Lives Matter movement. Williford said what she had “interpreted as a post that promoted tolerance was taken in a completely different manner.”

“I have spent my career defending the rights not only of victims but those wrongfully accused,” she said. “If you truly knew me, you would know I never meant anything malicious in sharing a Facebook post ... I can only say I am sorry for hurt this had made in the African American or Jewish communities.”

The district attorney’s office was reviewing concerns over the Facebook post when Williford resigned.

Williford had been with the district attorney’s office since 1992 and had tried more than 100 jury trials. She was one of the prosecutors who in October helped secure  a death sentence for a man convicted of fatally shooting six members of his ex-wife’s family, including four children.

Rhode Island
Motion alleges Brown violated sports gender equity agreement
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Attorneys have filed a motion alleging that Brown University violated a two-decade old agreement to provide gender equity in varsity sports in compliance with federal Title IX law by announcing the elimination of several women’s athletic teams.

Attorneys for Public Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island allege in the motion filed in federal court Monday that the Ivy League school violated terms of the 1998 agreement when it announced last month it would cut women’s fencing, golf, squash, skiing and equestrian teams in an effort to streamline its athletic department.

The cuts would result in “immediate and irreparable harm,” the motion says.

Brown said it will comply with the original agreement, in part, by adding co-ed and women’s varsity sailing teams, according to the ACLU.

But Brown can’t comply with the original settlement based on “teams that do not exist” the ACLU said in a statement.

Brown in a statement defended its commitment to women’s sports.

The motion “is a preemptive legal action asserting a hypothetical violation that has not taken place,” the university said.

The university said it is confident the proportion of women athletes will be in compliance with the original agreement and Title IX for the upcoming athletic seasons.

Florida
Woman charged in ex-boyfriend’s shooting death
SOUTH BAY, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman is suspected in the shooting death of her ex-boyfriend.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said Roykeria Wiley, 29, was seen in surveillance camera footage running from a home in South Bay moments after Estevan Rodriguez, 43, was repeatedly shot from close range. The footage also captured a man running from the home and getting into the woman’s truck, but he has not been charged.

Wiley was uspet over the breakup and had a violent outburst in that home three days before the killing, according to sheriff’s officials.

Wiley shattered a beer bottle in the home and smashed a mirror, according to records. A witness said Rodriguez pushed her, causing her to fall and injure her nose.

The Palm Beach Post reported a judge on Monday ordered Wiley to remain in jail without the possibility of posting bail. A lawyer for Wiley was not included on jail records.

South Dakota
Judge rules prison porn policy too broad
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled a South Dakota corrections policy that bans prisoners from possessing nude pictures that aren’t sexually explicit is unconstitutional.

Judge Larry Piersol, in an opinion finalized Monday, said the policy that also bans written works that contain sexual references is overly broad and cuts off the inmates access to literature.

“The present policy bans written material with any sexual content,” Piersol wrote. “That means the potential of banning the Bible and much of Shakespeare, not to mention all of the fiction of John Updike, Phillip Roth, Ernest Hemingway, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to name a few.”

The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by Charles Sisney, 52, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his girlfriend in Sioux Falls.

In 2018, the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the district court to determine if the policy was constitutional, the Argus Leader reported.

Piersol found that while the Department of Corrections has an interest in banning pornography and sexually explicit material, banning simple nudity and written scenes goes too far.

An exception is children’s nudity because the department has an interest in keeping those images away from sex offenders, he said.

The judge ruled Sisney could have works of literature that include sexual encounters, an art book and scenes from sculptures and painting of Michelangelo.