National Roundup

West Virginia
Bill bans smoking in cars with kids
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Smoking in cars with children is banned in 11 states, and lawmakers are pushing to join them in West Virginia, where more adults use cigarettes than anywhere else in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The state Senate on Monday passed a bill calling for fines for anyone caught smoking or possessing a lit tobacco product in a vehicle when someone age 16 or under is present. The bill passed on 25-8 vote and now goes to the House of Delegates, where similar legislation has failed and it faces an uncertain future.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, a doctor-turned-lawmaker, made a promise long ago to a patient whose father was a heavy smoker that he would try to ban smoking in vehicles carrying children in West Virginia. Takubo has made it almost an annual effort since 2017 to introduce the legislation, but it didn’t gain traction.

The Kanawha County Republican and lung doctor said the inspiration for the bill was a patient who was not a smoker but lost half of her lung function. When her father smoked, “she had to climb down to the bottom of the car and put her head underneath the seat,” Takubo said.

Violators would face a misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of $25. But it would be a secondary offense: smoking with children present cannot be the main reason a driver is pulled over.

Sen. Mike Azinger, a Wood County Republican, said the state has no right to infringe on parents’ freedoms.

“The arguments for the bill are essentially emotional arguments,” Azinger said. “This is a cut at the fundamental rights of parents making a decision over their children in their vehicle. This is a state going where it has no business going.”


New Hampshire
Wife of a man charged with killing daughter says she still cares about him
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The estranged wife of a New Hampshire man accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter and hiding the child’s body for months testified Monday that she still cares about him despite the horrors she said she witnessed.

Kayla Montgomery has been the star witness against her husband, Adam, who is facing second-degree murder and other charges in the death of his daughter, Harmony. Authorities believe the girl was killed on Dec. 7, 2019, but that she wasn’t reported missing for nearly two years after that. The girl’s body has not been found.

As the trial got underway in Manchester last week, defense attorneys acknowledged Adam Montgomery is guilty of falsifying evidence and abusing a corpse. But they said he did not kill Harmony and have instead suggested the girl actually died on Dec. 6 while alone with her stepmother, Kayla.

“That assault never happened, did it?” Attorney Caroline Smith said after Kayla Montgomery again testified that her husband repeatedly punched Harmony in the head because the girl had wet herself.

“Yes, it did,” said Kayla. She also denied the defense team’s theory when prosecutor Christopher Knowles directly asked her, “Did Harmony die in the middle of the night alone with you when the defendant wasn’t even there?” “No,” she answered.

The family, including the couple’s two young boys, had been evicted and were living in a car at the time. According to Kayla, Adam punched Harmony at several stop lights as they drove from a methadone clinic to a fast food restaurant the morning of Dec. 7.

She showed little emotion Monday, answering questions about handing food to the children without checking on Harmony, the subsequent discovery that the girl was dead and all the places she said the body was hid, including a homeless center ceiling vent and the walk-in freezer at her husband’s workplace. But she later cried and wiped her face with tissues when asked whether she still loves Adam.

“I still care about him because he’s the father of my children,” she said. “He was my best friend. It’s been hard for me to just let go.”

Knowles then showed her a large photograph of her own faced, bruised with injuries she said Montgomery had inflicted and asked why she stayed with him.

“I was scared, and I still cared about him,” she said, giving a similar answer when Knowles showed her a large image of Harmony and asked, “Why stay with someone who did what he did to a helpless girl like this?”

Kayla Montgomery is serving an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury for lying during grand jury testimony about where she was when Harmony was last seen. She was not given immunity, but acknowledged to Smith that she hasn’t faced further consequences for inconsistencies in her various statements to police or prosecutors.

“By that agreement, you were supposed to only tell the truth, and your story changed a lot,” said Smith, suggesting Kayla has continued to lie to protect herself. “And at the grand jury, you were always supposed to tell the truth, and you lied.”

Adam Montgomery has not been attending his trial. He was convicted last year in an unrelated case involving gun theft and was sentenced to over 30 years in prison.


Georgia
Court upholds life sentences for Atlanta Olympics and abortion clinic bomber
ATLANTA (AP) — A man sentenced to life imprisonment for fatal bombings at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and an Alabama abortion clinic will not get a chance at a new sentence, an appeals court ruled Monday.

A three-judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Eric Robert Rudolph remains bound to the terms of his 2005 plea agreement in which he accepted multiple life sentences to escape the death penalty.

“Eric Rudolph is bound by the terms of his own bargain. He negotiated to spare his life, and in return he waived the right to collaterally attack his sentences in any post-conviction proceedings,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the opinion.

Rudolph admitted to carrying out the carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks in Georgia and Alabama. He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of arson and of using a destructive device during a crime of violence.

Rudolph argued he was due a new sentence after a 2019 U.S.Supreme Court ruling in which justices found that a statute providing enhanced penalties for using a firearm or deadly device during a “crime of violence” was unconstitutionally vague. The 11th Circuit rejected his claim.

The bombing during a musical show at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta on July 27, 1996, killed one person and injured dozens. The bombing at the New Woman All Women in Birmingham on Jan. 29, 1998, killed a Birmingham police officer and seriously wounded a clinic nurse.

Rudolph also set bombs outside a Georgia abortion clinic and an Atlanta nightclub popular with gay people.