Pennsylvania
Justices keep mail-in voting law in place, at least for now
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law will remain in place, at least for the near future, despite a state judge’s order that would have made it expire in two weeks, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The justices issued a one-paragraph order that overturned a Feb. 16 decision by Commonwealth Court Senior Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt that would have pulled the plug on the state’s 2-year-old voting law.
The Supreme Court plans to hold oral argument Tuesday regarding the legal challenge the law. The justices’ decision to invalidate Leavitt’s order gives themselves more time to rule without facing a one-week deadline.
They said the law will remain in place, pending further action by the high court.
The administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf asked the Supreme Court last week to keep the law intact during the litigation, arguing that stopping mail-in voting ahead of the spring primary season “would, if anything, only exacerbate voter confusion and the danger of disenfranchisement.”
Pennsylvania ended most restrictions against mail-in voting in 2019 as part of a deal in which Republican legislative leaders obtained an end to straight-ticket voting.
Democrats have used the mail-in opinion far more than have Republicans during the pandemic. Many of the Republicans in the General Assembly who voted for the 2019 now oppose it, including 11 of the plaintiffs in the current legal challenge.
Leavitt and two fellow Republican judges ruled in January that no-excuse mail-in voting is prohibited under the Pennsylvania Constitution. Two Democrats dissented, saying the constitution permits no excuse under a provision that says elections “shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law.”
Nearly 5 million votes were cast by mail over 2020-21. As of August, nearly 1.4 million Pennsylvania voters were signed up for permanent mail-in voting notification.
Illinois
Man admits bilking hospitals seeking face masks
CHICAGO (AP) — A suburban Chicago businessman has admitted to swindling two hospitals that had sought coveted protective face masks in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dennis W. Haggerty Jr. of Burr Ridge pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Chicago to wire fraud and money laundering charges. He now likely faces a sentence of about three years in prison and an order directing him to pay more than $2.5 million in restitution.
His sentencing is set for May 25.
Haggerty, 45, was first charged in a criminal complaint filed in November 2020. Prosecutors said Haggerty, the onetime president of the biotechnology company At Diagnostics Inc., cheated two large university hospitals in Chicago and Iowa City, Iowa.
Court records identify the hospitals as Northwestern Memorial Healthcare and University of Iowa Medical Center.
The hospitals allegedly ordered one million N95 face masks from At Diagnostics and, combined, paid more than $3 million for them, according to the complaint. The hospitals deposited the money into a bank account that was supposedly the company’s but was controlled only by Haggerty.
He allegedly used some of the money for his personal benefit, including on credit cards, two Maseratis and a Range Rover.
Ohio
Criminal law debate focuses on early release, drug addiction
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The latest debate over an update to Ohio’s criminal justice laws has focused on early release for inmates and a measure protecting overdose victims from prosecution.
Under current state law, certain inmates can be released into halfway houses or other community settings with six months left on their sentence, but judges can deny that release if an inmate’s overall sentence was two years or less.
Oftentimes, inmates serving short sentences whose early release is denied have already violated probation multiple times and a judge has determined early placement in the community has failed, Louis Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
Proposed language allowing Ohio prison officials to grant early release without judges’ input undermines local decisions that full prison sentences are the best option, Tobin said.
The Ohio Public Defenders’ Office disagreed, arguing the proposed change properly puts decisions in the hands of corrections experts.
Prosecutors also oppose a measure shielding drug overdose victims from charges for possessing “drug paraphernalia,” an expansion of a Good Samaritan law meant to encourage people to seek help for themselves or others who are overdosing.
The ACLU of Ohio supports the update.
Florida
3 guards sentenced to prison for inmate beating
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Three former Florida prison guards were given sentences ranging from two to three years of incarceration for assaulting an inmate who was handcuffed, had been pepper sprayed and showed no signs of resistance, federal authorities said Tuesday.
The three on-duty correctional officers at the Hamilton Correctional Institution Annex in Jasper, Florida, last summer had pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of the unnamed inmate.
During a hearing in federal court in Jacksonville, Coty Wiltgen was sentenced to 37 months in a federal prison. Ethan Burkett was given a sentence of 31 months and William Shackelford was given a sentence of 25 months in prison.
According to prosecutors, the guards took the inmate to an outside area of the prison, away from cameras, after he had pushed Burkett while he was chasing another inmate in March 2020. Wiltgen kicked the inmate 15 times in the face to the point that the inmate lost consciousness and called him a racial slur, while Shackelford hit the inmate from the side while kneeing him in the back, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Burkett also hit and punched the inmate, according to federal authorities.
“Burkett, Wiltgen, and Shackelford knew that the use of force was unnecessary and excessive, counter to their training and completely unjustified at the time that they used, and watched others use, force against the victim,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
