Louisiana
Judge who signed recall petition won’t quit related lawsuit
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana judge presiding over a case related to recall efforts against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell wants another judge to decide whether she should be removed from the case, now that a newspaper has revealed that she signed the recall petition.
New Orleans Civil District Court Judge Jennifer Medley earlier this month approved a lawsuit settlement agreement that significantly lowered the number of signatures needed to force a recall election. Later, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate, after suing to obtain names of petition signers, revealed that Medley had signed the petition in December.
That led to a motion filed Tuesday to have Medley recused from further proceedings in the lawsuit.
Medley refused to recuse herself Friday. Instead, she said she would request the Louisiana Supreme Court to appoint a special judge to decide the matter in accordance with a state law.
“This Court is confident that any judicial duties performed in this proceeding have been and would be performed without bias or prejudice to any part,” Medley wrote in Friday’s order. However, she said she would seek appointment of an ad hoc judge to ensure that the concerns of all involved parties were addressed. There was no indication when the Supreme Court would act on Medley’s request.
Meanwhile, Cantrell and one of her supporters have filed lawsuits challenging the agreement that Medley approved in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Action in those suits was pending Friday afternoon.
Recall efforts began last August, less than a year after Cantrell, the first woman to serve as New Orleans mayor, began her second term.
She had been easily reelected in 2021 but has since faced numerous problems including stubborn violent crime, fitful progress on major street projects and unreliable garbage collection. Questions also have been raised about her travel expenses and her personal use of a city-owned apartment. And the City Council recently opened an investigation into the use of public money to send a mailer to city residents earlier this year touting Cantrell’s accomplishments.
The recall petitions were turned in last month to the New Orleans voter registrar, who has until Wednesday to certify them. Valid signatures must be obtained from 20% of the city’s qualified, registered voters to force an election — but that number has been the subject of debate and litigation.
Recall organizers sued election officials, saying the rolls were inflated with hundreds of dead people and thousands of people who have moved away. The settlement between recall organizers and Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin — approved by Medley — had the effect of lowering the threshold by 5,000 signatures. Cantrell’s lawsuits, which have been assigned to other judges in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, say Ardoin had no authority to enter the settlement.
Ohio
Man sentenced to life in slaying of 2 kids, wounding of 1
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio judge has sentenced a man to life in prison without parole after rejecting his insanity defense in the shooting deaths of two of his girlfriend’s three young sons and the wounding of the third.
Kevin Moore, 29, was sentenced Thursday to concurrent life terms on two aggravated murder counts in the February 2021 deaths of 14-month-old Gabriel Phillips and 5-year-old Ahmir Phillips, The Toledo Blade reported. He was also sentenced to a concurrent 10 to 15 years for attempted aggravated murder and nine years on weapons counts. A felonious assault charge was merged with the attempted murder charge for sentencing purposes.
Before convicting the defendant on all counts, Judge Eric Allen Marks ruled that the defense had failed to meet the burden of proof required under state law for the insanity defense. A week earlier, he had heard assessments from two psychologists on Moore’s state of mind at the time Toledo shootings.
One psychologist cited the strictness of the Ohio law on the use of the insanity defense that requires substantial evidence of inability to tell right from wrong. He and another psychologist said that despite Moore’s severe schizophrenic mental illness, he had demonstrated an understanding of having been in the wrong. A third psychiatrist said Moore’s ramblings and actions were consistent with a schizophrenia patient not taking appropriate medication.
Marks told the defendant that it was clear to the court “that at some level, you understood the wrongfulness of your actions. ... The horrific nature of it I’m sure plagues you as it plagues everyone associated with this investigation.”
The judge also said Moore should never have had access to a weapon and called for society to “try to identify ways we can keep the firearms out of the hands of people with this type of mental disease and defect.”
Moore asked for forgiveness from the victims’ family “as I struggle to forgive myself.” He said in a statement read by his attorney “how terribly sorry one parent is to another, as I have three daughters of my own. ... I don’t know how I would be able to breathe without one of my own.”
Georgia
Man who hoped to kill Arab and Black people gets 20 years
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man who shot at two convenience stores hoping to kill Arab and Black people has been sentenced to serve 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal hate crime charge.
Larry Edward Foxworth, 48, fired a Glock pistol multiple times through the windows and doors of two convenience stores in Jonesboro, just south of Atlanta, shortly before 3 a.m. on July 30, 2021, the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta said in a news release. Both stores were open and people were inside, but no one was hit.
Clayton County police arrested Foxworth shortly after the shots were fired. He told investigators he wanted to kill Arab and Black people and believed that’s who was inside those two stores, the release says. He said he hoped he had killed people and expressed belief in white supremacy.
“He fired repeatedly into convenience stores in his effort to kill those inside based solely on the color of their skin,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said in the release. “This abhorrent act of violence and intimidation left the victims, their families, and the community traumatized, and merits the prison sentence Foxworth received.”
Foxworth was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in December to a charge of a hate crime based on actual or perceived race or color and a charge of discharging a firearm during the commission of that crime of violence.
The judge sentenced him to serve five years of supervised release after his prison term and also ordered him to pay $1,000 in restitution.
