Oregon
Federal judge rules state’s tough new gun law is constitutional
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure – one of the toughest in the nation – is constitutional.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut ruled that banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety,” Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
The decision comes after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment that has upended gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. It changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions, telling judges that gun laws must be consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Oregon voters in November narrowly passed Measure 114, which requires residents to undergo safety training and a background check to obtain a permit to buy a gun.
The legislation also bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines with more than 10 rounds unless they are owned by law enforcement or a military member or were owned before the measure’s passage. Those who already own high-capacity magazines can only possess them at home or use them at a firing range, in shooting competitions or for hunting as allowed by state law after the measure takes effect.
Large capacity magazines “are not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment,” Immergut wrote. “The Second Amendment also allows governments to ensure that only law-abiding, responsible citizens keep and bear arms.”
The latest ruling in U.S. District Court is likely to be appealed, potentially moving all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Oregon measure’s fate has been carefully watched as one of the first new gun restrictions passed since the Supreme Court ruling last June.
Ohio
Prosecutors cite DNA evidence in conviction of man for 1990s murders
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A man has been convicted of the strangulation murders of two women in Ohio in the 1990s after authorities said DNA evidence linked him to the cold-case crimes.
Jurors in Franklin County convicted Robert Edwards of the 1991 murder of Alma Renee Lake and the 1996 rape and murder of Michelle Dawson Pass, both in the Columbus area. He faces a mandatory life term when he is sentenced Aug. 9.
Prosecutors were unable to link the deaths until 2003 using DNA evidence, and the identification of a suspect remained undetermined until DNA from a relative became available and the state attorney general’s office notified county prosecutors in 2021 that Edwards might be a suspect, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Jurors on Friday convicted Edwards, 68, of murder in the case of Lake, 30, and of aggravated murder, murder and rape in the case of 36-year-old Dawson-Pass. He was acquitted of aggravated murder in Lake’s case. Prosecutors contended that the defendant also raped Lake but did not charge him with that crime because of a 30-year statute of limitations.
Defense attorneys argued that the DNA evidence cited by prosecutors and their arguments that he had sex with both women and their bodies were found near where he lived in each case were not enough to prove that he killed the victims.
Vincent Watkins of the county public defender’s office said in closing arguments Thursday that he could have had sex with the victims days before they died. The prosecution’s “entire case is what are the odds” this was a coincidence, Watkins said.
Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor David Zeyen called it “so inconceivable, so astronomically unlikely for this to happen once to (Edwards) and then happen again to (Edwards).”
Edwards did not testify, but in an August 2022 phone call played by prosecutors, jurors heard him accusing authorities of framing him and planting his DNA.
Regina Dawson, of Rochester, New York, told the newspaper that her mother, Michelle, was a loving person who was family-oriented and spiritual, and who loved to dance and braid hair. She said it was difficult for her to sit through the trial and see photographs of her mother’s body.
“Now I feel like I can breathe,” Dawson said. “I can walk down the street and not wonder, ‘Am I walking past the person who killed her?’”
Arizona
Conservationists sue to stop two mineral projects in biologically diverse mountains
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Conservation groups are suing to stop two mineral exploration projects in southern Arizona’s biologically diverse Patagonia Mountains.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and other groups want the U.S. District Court in Tucson to halt the exploration by Arizona Standard LLC, a subsidiary of a Canadian mineral exploration firm.
The lawsuit filed last month says the U.S. Forest Service didn’t adequately analyze how the exploration for copper and other minerals in the craggy mountains just north of the U.S.-Mexico border would have on public lands, water and endangered species like Mexican spotted owls, yellow billed cuckoos, jaguars and ocelots.
American Standard denied in a filing last week that the federal environmental guidelines had been violated.
The Patagonia Mountains are among southern Arizona’s dramatic and diverse “sky islands” that provide a key corridor for jaguars and ocelots roaming north from Mexico through a border wall gap to their range in the United States.
“Our priority must be to protect this critical habitat, which is the source of drinking water, clean air and the biological wealth that fuels our regional nature-based restorative economy,” said Carolyn Shafer, board president and mission coordinator of the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance.
New Mexico
Abuse case ends with prison sentences for 2 women accused of chaining children
TEXICO, N.M. (AP) — Two women in eastern New Mexico will spend years behind bars after reaching plea agreements in a case accusing them of beating children in their care and chaining them to their beds, prosecutors said.
Jayme Kushman, 38, pleaded guilty to five counts of child abuse and was sentenced Thursday to 15 years. Jaime Kay Sena, 30, pleaded no contest to four counts of child abuse and received a six-year sentence earlier this month, prosecutors said.
The case stemmed from an investigation that started in 2022 when state child welfare workers received a tip about children locked in cages. New Mexico State Police served search warrants at a Texico home near the Texas border and found six children, ranging in age from 5 to 16, living in unsanitary conditions with the two women.
Authorities uncovered three days of security footage showing the children being starved, beaten and chained for long periods of time, District Attorney Quentin Ray said in a statement.
Prosecutors played segments of video in court showing some of the abuse. They also said a child was chained to his bed for 14 consecutive hours with no food, water or access to go to the bathroom.
The victims included Sena’s children, Kushman’s family members and at least one foster child.
State District Judge Drew Tatum said the case was among the most inhumane he has seen but that “these children will overcome this as they get treatment and therapy.”
A third defendant, Lora Melancon, is expected to plead guilty to two counts of child abuse on Monday as part of a plea agreement, the district attorney’s office said.
Florida
Woman gets 6 years in prison for attacking officers during the U.S. Capitol attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida woman was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for attacking police officers during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Audrey Ann Southard-Rumsey, 54, of Spring Hill, Florida, was sentenced in District of Columbia federal court, according to court records. She was found guilty in January of seven felony charges, including three counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, three counts of civil disorder and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.
Southard-Rumsey was arrested in June 2021.
According to court documents, Southard-Rumsey joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over Trump, a Republican, authorities have said. Five people died in the violence.
According to the criminal complaint, Southard-Rumsey amplified calls for revolution on social media and worked with others on a declaration calling for the abolition of the Democratic Party and the institution of a new government. On the day of the Capitol attack, Southard-Rumsey uploaded a photograph of herself at the east plaza to Facebook and then broadcasted a live video of herself, the complaint states.
Southard-Rumsey was part of a large group that broke through police barricades, prosecutors said. At one point, she grabbed an officer’s riot shield and then later pushed an officer with a flagpole, causing him to fall and hit his head, officials said. She also joined a group that pushed officers down some stairs, authorities said.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, according to officials. More than 350 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
Arkansas
New justice on State high court won’t participate in case over education law
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A justice who Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court won’t participate in the case regarding Sanders’ education overhaul.
Justice Cody Hiland on Friday recused from hearing the state’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that the education overhaul can’t take effect until Aug. 1. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herbert Wright ruled that legislators did not follow correct procedures for the law to take effect immediately after Sanders signed it.
Hiland, a former state Republican Party chairman and federal prosecutor, did not give a reason for recusing from the case. Sanders earlier this month appointed Hiland to fill the vacancy created on the seven-member court following Justice Robin Wynne’s death.
The court has granted the state’s request to expedite the case, but set an Aug. 18 deadline for final briefs to be filed.
The education measure Sanders signed in March creates a new school voucher program and raises minimum teacher pay. The case before the Supreme Court stems from a lawsuit challenging a contract approved under the law for a charter school group to run an east Arkansas school district.
