California
County clears decades-old backlog of sexual assault kits
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Orange County authorities have cleared a backlog of untested sexual assault kits going back decades and the results led to the filing of charges in six cold cases, the district attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
After a survey of backlogged kits, some 1,700 were tested by the county’s crime lab and an outside lab under the DA’s Orange County Sexual Assault Forensic Endeavor program, also known as OC SAFE, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
The kits were collected by various law enforcement agencies in the county, with the oldest dating back to 1977, said Kimberly Edds, a spokesperson for the DA’s office.
The survey didn’t include about two dozen kits collected by the county Sheriff’s Department that are currently being tested, Edds said.
The OC SAFE program began in 2016. Testing was funded by about $2 million in state and federal funds, and the last kit was tested on Friday, the DA’s office said.
“Every one of these untested sexual assault kits represents a victim who deserves justice,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the statement.
The testing resulted in hundreds of new DNA profiles being uploaded to law enforcement databases in the county and to the filing of criminal charges in six cold cases.
One case involved a woman who was raped at gunpoint in 1993 in Stanton by a man who pretended to be a police officer, authorities said. The woman was raped in a car while on a date with another man. The couple also were robbed and their car stolen.
DNA from the rape kit led to a suspect, Michael Ray Armijo, who was convicted last year of two felony counts of kidnap to commit robbery with enhancements for personal use of a firearm. The DA’s office said Armijo couldn’t be charged with rape because the statue of limitations had expired but he was given the maximum possible sentence of 24 years to life in state prison.
Indiana
Courts asked to reinstate blocked state anti-abortion laws
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s attorney general is asking federal judges to lift orders blocking several state anti-abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to end constitutional protection for abortion.
An appeal of one of those blocked Indiana laws aimed at prohibiting abortions based on gender, race or disability was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. But that was before former President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett strengthened the court’s conservative majority.
Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office asked in court filings Monday that federal judges lift injunctions against that law, along with others banning a common second-trimester abortion procedure that the legislation calls a “dismemberment abortion” and requiring parents be notified if a court allows a girl younger than 18 to get abortion without parental consent.
The office argued that after last week’s Supreme Court ruling those challenging the laws “can claim no constitutional right to an abortion.”
The Indianapolis-based federal courts didn’t immediately take action on the state attorney general’s office filings, which sought “prompt consideration” from the judges.
Mike Fichter, Indiana Right to Life president and chief executive officer, signaled support for the attorney general’s requests.
“Today’s action demonstrates that our Indiana leaders realize every life has value, and everyone deserves to be born,” Fichter said in a statement Monday.
Daniel Conkle, professor emeritus at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law, said it would be difficult for groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which initially challenged these laws, to halt the injunctions from being lifted.
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization court opinion explicitly says states have a “legitimate interest” in eliminating “particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures,” for which “dismemberment abortions” under Indiana law qualify, as well as in preventing abortions based on “discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability.” These provisions make Rokita’s requests more likely to be approved, Conkle said.
The ACLU of Indiana said Tuesday it was reviewing the filings and declined additional comment.
Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature is expected to consider tightening the state’s abortion restrictions during a special legislative session scheduled to begin July 6 and last up to 40 days. Legislative leaders have not yet said what abortion restrictions might advance in the special session.
Conkle said he was not sure if the Legislature would ban abortion without exceptions, including abortions on the basis of gender, race or disability; for rape and incest; or for medical emergencies.
“I think the two key things are, you know, number one, what will be the point in pregnancy at which any new abortion prohibition would kick in? And number two, what exceptions will be recognized?” Conkle told the Associated Press. “If the abortion is necessary to prevent a substantial, permanent impairment of the life or physical health of the woman, one could imagine an exception like that being built into any new abortion prohibition.”
Virginia
Police: Toddler left in car dies, father kills self
CHESTERFIELD, Va. (AP) — A toddler accidentally left in a vehicle for hours died Tuesday and police said his father was found dead in an apparent suicide at their Virginia home, police said.
Chesterfield County Police received a call around 11:45 a.m. indicating that an 18-month-old boy may have been left in a vehicle for several hours, police said in a news release.
Lt. Col. Christopher Hensley said police were in touch with the child’s mother and relatives who reported that the boy had not been dropped off at daycare and may be in danger, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Police also learned the boy’s father was at his home and was making suicidal statements.
Responding officers found the boy dead inside the home and the man dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the woods behind the home, police said.
“It’s just a tragedy on so many levels,” Hensley said. “Our hearts go out to the family and friends that are going to deal with this.”
An investigation shows the father accidentally left the child in the vehicle for several hours and when he discovered the child dead in the vehicle, he returned home, took the child inside and then went outside and shot himself, police said.
