Maryland
Federal appeals court grants petition for full court to consider state handgun law
BALTIMORE (AP) — The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted Maryland’s petition for the full court to consider the state’s handgun licensing law that was struck down in November by a three-judge panel, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said Thursday.
The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that Maryland’s law requiring most citizens to obtain a license before acquiring a handgun was unconstitutional. Brown’s office requested the hearing for the full court’s review last month.
The November ruling found it was unconstitutionally restrictive for Maryland to require people to obtain a license before purchasing a handgun. The process of obtaining a license can take up to 30 days.
“I welcome the court’s decision to rehear this case and will continue to defend common-sense gun laws to protect Marylanders from these unnecessary and very preventable tragedies,” Brown said.
The underlying lawsuit was filed in 2016 as a challenge to a Maryland law requiring people to obtain a special license before purchasing a handgun. The law was passed in 2013 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Wisconsin
State Supreme Court refuses to reconsider ruling ordering new legislative maps
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday refused to reconsider its ruling ordering the drawing of new legislative maps, rejecting a request from Republican lawmakers to put its December order on hold.
The court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 22 that the current maps, drawn by Republicans, are unconstitutional and must be redone in time for the November election. Friday is the deadline for parties in the lawsuit, which includes state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, to submit new maps.
Consultants hired by the Supreme Court will review those submissions and issue their own report, and perhaps their own maps, by Feb. 1. State elections officials have said maps must be in place by March 15 to be in play for the 2024 election.
Republican lawmakers asked the court to put its ruling on hold, saying they couldn’t make Friday’s deadline to submit maps. They also argued that the court didn’t listen to their arguments in the case and didn’t give them a chance to respond to the deadline for new boundaries.
But the court on Thursday voted 4-3 to reject the request, with the court’s four-justice liberal majority voting to deny it.
The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.
The court ruled in December that the current boundaries are unconstitutional because they aren’t contiguous. Many districts include sections of land that aren’t connected, resulting in maps that resemble Swiss cheese.
California
Boy, 17, charged with killing 4 members of neighbor family
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A 17-year-old boy charged with killing four members of a neighboring family in central California made his first appearance in court Thursday and entered the juvenile equivalent of a not-guilty plea.
The teenager, who was identified in juvenile court only by the initials R.I. because of his age, was ordered to remain in custody. If convicted of four murder charges, he would be held in juvenile hall until he turns 25.
Prosecutors have filed a motion asking that he be tried as an adult, with a possible sentence of life in prison without chance of parole.
The teen lived next door to the victims in the small town of Reedley, southwest of Fresno.
He is charged with killing 81-year-old Billy Bond; his son, 61-year-old Darrell Bond; granddaughter-in-law, Guadalupe Bond, 44; and grandson, Matthew Bond, 43.
The bodies of Billy Bond, Darrell Bond and Guadalupe Bond were found in the backyard of their home Saturday, including one that was buried in a shallow grave, police said. Matthew Bond’s body was found in the detached garage of the teenager’s home on Tuesday before he was arrested, authorities said.
Police haven’t released details of the killings but have said a safe inside the victims’ home that held guns and money had been forced open and emptied, suggesting a possible motive, The Fresno Bee reported.
Several of the teen’s relatives were in court for the hearing, including his mother. She and her boyfriend have been charged with being accessories after the fact to the killings and are free on bond.
North Carolina
Man convicted of hate crime charges in 2 separate confrontations
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man was convicted Thursday on federal hate crime charges after a jury found he attacked his Hispanic neighbor and shouted racial slurs at a Black driver in separate confrontations about a year apart.
In October 2021, Marian Hudak, 52, yelled insults at his Hispanic neighbor before tackling and punching the man, federal prosecutors said in a news release Thursday announcing the conviction.
They said Hudak also accosted a Black man he encountered while driving in 2022.
After telling the man to “come here, boy,” Hudak got out of his vehicle and punched the man’s driver’s side window multiple times, prosecutors said. When the victim fled, Hudak chased him to his home, continued shouting racial slurs and threatened to shoot and kill him, according to the news release.
FBI investigators found a Ku Klux Klan flag, a racist publication and Nazi memorabilia in Hudak’s residence.
Officials said witnesses also testified at trial that Hudak frequently made anti-Hispanic comments and harassed minority drivers in and around Concord, a suburb of Charlotte.
Hudak was criminally charged in June.
“It’s one thing to use racial slurs and harbor the KKK’s flag, but carrying out acts of violence fueled by naked racial animus and hatred violates the law and core principles of our democracy,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “All community members should be able to live in and move about their neighborhoods without fear of attack because of how they look or where they are from.”
Hudak is set to be sentenced on May 1.
Texas
3 Austin officers cleared in fatal shooting during a standoff where an officer was killed
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A grand jury has cleared three Texas police officers who fatally shot a man who shot and killed another officer and is believed to have killed his mother and brother. The man also wounded an additional officer during the standoff.
The Travis County grand jury declined to indict SWAT officers Jared Carruth, Kevin Olejar and Sgt. Kevin De La Rue in the November shooting death of Ahmed Mohamed Nassar, District Attorney José Garza said in a news release Thursday.
“They (the officers) put their own safety and lives at risk, and our office is truly grateful for their service,” Garza said.
The status of the three cleared officers was not revealed and spokespersons for Austin police and Garza did not immediately return phone calls for comment Friday.
Officers were called to the scene by a woman who reported she was being stabbed in the home, police have said.
The woman was wounded, but escaped and was found by arriving officers, police said, telling the officers that the suspect remained inside the home with two other people.
A police SWAT team eventually forced its way into the home and Nassar fatally shot officer Jorge Pastore and wounded another officer before being fatally shot by other officers, according to police.
Police then found Ahmed Elnemrnassar, 63, and Riad Mohamed Nassar, 32, dead inside the home.
Riad Nassar was Ahmed Nassar’s brother and Ahmed Elnemrnassar was the mother of the two.
Indiana
Inmate gets life sentence for killing fellow inmate
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A federal inmate already serving a life sentence has been sentenced to a second life term after pleading guilty to fatally strangling a fellow inmate and stabbing a second inmate at a federal prison in Indiana.
Rodney Curtis Hamrick, 58, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday by a federal judge in Terre Haute after pleading guilty to first-degree murder. He received a 20-year sentence, to be served concurrently, for his guilty plea to assault with intent to commit murder, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.
Prosecutors said Hamrick strangled inmate Robert Neal, 68, to death and stabbed inmate Richard Warren on Nov. 18, 2018, when all three were housed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute.
After Warren informed a prison officer that Hamrick stabbed and assaulted him in Warren’s cell, officers secured Hamrick and confiscated a homemade icepick-like weapon that he used to stab Warren. They then found Neal’s body inside Hamrick’s cell covered in a sheet with a pillowcase tied over his face and neck, with his hands bound behind his back and multiple puncture wounds in his chest.
An autopsy found that Neal had 11 stab wounds to his chest, but that he had died from strangulation, prosecutors said.
Hamrick told FBI agents he planned the attack on Neal and Warren in advance, saying he attacked them “because they were `pseudo-Christians’ — that is, `hypocrites,’” according to his plea agreement, which states that Hamrick also called the two men “snitches.”
After Neal’s slaying and the attack on Warren, Hamrick was transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
At the time of the attacks, Hamrick was serving a life sentence imposed in 2007 by the Eastern District of Virginia for using a destructive device in an attempted crime of violence. Prosecutors said Hamrick had seven prior federal convictions for offenses including violent threats against public officials and federal buildings, attempted escape, and multiple offenses involving manufacturing and mailing destructive devices, some of which detonated and injured others.
“It is clear from Rodney Hamrick’s lifelong pattern of violent crime, culminating in the horrific attacks he perpetrated in the Terre Haute prison, that he should never live another day outside of federal prison,” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Myers for the Southern District of Indiana said in a news release.
Federal appeals court grants petition for full court to consider state handgun law
BALTIMORE (AP) — The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted Maryland’s petition for the full court to consider the state’s handgun licensing law that was struck down in November by a three-judge panel, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said Thursday.
The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that Maryland’s law requiring most citizens to obtain a license before acquiring a handgun was unconstitutional. Brown’s office requested the hearing for the full court’s review last month.
The November ruling found it was unconstitutionally restrictive for Maryland to require people to obtain a license before purchasing a handgun. The process of obtaining a license can take up to 30 days.
“I welcome the court’s decision to rehear this case and will continue to defend common-sense gun laws to protect Marylanders from these unnecessary and very preventable tragedies,” Brown said.
The underlying lawsuit was filed in 2016 as a challenge to a Maryland law requiring people to obtain a special license before purchasing a handgun. The law was passed in 2013 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Wisconsin
State Supreme Court refuses to reconsider ruling ordering new legislative maps
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday refused to reconsider its ruling ordering the drawing of new legislative maps, rejecting a request from Republican lawmakers to put its December order on hold.
The court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 22 that the current maps, drawn by Republicans, are unconstitutional and must be redone in time for the November election. Friday is the deadline for parties in the lawsuit, which includes state lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, to submit new maps.
Consultants hired by the Supreme Court will review those submissions and issue their own report, and perhaps their own maps, by Feb. 1. State elections officials have said maps must be in place by March 15 to be in play for the 2024 election.
Republican lawmakers asked the court to put its ruling on hold, saying they couldn’t make Friday’s deadline to submit maps. They also argued that the court didn’t listen to their arguments in the case and didn’t give them a chance to respond to the deadline for new boundaries.
But the court on Thursday voted 4-3 to reject the request, with the court’s four-justice liberal majority voting to deny it.
The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate.
The court ruled in December that the current boundaries are unconstitutional because they aren’t contiguous. Many districts include sections of land that aren’t connected, resulting in maps that resemble Swiss cheese.
California
Boy, 17, charged with killing 4 members of neighbor family
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A 17-year-old boy charged with killing four members of a neighboring family in central California made his first appearance in court Thursday and entered the juvenile equivalent of a not-guilty plea.
The teenager, who was identified in juvenile court only by the initials R.I. because of his age, was ordered to remain in custody. If convicted of four murder charges, he would be held in juvenile hall until he turns 25.
Prosecutors have filed a motion asking that he be tried as an adult, with a possible sentence of life in prison without chance of parole.
The teen lived next door to the victims in the small town of Reedley, southwest of Fresno.
He is charged with killing 81-year-old Billy Bond; his son, 61-year-old Darrell Bond; granddaughter-in-law, Guadalupe Bond, 44; and grandson, Matthew Bond, 43.
The bodies of Billy Bond, Darrell Bond and Guadalupe Bond were found in the backyard of their home Saturday, including one that was buried in a shallow grave, police said. Matthew Bond’s body was found in the detached garage of the teenager’s home on Tuesday before he was arrested, authorities said.
Police haven’t released details of the killings but have said a safe inside the victims’ home that held guns and money had been forced open and emptied, suggesting a possible motive, The Fresno Bee reported.
Several of the teen’s relatives were in court for the hearing, including his mother. She and her boyfriend have been charged with being accessories after the fact to the killings and are free on bond.
North Carolina
Man convicted of hate crime charges in 2 separate confrontations
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man was convicted Thursday on federal hate crime charges after a jury found he attacked his Hispanic neighbor and shouted racial slurs at a Black driver in separate confrontations about a year apart.
In October 2021, Marian Hudak, 52, yelled insults at his Hispanic neighbor before tackling and punching the man, federal prosecutors said in a news release Thursday announcing the conviction.
They said Hudak also accosted a Black man he encountered while driving in 2022.
After telling the man to “come here, boy,” Hudak got out of his vehicle and punched the man’s driver’s side window multiple times, prosecutors said. When the victim fled, Hudak chased him to his home, continued shouting racial slurs and threatened to shoot and kill him, according to the news release.
FBI investigators found a Ku Klux Klan flag, a racist publication and Nazi memorabilia in Hudak’s residence.
Officials said witnesses also testified at trial that Hudak frequently made anti-Hispanic comments and harassed minority drivers in and around Concord, a suburb of Charlotte.
Hudak was criminally charged in June.
“It’s one thing to use racial slurs and harbor the KKK’s flag, but carrying out acts of violence fueled by naked racial animus and hatred violates the law and core principles of our democracy,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “All community members should be able to live in and move about their neighborhoods without fear of attack because of how they look or where they are from.”
Hudak is set to be sentenced on May 1.
Texas
3 Austin officers cleared in fatal shooting during a standoff where an officer was killed
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A grand jury has cleared three Texas police officers who fatally shot a man who shot and killed another officer and is believed to have killed his mother and brother. The man also wounded an additional officer during the standoff.
The Travis County grand jury declined to indict SWAT officers Jared Carruth, Kevin Olejar and Sgt. Kevin De La Rue in the November shooting death of Ahmed Mohamed Nassar, District Attorney José Garza said in a news release Thursday.
“They (the officers) put their own safety and lives at risk, and our office is truly grateful for their service,” Garza said.
The status of the three cleared officers was not revealed and spokespersons for Austin police and Garza did not immediately return phone calls for comment Friday.
Officers were called to the scene by a woman who reported she was being stabbed in the home, police have said.
The woman was wounded, but escaped and was found by arriving officers, police said, telling the officers that the suspect remained inside the home with two other people.
A police SWAT team eventually forced its way into the home and Nassar fatally shot officer Jorge Pastore and wounded another officer before being fatally shot by other officers, according to police.
Police then found Ahmed Elnemrnassar, 63, and Riad Mohamed Nassar, 32, dead inside the home.
Riad Nassar was Ahmed Nassar’s brother and Ahmed Elnemrnassar was the mother of the two.
Indiana
Inmate gets life sentence for killing fellow inmate
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — A federal inmate already serving a life sentence has been sentenced to a second life term after pleading guilty to fatally strangling a fellow inmate and stabbing a second inmate at a federal prison in Indiana.
Rodney Curtis Hamrick, 58, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday by a federal judge in Terre Haute after pleading guilty to first-degree murder. He received a 20-year sentence, to be served concurrently, for his guilty plea to assault with intent to commit murder, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.
Prosecutors said Hamrick strangled inmate Robert Neal, 68, to death and stabbed inmate Richard Warren on Nov. 18, 2018, when all three were housed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute.
After Warren informed a prison officer that Hamrick stabbed and assaulted him in Warren’s cell, officers secured Hamrick and confiscated a homemade icepick-like weapon that he used to stab Warren. They then found Neal’s body inside Hamrick’s cell covered in a sheet with a pillowcase tied over his face and neck, with his hands bound behind his back and multiple puncture wounds in his chest.
An autopsy found that Neal had 11 stab wounds to his chest, but that he had died from strangulation, prosecutors said.
Hamrick told FBI agents he planned the attack on Neal and Warren in advance, saying he attacked them “because they were `pseudo-Christians’ — that is, `hypocrites,’” according to his plea agreement, which states that Hamrick also called the two men “snitches.”
After Neal’s slaying and the attack on Warren, Hamrick was transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
At the time of the attacks, Hamrick was serving a life sentence imposed in 2007 by the Eastern District of Virginia for using a destructive device in an attempted crime of violence. Prosecutors said Hamrick had seven prior federal convictions for offenses including violent threats against public officials and federal buildings, attempted escape, and multiple offenses involving manufacturing and mailing destructive devices, some of which detonated and injured others.
“It is clear from Rodney Hamrick’s lifelong pattern of violent crime, culminating in the horrific attacks he perpetrated in the Terre Haute prison, that he should never live another day outside of federal prison,” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Myers for the Southern District of Indiana said in a news release.
