Court Digest

Alabama
Families ask full appellate court to reconsider ban on transgender care
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama families with transgender children asked a full appellate court Monday to review a decision that will let the state enforce a ban on treating minors with gender-affirming hormones and puberty blockers.

The families asked all of the judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel decision issued last month. The panel lifted a judge’s temporary injunction that had blocked Alabama from enforcing the law while a lawsuit over the ban goes forward.

The Alabama ban makes it a felony — punishable by up to 10 years in prison — for doctors to treat people under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm a new gender identity. The court filing argues the ban violates parents’ longstanding and accepted right to make medical decisions for their children.

“Parents, not the government, are best situated to make medical decisions for their children. That understanding is deeply rooted in our common understanding and our legal foundations,” Sarah Warbelow, legal director at Human Rights Campaign, said Warbelow said.

While the 11th Circuit decision applied only to Alabama, it was a victory for Republican-led states that are attempting to put restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. At least 20 states enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors.

The three-judge panel, in lifting the injunction, cited the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that returned the issue of abortion to the states. In weighing whether something is protected as a fundamental right under the due process clause, Judge Barbara Lagoa said “courts must look to whether the right is “deeply rooted in (our) history and tradition.”

“But the use of these medications in general — let alone for children — almost certainly is not ‘deeply rooted’ in our nation’s history and tradition,” Lagoa wrote.

Attorneys representing families who challenged the Alabama ban argued that was the wrong standard and could have sweeping ramifications on parents’ right to pursue medical treatments to schooling choices that did not exist when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

The Alabama attorney general’s office, in a separate court filing in district court, called the hearing request a “delay tactic” to try to keep the injunction in place.


Iowa
Groups sue EPA seeking stronger oversight of large livestock operations
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A coalition of environmental groups is seeking to force the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen its regulation of large livestock operations that release pollutants into waterways.

Food & Water Watch and a dozen other environmental and community groups filed a lawsuit Friday in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit came nearly a month after the EPA denied two petitions filed by the groups in 2017 that sought tighter oversight of the largest U.S. hog, cattle and chicken operations.

The suit asks the court to reconsider changes the groups sought in those petitions, including clarification about what farms must comply with federal regulations and what kinds of discharges are exempt from regulations.

The EPA said in an Aug. 15 response to the groups that it would study its program for regulating the livestock farms and existing pollution limits before deciding whether it should change its regulations. The agency said it would establish a panel comprised of representatives of environmental groups, agriculture and researchers to delve into the matter over 12-18 months.

The groups that filed the lawsuit rejected the need for additional study and on Monday accused the EPA of enabling polluters by refusing to take action.

“Factory farms are polluters by design — true environmental protection requires a willingness by EPA to confront this industry head on,” Tarah Heinzen, legal director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement. “It is high time EPA addressed the crisis it has spent decades enabling.”

An EPA spokesperson said that because of the pending legislation, the agency had no comment.

The EPA regulates large livestock operations, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, under the Clean Water Act. The agency oversees environmental discharge requirements on facilities where the animals are held, as well as manure storage systems and land where manure and wastewater are spread.

Manure and fertilizers from CAFOs and farms run into streams, creating algae blooms and unhealthy water in rivers, lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

The environmental groups argue the EPA doesn’t understand where the large livestock operations are located and is lax in enforcing existing rules.

New York
Judge says ethics commission that pursued Cuomo is unconstitutional
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A commission created last year to enforce ethics rules for New York state’s employees and elected officials violates the state’s constitution because it is too independent, a state judge ruled Monday in a decision that could gut the body’s power to combat corruption and influence-peddling.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been fighting an attempt by the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government to force him to forfeit $5 million he got for writing a book about his administration’s efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The commission was formed by the Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul to replace a previous ethics body that had been criticized for not being independent enough. The lawmakers said they wanted to increase public trust in government after Cuomo’s 2021 resignation in a sexual harassment scandal.

The Commission investigates potential ethics and lobbying violations by state officials, employees, lobbyists and their clients. Commission findings involving state lawmakers are referred to the Legislative Ethics Commission for enforcement.

But in his decision, New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Marcelle said the commission’s very independence makes it a problem under the state constitution.

Specifically, the judge said enforcement of ethics laws is a power that belongs to the executive branch. The commission makes that impossible, he said, because the governor can’t control its members, force them to explain their actions, or remove them for neglecting their duties.

“Our Constitution, which so carefully allocates power among the three branches, will not permit those powers to be transferred to (an) independent commission amounting to an unsanctioned fourth branch of government,” Marcelle wrote.

The judge said it would require an amendment to the state constitution to give that sort of power to an independent body.

State officials immediately said they were looking at appealing the trial-level judge’s decision.

“Taking office in the midst of scandal and a crisis in State government, Governor Hochul worked with the Legislature to craft a new, truly independent ethics body that could begin to restore New Yorkers’ faith in their public officials,” Hochul spokesman Avi Small said. “Today’s decision undermines the independent ethics commission created by Governor Hochul and we will work with the Commission to support an appeal.”

The commission issued a statement saying it would continue to promote compliance with the state’s ethics and lobbying laws while the case works its way through the courts. Commission officials said they are reviewing all options, including legislation.

“The Commission intends to move forward, deliberately and with zeal, to fulfill its mission to restore New Yorkers’ faith in government, even as it pursues relief from today’s ruling through the appellate and legislative processes,” read the joint statement from commission chair Frederick Davie and executive director Sanford Berland.

Cuomo has battled both the commission and its predecessor, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, over his book earnings. State officials have claimed Cuomo hadn’t kept a promise not to use any state resources on the book. Cuomo has denied those allegations.

Cuomo filed his current lawsuit in April, arguing the commission lacked the constitutional authority to prosecute him.

“As we’ve said all along, this was nothing more than an attack by those who abused their government positions unethically and — as the judge ruled today — unconstitutionally for political purpose,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a prepared statement.

Cuomo resigned in August 2021 after the attorney general released the results of an investigation that concluded the then-governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women. Cuomo has denied the allegations.

“Every time someone charged with upholding the law looks at the facts, we prevail,” Azzopardi added.

Massachusetts
Man accused of walking into FBI office, confessing to killing Boston woman in 1979
BOSTON (AP) — A 68-year-old man walked into an FBI field office in Oregon and confessed to bludgeoning a woman to death more than four decades ago in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, prosecutors said.

John Michael Irmer, 68, was arraigned Monday in Boston. Irmer, who prosecutors say is also being looked at after allegedly confessing to another slaying, was ordered held without bail pending another court appearance on Oct. 17 on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated rape.

Investigators said Irmer had been free for 10 years after serving three decades in prison for a homicide in California. He told FBI agents in Portland, Oregon, last month that he’d met a woman with red hair — identified as Susan Marcia Rose — at a skating rink just before Halloween in Boston in 1979.

Irmer said the two walked around the Back Bay before entering an apartment building that was under renovation at the time, prosecutors said. Just after entering the building Irmer told investigators, he grabbed a hammer and struck Rose on the head, killing her. He then raped her and fled to New York the next day.

Steven Sack, the attorney representing Irmer, said he wouldn’t contest bail, but highlighted Irmer’s decision to turn himself in.

“I would say on his behalf, he was a free man for 10 years. He walked into police and confessed, allegedly,” Sack said.

Another man had been arrested by police at the time and charged with the crime, but was acquitted in 1981 of the charges.

Police said Rose, who had red hair, was found dead in the building on Oct. 30, 1979. The cause of death was determined to be blunt injuries on the head with skull fractures and lacerations of the brain.

Investigators also took a DNA sample from Irmer, which they said turned out to be a match with DNA samples preserved from the murder scene.

Rose had moved to Boston from Johnstown, Pennsylvania and was living on a nearby street at the time of her death.

“Nearly 44 years after losing her at such a young age, the family and friends of Susan Marcia Rose will finally have some answers,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a written statement.

“This was a brutal, ice-blooded murder made worse by the fact that a person was charged and tried — and fortunately, found not guilty — while the real murderer remained silent until now,” he added.