Missouri
Hearing sought for man facing execution who claims innocence
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Attorneys for a Missouri man scheduled to be executed next month are seeking a new hearing, citing sworn statements they call “clear and convincing evidence” that he didn’t kill his girlfriend and her three children.
Leonard Taylor, 58, is scheduled to die by injection Feb. 7 for the 2004 killings of Angela Rowe, 28, along with her 10-year-old daughter Alexus Conley, 6-year-old daughter AcQreya Conley, and 5-year-old son Tyrese Conley. All four were found shot inside their home in the St. Louis County town of Jennings in 2004.
But on Friday, Taylor’s attorneys asked St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell for a new hearing. A spokesman for Bell said Monday that the request is being reviewed.
A year-old provision in a Missouri law allows a prosecutor to file a motion asking for a hearing before a judge if there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. Bell is a Democrat first elected in 2018. He created a Conviction and Incident Review Unit responsible for looking at, among other things, potential cases of wrongful convictions.
At issue are new sworn statements from Taylor’s daughter, now 31, her sister and her mother. They claim that Taylor was in California at the time of the killings.
Police discovered the bodies on Dec. 3, 2004, after worried relatives requested a welfare check. Taylor, who had an extensive criminal record and was the live-in boyfriend of Angela Rowe, was arrested days later.
It’s not known exactly when Rowe and her children were killed. The Missouri Attorney General’s office believes it was before Taylor flew to California on Nov. 26, 2004.
But in the new filing, Taylor’s attorneys said that while in California, Taylor met for the first time a girl he had fathered 13 years earlier. The statement from Deja Taylor said she and her father called Angela Rowe during his visit. She said she spoke with Rowe and one of the children — proof, Taylor’s lawyers contend, that the family was still alive after Taylor left Missouri.
Deja Taylor’s mother and sister corroborated her story, the court filing stated.
“All of the evidence in this case, both old and new, presents a compelling case that Leonard Taylor could not have possibly committed these murders because he was out of the state from the early morning hours of November 26, 2004, until he was arrested in Kentucky and returned to Missouri on December 9, 2004,” the court filing states.
A spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey declined comment.
New Mexico
Republicans challenge state redistricting after loss
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Attorneys for Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico urged the state Supreme Court on Monday to dismiss a Republican challenge to a congressional map that divvies up a politically conservative region of the state.
The case is one of several court battles in states from Kentucky to Utah regarding U.S. House districts enacted by state legislatures and alleged constitutional violations.
Chief Justice Shannon Bacon said the court would take a deliberative approach, setting aside time with no deadline to forge a decision, after hourlong oral arguments guided heavily by questions from justices.
The Republican Party and several other plaintiffs have accused Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico of breaking up the southeastern corner of the state — an oil-producing region and Republican stronghold — into three districts “for raw political gain.”
The case holds implications for the 2nd Congressional District where Democrat Gabe Vasquez in November ousted incumbent U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell. The majority-Hispanic district currently stretches from the U.S. border with Mexico across desert oilfields and portions of Albuquerque.
Sara Sanchez, an attorney for leading Democratic legislators, urged the high court Monday to uphold the new congressional maps and steer clear of a “political thicket,” arguing that state law provides the legislature and governor with broad authority to draw political boundaries.
“This has to be an extreme situation,” for the judiciary to intervene in redistricting, Sanchez said. “It’s a political process, somebody’s ox is being gored. And if every time someone didn’t get the political shakes that they wanted in their district, they’re going to come to this court. ... I would suggest a high bar.”
Daniel Gallegos, representing the Republican Party and allied plaintiffs, said the new congressional map flouts traditional standards of redistricting that held sway over the past three decades. He said it would be unfair to block access to judicial review in state district court so soon.
“Our only option would be to go back to them (at the Legislature) and expect that the political process is going to work out,” Gallegos said.
Clovis-based District Judge Fred Van Soelen in April cleared the way for Republicans to challenge the new congressional map, while barring immediate changes that might have disrupted the 2022 midterm election.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and leading Democratic legislators then asked the Supreme Court to intervene and preserve their redistricting plan.
They say new boundaries to the state’s three congressional districts were vetted appropriately through the political process to ensure more competitive districts that reflect population shifts, with deference to Native American communities.
In related litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, justices are considering a challenge that would leave state legislatures virtually unchecked in making rules for congressional and presidential elections. Arguments were presented in December.
Republicans from North Carolina who brought that case to the high court argue that a provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the elections clause gives state lawmakers virtually total control over the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections, including redistricting.
That means cutting state courts out of the process, they say. State courts have become the only legal forum for challenging partisan congressional maps since the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that those lawsuits cannot be brought in federal court.
The stakes in that case are high because Republicans won only a slim House majority in the November 2022 elections, giving them just enough power to challenge President Joe Biden’s agenda. Any ruling that causes some districts to be redrawn likely would kick in for the 2024 elections.
In New Mexico, Democrats won all three congressional contests in November. They control every statewide elected office, command majorities in the state House and Senate, and make up the five-member Supreme Court.
Mississippi
Election official pleads guilty to misusing pandemic money
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — An election commissioner in Mississippi’s largest county has pleaded guilty to fraud and embezzlement charges related to misuse of pandemic relief money from a group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Hinds County Election Commissioner Toni Johnson, 37, of Clinton, entered the guilty plea Monday as jury selection was beginning for her trial, court records show. She will have to resign and will no longer be able to serve in any office handling public money, according to the state auditor’s office.
Johnson was chairwoman the Hinds County Election Commission in 2020 and 2021. According to the state auditor’s office, she used COVID-19 response money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life to buy two 85-inch (216-centimeter) televisions and personal protective equipment, which she purportedly had delivered to her own home and one other private home.
The auditor said that to conceal the scheme, Johnson allegedly bought smaller, less expensive TVs as replacements for the larger ones bought by the Hinds County Election Commission.
In the plea deal, Johnson is expected to avoid prison time. Court records show prosecutors will recommend a 20-year sentence, with 15 of those years suspended and five to be spent under supervised probation. Johnson will have to pay restitution of more than $24,000.
Two other people previously pleaded guilty to charges in this case in Hinds County, including bribery of a public official and conspiracy to make fraudulent statements to the government. They await sentencing.
Alabama
Former House speaker released from prison
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard has been released from prison after serving more than two years behind bars for a 2016 ethics conviction.
Hubbard was released from Limestone Correctional Facility on Sunday, the day his 28-month sentence was set to end, the Alabama Department of Corrections said.
The Republican was one of the state’s most powerful politicians until the ethics conviction ended his political career.
The architect of the GOP’s takeover of the Alabama Legislature in 2010, Hubbard was a legislator from Auburn and former chairman of the state Republican Party. He was elected House speaker soon after Republicans won control of the House. He was reelected as speaker in 2015 despite facing the criminal charges.
Prosecutors accused Hubbard of leveraging his powerful public office to obtain business clients, violating prohibitions against using his office for personal gain and against giving a “thing of value” to an elected official. At his trial, Hubbard’s defense attorneys maintained the contracts were legitimate work and unrelated to his position as House speaker.
A jury in 2016 convicted Hubbard of 12 felony charges, but half of those were overturned on appeal. He was automatically removed from office after his conviction.
Hubbard had unsuccessfully sought an early release from prison, saying that he recognized his errors and was “sincerely sorry” for the embarrassment and damage his conviction caused his family and the state. Prosecutors opposed his request for early release and said his apology was insincere.
Hubbard was housed in a protective custody unit at Limestone Correctional Facility during his sentence.
Massachusetts
Police dig through trash for clues in woman’s disappearance
COHASSET, Mass. (AP) — Investigators will inspect several items they found at a Boston-area trash processing facility to determine if they are connected to the disappearance of a Massachusetts woman, authorities said Tuesday.
Police combed through trash at the Peabody facility on Monday looking for clues in the disappearance of Ana Walshe, 39.
“Search activity conducted north of Boston yesterday resulted in a number of items being collected which will now be subject to processing and testing to determine if they are of evidentiary value to this investigation,” the office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said in a statement. The statement did not say what the items were.
Ana Walshe, a mother of three, was last seen on New Year’s Day at her home in Cohasset, an affluent coastal community about 15 miles southeast of Boston.
She was supposed to take a ride-hailing service to Logan International Airport for a flight to Washington, D.C., where she often worked, but authorities said there is no evidence she ever got into a vehicle or on a flight.
Her husband, Brian Walshe, 47, is being held on $500,000 bail after pleading not guilty to misleading police investigating the disappearance. His attorney, Tracy Miner, said he has been “incredibly cooperative” with police and she requested low or no bail.
Peabody is north of Boston, but not far from Swampscott, where Brian Walshe’s mother lives. A prosecutor said Monday that he visited his mother’s home on New Year’s Day.
