Ohio
State Supreme Court to review block of near-ban on abortion
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review a county judge’s order that is blocking enforcement of the state’s near-ban on abortions, and to consider whether the clinics challenging the law have legal standing to do so.
In its split decision, the court, however, denied Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request to launch its own review of the right to an abortion under the Ohio Constitution, leaving those arguments to play out in lower court.
This mean abortions remain legal in the state for now up to 20 weeks’ gestation.
Yost appealed Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins’ order to the state’s high court in January, after a failed effort to get it overturned by the First District Court of Appeals. The appellate court ruled the appeal premature, as it was only an interim step in the lawsuit challenging the so-called heartbeat law’s constitutionality.
Justices will now decide whether such orders are appropriate legal procedure, or attempts by lower courts to block laws they don’t like, as Yost has asserted.
Abortion rights organizations want the law to remain blocked, pointing to the chaos inflicted on patients, doctors and clinics during the 66 days that the Ohio ban was in effect last year.
The law signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in April 2019 prohibits most abortions after the first detectable “fetal heartbeat.” Cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. The law had been blocked through a different legal challenge until right after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
The ruling effectively nullified all abortion-rights lawsuits across the country that had cited the federal constitution, sending the question back to the states.
The lawsuit filed in Jenkins’ court argues a similar right exists under the Ohio Constitution.
South Carolina
Soldier who hijacked school bus found not guilty by insanity
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — An Army trainee who left a base in South Carolina without permission last year and briefly held a group of children hostage at gunpoint aboard a school bus has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The decision agreed to by prosecutors, defense attorneys and a judge means the 25-year-old New Jersey man will be sent to a state mental hospital for four additional months of treatment.
The trainee left Fort Jackson near Columbia where he was in basic training in May 2021 with an unloaded rifle. He first tried to flag down cars on Interstate 77, then boarded the school bus in a nearby neighborhood, investigators said.
He told the driver he didn’t want to hurt the elementary school students. The bus driver said that as he drove away the students began asking the trainee a number of questions like if he was a soldier, why he was doing this and whether he was going to hurt them.
The driver said the trainee got frustrated with the questions, let the driver and students off the bus and drove a few more miles (kilometers) before Richland County deputies found the bus and arrested him. No one was hurt.
Two different mental evaluations of the trainee found he had schizophrenia and that he thought someone was coming to hurt him and his family when he left the base, public defender Fielding Pringle said in court Thursday.
Interviews with the trainee’s family and other soldiers showed he was struggling with the undiagnosed mental illness for years and that his condition was deteriorating during basic training, Pringle said, according to media reports.
The trainee faced dozens of charges including 19 counts of kidnapping.
Pringle said once he started getting help, the trainee’s mental condition improved rapidly. In the nearly two years he has been in jail getting treatment, he hasn’t had a single disciplinary infraction.
California
Court rules for Uber, Lyft in ride-hailing case
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — App-based ride hailing and delivery companies like Uber and Lyft can continue to treat their California drivers as independent contractors, a state appeals court ruled Monday, allowing the tech giants to bypass other state laws requiring worker protections and benefits.
The ruling mostly upholds a voter-approved law, called Proposition 22, that said drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft are independent contractors and are not entitled to benefits like paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. A lower court ruling in 2021 had said Proposition 22 was illegal, but Monday’s ruling reversed that decision.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for app-based workers and the millions of Californians who voted for Prop 22,” said Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer. “We’re pleased that the court respected the will of the people.”
The ruling is a defeat for labor unions and their allies in the state Legislature who passed a law in 2019 requiring companies like Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers as employees.
“Today the Appeals Court chose to stand with powerful corporations over working people, allowing companies to buy their way out of our state’s labor laws and undermine our state constitution,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, leader of the California Labor Federation and a former state assemblywoman who authored the 2019 law. “Our system is broken. It would be an understatement to say we are disappointed by this decision.”
The ruling wasn’t a complete defeat for labor unions, as the court ruled the companies could not stop their drivers from joining a labor union and collectively bargain for better working conditions, said Mike Robinson, one of the drivers who filed the lawsuit challenging Proposition 22.
“Our right to join together and bargain collectively creates a clear path for drivers and delivery workers to hold giant gig corporations accountable,” he said. “But make no mistake, we still believe Prop 22 — in its entirety — is an unconstitutional attack on our basic rights.”
The California Legislature passed a law in 2019 that changed the rules of who is an employee and who is an independent contractor. It’s an important distinction for companies because employees are covered by a broad range of labor laws that guarantee them certain benefits while independent contractors are not.
While the law applied to lots of industries, it had the biggest impact on app-based ride hailing and delivery companies. Their business relies on contracting with people to use their own cars to give people rides and make deliveries. Under the 2019 law, companies would have to treat those drivers as employees and provide certain benefits that would greatly increase the businesses’ expenses.
In November 2020, voters agreed to exempt app-based ride hailing and delivery companies from the 2019 law by approving a ballot proposition. The proposition included “alternative benefits” for drivers, including a guaranteed minimum wage and subsidies for health insurance if they average 25 hours of work a week. Companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash spent $200 million on a campaign to make sure it would pass.
Three drivers and the Service Employees International Union sued, arguing the ballot proposition was illegal in part because it limited the state Legislature’s authority to change the law or pass laws about workers’ compensation programs. In 2021, a state judge agreed with them and ruled companies like Uber and Lyft were not exempt.
Monday, a state appeals court reversed that decision, allowing the companies to continue to treat their drivers as independent contractors.
The ruling might not be the final decision. The Service Employees International Union could still appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court, which could decide to hear the case.
“We will consider all those options as we decide how to ensure we continue fighting for these workers,” said Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California.
Massachusetts
Ringleader of stolen ID, vehicle buying scheme pleads guilty
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man described by authorities as the ringleader of a group that used stolen identities to buy multiple vehicles worth a total of more than $1.5 million has pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft charges, federal prosecutors said.
Alvin Rivera, 39, of Haverhill, faces more than 20 years in prison at sentencing on June 15, according to a statement Monday from the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.
Rivera provided stolen identities to his alleged accomplices, who between October 2017 and September 2020, visited Massachusetts car dealerships to purchase late-model vehicles and apply for 100% financing, federal prosecutors said.
They used stolen personal information, fraudulent Puerto Rico driver’s licenses and Social Security cards as proof of identification during those transactions, according to court documents. Many of the fraudulently purchased vehicles were exported out of the U.S.
Rivera’s alleged accomplices also used the stolen identities to open bank accounts and apply for credit cards, authorities said.
Rivera personally used stolen identities to apply for credit and fraudulently purchase vehicles in a similar scheme in New Jersey between October 2017 and February 2018, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and false representation of a Social Security number.
California
‘Teacher of the Year’ accused of child sex abuse
NATIONAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — A onetime Teacher of the Year at a Southern California school pleaded not guilty Monday to multiple child sex abuse charges involving a former student, prosecutors said.
Jacqueline Ma, a 34-year-old teacher at Lincoln Acres Elementary in National City near San Diego, was arrested last week.
Detectives began investigating after a mother reported suspicions that her 13-year-old was in an inappropriate relationship with a former teacher, according to the National City Police Department.
Police did not release details of the investigation because the alleged victim is a minor.
Ma pleaded not guilty to 15 criminal counts, including lewd acts upon a child and contact of minor with intent to commit a sexual offense, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said.
The Los Angeles Times reported National School District Superintendent Leighangela Brady said at a school board meeting March 8 that the community was trying to process the “unthinkable situation.”
Ma taught in the district since 2013 and had a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s in education, both from UC San Diego, according to her Teacher of the Year profile in the San Diego Union Tribune.
The award was announced last year by the San Diego County Office of Education.
Ma was held without bail. A bail review hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
