Court Digest

Georgia
Judge blocks ban on hormone replacement therapy for minors
ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the state of Georgia from enforcing part of a new law that bans doctors from starting hormone therapy for transgender people under the age of 18.

In a ruling issued Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Geraghty granted a preliminary injunction sought by several transgender children, parents and a community organization in a lawsuit challenging the ban.

“The imminent risks of irreparable harm to Plaintiffs flowing from the ban — including risks of depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, and suicidal ideation — outweigh any harm the State will experience from the injunction,” the judge wrote.

An email to a spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office was not immediately returned. Geraghty said her ruling will block enforcement of the ban on hormone replacement therapy until a further court order or a trial.

The Georgia law, Senate Bill 140, allows doctors to prescribe puberty-blocking medications, and it allows minors who are already receiving hormone therapy to continue.

But it bans any new patients under 18 from starting hormone therapy. It also bans most gender-affirming surgeries for transgender people under 18.

At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional, and federal judges have temporarily blocked bans in Alabama and Indiana as well.

The plaintiffs in the Georgia lawsuit did not ask to immediately block the surgery ban, which remains in effect.

Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy or voice coaching long before medical intervention.

At that point, puberty blockers and other hormone treatments are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors’ organizations including the American Medical Association.

During two days of hearings earlier this month, Geraghty heard conflicting testimony about the safety and benefits of hormone therapy to treat adolescents with gender dysphoria — the distress felt when people’s gender expression does not match their gender identity.

Experts for the families said the benefits of gender-affirming care for adolescents are well-established and profound. State government experts raised concerns about the risks of hormone treatment and the quality of studies establishing its effectiveness.

In her ruling, Geraghty said witnesses for the government set a very high bar for evidence of hormone therapy’s benefit and a low bar for evidence of its risks. She noted that experts agreed that prolonged use of puberty blockers was harmful to a person’s health and inadvisable.

For the transgender children in the suit, “time is of the essence,” she wrote, and SB 140 could cause them to suffer heightened gender dysphoria and unwanted and irreversible puberty.

Kansas
Judge allows ACLU to intervene in lawsuit over gender markers on driver’s licenses
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has agreed to allow the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas to intervene in an ongoing lawsuit that seeks to force the state to list the sex that people were assigned at birth on their driver’s licenses.

Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit last month seeking to compel the Kansas Department of Revenue to permanently halt gender marker changes, pointing to a new state law with strict definitions of sex along biological lines. The state agency argues that the attorney general overstepped his authority.

The ACLU sought to become a party to the lawsuit, arguing that the interests of its transgender clients would be irreparably harmed if Kobach prevails. The group says the state agency isn’t sufficiently raising constitutional arguments.

In her ruling Friday, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported, Shawnee County Judge Teresa found that the ACLU has a substantial interest in the litigation because the group is raising constitutional questions that could affect how the law is administered. Watson had already ordered the agency to pause any marker changes until a hearing in November on a longer-lasting injunction.

“We look forward to rebutting their novel theories in court,” said Kobach, who had argued against letting the ACLU intervene, saying it would create a legal morass.

Sharon Brett, the state ACLU’s legal director, said in a statement that her group is “gratified” to join the case.

“For our clients and the entire community they represent, this case is about the privacy, dignity, and autonomy that comes from having accurate gender markers on their license, and about their right to be safe from the harassment they would face if forced to present inaccurate IDs that would essentially out them against their will in daily life,” she said.


Ohio
Man convicted of hit-and-run that killed firefighter gets to 16 years to life in prison
CLEVELAND (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 16 years to life in the death of an Ohio firefighter who was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on an interstate as he was working at the scene of an earlier crash last fall.

Leander Bissell, 41, was convicted last month of murder, felonious assault, aggravated vehicular homicide and other counts in the Nov. 19 death of Cleveland firefighter Johnny Tetrick. A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge sentenced him to life and denied parole consideration until he has served 16 years.

Tetrick, 51, a 27-year veteran of the department and a father of three, was struck as he was clearing debris at the scene of a rollover crash on I-90 in Bratenahl. Prosecutors said Bissell’s vehicle went onto the shoulder of the highway and accelerated, striking the firefighter and then fleeing. Police said the vehicle was found and Bissell arrested hours later.

Bissell, his voice shaking at times, apologized to the victim’s family during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing. Defense attorneys had argued that he was driving negligently — not recklessly — and did not intend to harm anyone. But he told Tetrick’s three daughters that they “deserve justice.”

“A family hero, a community hero, is gone,” Bissell said. “My actions make my soul shake.”

The victim’s daughters said they wanted to forgive Bissell because that’s what their father would have done.

“I do not hate you,” Eden Tetrick, 18, told Bissell. “I think that would be a lot easier.” Instead, she said, “I hope I see you one day in heaven as a brother in Christ.”

Falon Tetrick, the victim’s eldest daughter, credited support from firefighters at his station. She said she and her sisters didn’t have their father for long “but we had him for long enough.”

“He would drop us off at school and he would ask us, who comes first? God. And he would say who comes next? Others. And then who? Yourself. And so I think that speaks to every aspect of his life and what he poured into us and those guys back there.”


Connecticut
Man convicted of killing roommate with samurai-like sword after quarrel over rent
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man was convicted Friday of killing his roommate with a samurai-style sword after a rent dispute, prosecutors said.

A jury found Jerry David Thompson, 45, guilty of murder in the 2020 stabbing death of Victor King.

Thompson owed rent on his room in King’s downtown Hartford home, and King was trying to evict him, the Hartford state’s attorney’s office said in a news release, citing trial evidence.

King called police twice on the morning of July 25, 2020 — first telling a tip line that Thompson was menacing him with a sword, and then calling 911 to report that his roommate was threatening him, according to prosecutors.

Surveillance video showed Thompson walking toward the home later that morning with a long object in his hand, then walking back to his car in different clothes about 20 minutes later, prosecutors said.

Some of King’s friends called the police the next day, alarmed that they couldn’t reach him. Police found the 64-year-old had been stabbed to death and left under blankets on his kitchen floor.

Thompson represented himself at trial and filed papers maintaining that the state had no jurisdiction over him, according to The Register Citizen of Torrington. He claimed when arrested to be a “sovereign citizen,” a term used by some who assert that the U.S. government is illegitimate and that its laws don’t bind them.

A message was sent Friday night to an attorney who was appointed to advise Thompson during the trial.

Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 11.


Tennessee
Prosecutor releases video of fatal police shooting that shows suspect firing at officer
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Video of a fatal police shooting in Tennessee shows a suspect “fired multiple shots at point blank range” at an officer before police shot him in an exchange of gunfire, a prosecutor said.

Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp on Sunday released the security camera footage from the Aug. 11 shooting that killed 34-year-old Roger Heard Jr. and wounded Chattanooga Police Officer Celtain Batterson.

Days earlier, dozens of people attended a Chattanooga City Council meeting demanding answers about the shooting. Heard’s family and community members, including the local NAACP, urged law enforcement to release more information and video.

The shooting happened as officers with the Chattanooga Police Department were attempting to serve felony arrest warrants on Heard at a Speedway gas station, Wamp said in a statement. Officers approached to serve the warrants and arrest Heard and were “loudly and repeatedly announcing themselves as police officers,” Wamp said.

“Batterson attempted to open the suspect’s vehicle door and at that time the suspect made a kicking movement in Batterson’s direction, raised his right arm and fired multiple shots at point blank range in Batterson’s direction, striking him in the right arm,” the release said. “Batterson instantly retreated before being able to respond with gunfire.”

The video shows Heard “was purposefully traveling in the direction of Batterson, and still armed,” when he was shot, Wamp said.

It’s not protocol for investigators with the police agency to be equipped with body worn cameras, Wamp said. The footage released Sunday is owned by a private company and was made available after a subpoena, she said.

“The officers involved in this incident, like so many officers are required to do, were forced to make split-second decisions under extreme stress and pressure,” she added later. “Investigator Batterson, Investigator Ayers, and Officer Dyess did the exact job that they were called and trained to do. Our community is fortunate beyond measure that we did not lose a law enforcement officer.”

The investigation into the shooting is continuing, Wamp said.