National Roundup

Maine
Long-time state judge, former USA, dead at 75
FALMOUTH, Maine (AP) — Thomas Delahanty II, a longtime state judge who twice served as U.S. attorney, has died at 75.

Delahanty first served as U.S. attorney under President Jimmy Carter and then again under President Barack Obama. But he spent the bulk of his career as a state superior court justice in Auburn. His death on Monday was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Maine judiciary.

Former Lewiston Mayor Jim Howaniec, a defense lawyer, called Delahanty a “titan” of the state’s legal profession who had a great sense of humor and enjoyed banter with staff when he was off the bench.

“He could be very difficult during a trial, but beneath the surface, he was always focused on doing the right thing,” Howaniec said Wednesday.

Delahanty was appointed to the superior court in 1983 and served as its chief justice from 1990 to 1995. He left the court in 2010 when he was appointed U.S. attorney by Obama.

Gov. Janet Mills called Delahanty “a champion of justice” and praised him for bringing together law enforcement, education and drug treatment groups to address the opioid epidemic.

He came from a family of attorneys. His grandfather was John David Clifford Jr., a federal judge, and his father, Thomas E. Delahanty, served on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Missouri
City settles part in suit over Black inmate’s death
CHARLESTON, Mo. (AP) — A southeastern Missouri city has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle its part in a lawsuit brought by the family of a Black man who died in jail after having his neck pinned down for several minutes by the knee of a white sheriff.

A federal judge said Wednesday that she would likely approve the settlement between the mother, widow and nine children of Tory Sanders and the city of Charleston and several of its police officers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The family’s lawsuit is still pending against Mississippi County, the former sheriff and jail staffers.

Sanders’ 2017 death has drawn comparisons to last May’s death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned down the handcuffed Black man’s neck for several minutes. That officer, who was later fired, is standing trial in Floyd’s death.

In the Missouri case, Sanders was on his way to Nashville when he went to police in Charleston on May 4, 2017, to say he needed psychiatric help. He was taken to the Mississippi County Jail, where a mental health counselor determined that Sanders was suffering from paranoia and recommended he be hospitalized for observation. But Sanders remained in the jail, and hours later, then-Sheriff Cory Hutcheson led a team of officers and jailers into Sanders’ cell, where Sanders was tackled, pepper sprayed, shocked with a stun gun and beaten, according to the lawsuit.

Sanders’ family says Hutcheson pressed his left knee into Sanders’ neck and kept it there for up to three minutes, even as a police officer urged him to stop. Missouri’s previous and current attorneys general both investigated Sanders’ death but declined to bring charges.

Hutcheson was later sentenced  to six months in federal prison for the unrelated crimes of wire fraud and identity theft for using a fraudulent process to track the whereabouts of more than 200 cellphone users, including a judge and a former sheriff. He resigned after pleading guilty and can no longer work in law enforcement.

Sanders’ death, in part, led the state’s NAACP chapter in 2017 to issue a Missouri “travel advisory” over concerns about whether civil rights would be respected for those traveling through the state.

Charleston is in southeastern Missouri just west of the southern tip of Illinois.

Maine
Man charged with hate crime in setting fire to Black church
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A Maine man accused of setting fire to a Massachusetts church with a predominantly Black congregation been charged with hate crime offenses, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Dushko Vulchev is charged in federal court with four counts of damage to religious property involving fire and one count of use of fire to commit a federal felony stemming from the Dec. 28, 2020 blaze at the Martin Luther King Jr. Presbyterian Church in Springfield.

Investigators found messages on his electronic devices revealing Vulchev’s hatred of Black people, prosecutors said.

The 44-year-old Houlton, Maine man had already been charged in state court for a series of earlier smaller fires at the church. He pleaded not guilty in January to six charges, including attempted arson, and remains in state custody. His lawyer in that case called it a case of mistaken identity.

A lawyer representing Vulchev in the federal case said Thursday he couldn’t comment.

Vulchev, a naturalized citizen from Bulgaria, was charged in 2016 with kidnapping and domestic assault in Maine, where he allegedly held a woman captive. The kidnapping charge was dismissed but he was sentenced to 258 days in jail for assault and other charges. He also pleaded guilty in federal court to threatening Bulgarian officials.


Georgia
School replacing KKK leader’s name with Aaron’s
ATLANTA (AP) — An Atlanta high school that was named after a Ku Klux Klan leader will strip the name and instead honor the late baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron.

The Atlanta Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to change the name of Forrest Hill Academy to Hank Aaron New Beginnings Academy, news outlets reported. The new name is expected to be in place by the time students return to the southwest Atlanta alternative school in August.

Aaron, a former Atlanta Braves baseball player, died in January at the age of 86. Under the nickname “Hammerin’ Hank,” he set a wide array of career hitting records during his 23-year span, ultimately breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record while enduring racist threats.

Forrest Hill Academy had been named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

“It is very important that we understand our history,” Board member Michelle Olympiadis said during the Monday meeting. “It’s very important that we understand where we are coming from.”

The board’s vice chair, Eshé Collins, said the decision has also led to discussions about renaming the street the school is located on, Forrest Hills Drive, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The body has approved the renaming of four other district schools in recent months, all of which previously honored historical figures who held racist views, according to the newspaper.