Texas
Judge deals state narrow defeat over mail-in ballot limits
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday night handed Texas’ elections overhaul a partial defeat days ahead of 2022’s first primary over rules that criminalize encouraging voters to get a ballot by mail.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio is limited but orders Texas not to enforce that narrow part of the law against Harris County, which in 2020 sought to send more than 2 million voters mail-in ballot applications during the pandemic in the state’s largest Democratic stronghold.
Texas was expected to appeal the decision, which comes just days before early voting begins for the first-in-the-nation primary on March 1.
Texas has some of the nation’s most restrictive rules surrounding vote-by-mail, generally making it only available to voters who are at least 65 years old or have an illness or disability. Under the new law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in September, an elections official who solicits mail-in ballot applications from voters could face felony charges punishable by six months in jail.
The lawsuit was filed by officials in Harris County who have described feeling hamstrung to help Houston voters navigate the new law. The ruling also applies to the Austin area, where opponents joined the suit.
“Public officials should be able to recommend that option for folks who are eligible to vote by mail,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said. He criticized the new Texas law as “keeping these voters in the dark and discouraging them from voting by mail.”
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new Texas law also bans 24-hour polling places, drive-thru voting and empowers partisan poll watchers.
North Carolina
Justices weigh legality of voter ID, tax amendments
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s highest court is deciding whether the legislature was barred from placing constitutional amendments on the ballot because dozens of members who agreed to do so were elected from districts with illegal boundaries.
The state Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments on Monday in litigation filed by the North Carolina NAACP more than three years ago.
At issue are amendments passed in November 2018, requiring voters to show photo identification and reducing the maximum possible state income tax rate from 10% to 7%.
A trial judge voided those amendments, ruing that since so many of legislators had been elected from racially gerrymandered districts, the General Assembly exceeded its authority to place the referendums on the ballot. A split state Court of Appeals panel overturned that ruling in 2020, saying such a standard would allow anyone to challenge any conventional legislation approved by those lawmakers, causing chaos and confusion.
Illinois
AG asks state Supreme Court to order sentence in sex assault
CHICAGO (AP) — The state attorney general’s office has asked the Illinois Supreme Court to impose a sentence in a case where a western Illinois judge threw out the sexual assault conviction of an 18-year-old man.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a mandamus complaint and a motion for supervisory order Thursday asking the state’s highest court to order Judge Robert K. Adrian to sentence Drew S. Clinton in accordance with state law.
Adrian presided over a three-day bench trial in which Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at a graduation party in Quincy in May. After originally finding Clinton guilty on one count of criminal sexual assault in October, Adrian threw out the conviction last month when Clinton appeared for sentencing, saying there had been “plenty of punishment” and that he wouldn’t impose the mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison.
The case sparked wide outrage.
Raoul said that the mandatory sentencing range set by the Illinois General Assembly for felony criminal sexual assault is four to 15 years in prison.
“In addition to the insensitivity to the victim in this case, the judge’s decision to vacate the conviction and call the 148 days Clinton served in county jail ‘plenty of punishment,’ demonstrates an abuse of power,” Raoul said a statement.
Last month, Adrian was reassigned to small claims, legal matters and probate documents instead of presiding over the criminal docket.
Ohio
Ruling: Free speech lawsuit against deputies can continue
CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio man had a constitutionally protected right to direct obscene language at law enforcement officers who were escorting him off a county fairground and then arrested him for disorderly conduct, a federal appeals court has ruled.
A three-judge panel at the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled earlier this week that Michael Wood’s civil rights lawsuit against a group of Clark County sheriff’s deputies should proceed after U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rose in Dayton dismissed it in 2020.
Wood, 38, caused friction when he entered the Clark County Fairgrounds in the summer of 2016 wearing a shirt with an obscenity directed at police. Deputies confronted Wood, who was no longer wearing the shirt, several hours later when the fairgrounds’ executive director asked him to leave.
Wood agreed to leave and repeatedly swore at deputies as they escorted him off the property, prompting the officers to arrest him for disorderly conduct. The misdemeanor charge was later dismissed. Wood filed a federal court lawsuit in 2018 alleging the deputies had infringed on his rights.
Judge Rose dismissed the lawsuit saying the deputies had qualified immunity, meaning they cannot be sued for doing their job, and Wood had not proved the deputies had retaliated against him for using foul language.
ACLU of Ohio attorney David Carey in a statement said the Sixth Circuit decision “confirms that the First Amendment protects people’s right to criticize their government, including law enforcement, regardless of whether they go about it politely.”
Andrew Yosowitz, an attorney for the Clark County deputies, said the ruling disregards 40 years of Ohio case law regarding the state’s disorderly conduct statute.
“Even if the deputies made a mistake, it was a reasonable mistake of law, and the deputies should be entitled to qualified immunity,” Yosowitz said.
