Arkansas
2nd former state officer pleads guilty to civil rights charge from violent arrest caught on video
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A second former Arkansas law enforcement officer has pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man he repeatedly punched during a violent arrest in 2022 that was caught on video and shared widely.
Former Crawford County sheriff’s deputy Levi White changed his plea during a hearing in federal court on Friday, according to court documents. White pleaded guilty to a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law during the Aug. 21, 2022, arrest of Randal Worcester outside a convenience store.
White and another former deputy, Zackary King, were charged by federal prosecutors last year for the arrest. A bystander used a cellphone to record the arrest in the small town of Mulberry, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, near the border with Oklahoma. King on Monday pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of deprivation of rights under color of law.
A third officer caught in the video, Mulberry Police Officer Thell Riddle, was not charged in the federal case. King and White were fired by the Crawford County sheriff. The video depicted King and White striking Worcester as Riddle held him down. White also slammed Worcester’s head onto the pavement.
A trial had been scheduled next month for White and King before the two changed their pleas. Sentencing hearings will be held later. White faces up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
Police have said Worcester was being questioned for threatening a clerk at a convenience store in the nearby small town of Alma when he tackled one of the deputies and punched him in the head before the arrest. Worcester is set to go to trial in July on charges related to the arrest, including resisting arrest and second-degree battery.
Worcester filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the three officers, the city of Mulberry and Crawford County over the arrest. But that case has been put on hold while the criminal cases related to the arrest are ongoing.
Washington
Supreme Court weighs bans on sleeping outdoors with homelessness on the rise
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court wrestled with major questions about the growing issue of homelessness on Monday as it considered whether cities can ban people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking.
The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue as record numbers of people are without a permanent place to live in the United States.
In California and other Western states, courts have ruled that it’s unconstitutional to fine and arrest people sleeping in homeless encampments if shelter space is lacking.
A cross-section of Democratic and Republican officials contend that makes it difficult for them to manage encampments, which can have dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But hundreds of advocacy groups argue that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the court Monday morning with silver thermal blankets and signs like “housing not handcuffs.”
The Justice Department has also weighed in. It argues people shouldn’t be punished just for sleeping outside, but only if there’s a determination they truly have nowhere else to go.
The case comes from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which started fining people $295 for sleeping outside to manage homeless encampments that sprung up in the city’s public parks as the cost of housing escalated.
The measure was largely struck down by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found in 2018 that such bans violated the Eighth Amendment by punishing people for something they don’t have control over. The 9th Circuit oversees nine Western states, including California, which is home to about one-third of the nation’s homeless population.
The case comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12%, to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, according to federal data.
The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.
Washington
Supreme Court will take up the legal fight over ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a Biden administration appeal over the regulation of difficult-to-trace ghost guns that had been struck down by lower courts.
The justices by a 5-4 vote had previously intervened to keep the regulation in effect during the legal fight. Ghost guns, which lack serial numbers, have been turning up at crime scenes with increasing regularity.
The regulation, which took effect in 2022, changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale, as they do with other commercially made firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers. The rule does not prohibit people from buying a kit or any type of firearm.
The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Fort Worth, Texas, struck down the rule last year, concluding that it exceeded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ authority. O’Connor wrote that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover all the parts of a gun. Congress could change the law, he wrote.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made up of three appointees of then-President Donald Trump largely upheld O’Connor’s ruling.
The Supreme Court allowed the regulation to remain in effect while the lawsuit continues. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeals process.
Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were appointed by Trump.
Arguments won’t take place before the fall.
Wisconsin
Prosecutor won’t bring charges against lawmaker over fundraising scheme
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin prosecutor said Friday that she won’t bring charges against a Republican lawmaker accused of trying to evade state campaign finance laws in order to unseat the powerful speaker of the Assembly.
Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper said she would not be filing felony charges against Rep. Janel Brandtjen as was recommended by the bipartisan Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
She is the fourth county prosecutor to decide against filing charges against former President Donald Trump’s fundraising committee, Brandtjen and others involved in the effort to unseat Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Ultimately, the state attorney general, Democrat Josh Kaul, could be asked to prosecute the cases.
The ethics commission alleges that Trump’s fundraising committee and Brandtjen, a Trump ally, conspired in a scheme to evade campaign finance laws to support the Republican primary challenger to Vos in 2022. It forwarded recommendations for filing felony charges to prosecutors in six counties.
Vos angered Trump by firing a former state Supreme Court justice Vos had hired to investigate Trump’s discredited allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Vos launched the probe under pressure from Trump, but eventually distanced himself from Trump’s effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin.
Trump and Brandtjen then tried to unseat Vos by backing a GOP primary opponent, Adam Steen. Trump called Steen a “motivated patriot” when endorsing him shortly before the 2022 primary. Vos, the longest-serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, defeated Steen by just 260 votes.
The ethics commission alleges that Trump’s Save America political action committee, Brandtjen, Republican Party officials in three counties and Steen’s campaign conspired to avoid state fundraising limits as they steered at least $40,000 into the effort to defeat Vos.
Opper said her decision did not “clear Rep. Brandtjen of any wrongdoing, there is just not enough evidence to move forward to let a fact finder decide.”
“I am simply concluding that I cannot prove charges against her,” Opper said in a statement. “While the intercepted communications, such as audio recordings may be compelling in the court of public opinion, they are not in a court of law.”
New Hampshire
Man convicted of killing daughter, 5, ordered to be at sentencing after skipping trial
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A judge has ruled that a New Hampshire man convicted of killing his 5-year-old daughter must appear in person for his upcoming sentencing after he didn’t attend his trial.
Adam Montgomery, 34, had attended his first day of jury selection in February, but did not come to court during his two-week trial. Police believe that his daughter, Harmony Montgomery, was killed nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021. Her body was never found.
Montgomery’s lawyer recently asked for him to be excused from his scheduled May 9 sentencing in Manchester, saying Montgomery has maintained his innocence on charges of second-degree murder, second-degree assault and witness tampering. He had admitted to abuse of a corpse and falsifying evidence.
State law says that in second-degree murder cases, “The defendant shall personally appear in court when the victim or victim’s next of kin addresses the judge, unless excused by the court.”
The attorney general’s office said in March that Harmony Montgomery’s next of kin and others would be addressing the judge at the sentencing, so it was mandatory for Adam Montgomery to show up.
“Although the statute allows the judge to exercise its discretion to excuse a defendant from this obligation, the court does not find that the defendant has raised an adequate factual or legal basis to do so here,” Judge Amy Messer wrote in her order Friday.
Messer wrote that the county sheriff’s office “shall take all necessary steps” to ensure that Montgomery appears in person.
The Montgomery case spurred a bill in the state Legislature requiring people charged with serious crimes to be present for the reading of verdicts and at sentencing hearings. The bill passed in the House and awaits action in the Senate.
Last year, Montgomery proclaimed his innocence in the death of his daughter, saying in court he loved Harmony Montgomery “unconditionally.” His lawyers suggested that the girl died while she was with her stepmother.
He faces a sentence of 35 years to life in prison on the second-degree murder charge. He’s currently serving a minimum sentence of 32 1/2 years in prison on unrelated gun charges.
The stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, is expected to be released on parole in May after serving an 18-month sentence for perjury. She testified that her husband killed Harmony Montgomery on Dec. 7, 2019, while the family lived in their car. Kayla Montgomery said he was driving to a fast food restaurant when he turned around and repeatedly punched Harmony in the face and head because he was angry that she was having bathroom accidents in the car.
She said he then hid the body in the trunk of a car, in a ceiling vent of a homeless shelter and in the walk-in freezer at his workplace before disposing of it in March 2020.
2nd former state officer pleads guilty to civil rights charge from violent arrest caught on video
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A second former Arkansas law enforcement officer has pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man he repeatedly punched during a violent arrest in 2022 that was caught on video and shared widely.
Former Crawford County sheriff’s deputy Levi White changed his plea during a hearing in federal court on Friday, according to court documents. White pleaded guilty to a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law during the Aug. 21, 2022, arrest of Randal Worcester outside a convenience store.
White and another former deputy, Zackary King, were charged by federal prosecutors last year for the arrest. A bystander used a cellphone to record the arrest in the small town of Mulberry, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, near the border with Oklahoma. King on Monday pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of deprivation of rights under color of law.
A third officer caught in the video, Mulberry Police Officer Thell Riddle, was not charged in the federal case. King and White were fired by the Crawford County sheriff. The video depicted King and White striking Worcester as Riddle held him down. White also slammed Worcester’s head onto the pavement.
A trial had been scheduled next month for White and King before the two changed their pleas. Sentencing hearings will be held later. White faces up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
Police have said Worcester was being questioned for threatening a clerk at a convenience store in the nearby small town of Alma when he tackled one of the deputies and punched him in the head before the arrest. Worcester is set to go to trial in July on charges related to the arrest, including resisting arrest and second-degree battery.
Worcester filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the three officers, the city of Mulberry and Crawford County over the arrest. But that case has been put on hold while the criminal cases related to the arrest are ongoing.
Washington
Supreme Court weighs bans on sleeping outdoors with homelessness on the rise
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court wrestled with major questions about the growing issue of homelessness on Monday as it considered whether cities can ban people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking.
The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue as record numbers of people are without a permanent place to live in the United States.
In California and other Western states, courts have ruled that it’s unconstitutional to fine and arrest people sleeping in homeless encampments if shelter space is lacking.
A cross-section of Democratic and Republican officials contend that makes it difficult for them to manage encampments, which can have dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But hundreds of advocacy groups argue that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the court Monday morning with silver thermal blankets and signs like “housing not handcuffs.”
The Justice Department has also weighed in. It argues people shouldn’t be punished just for sleeping outside, but only if there’s a determination they truly have nowhere else to go.
The case comes from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which started fining people $295 for sleeping outside to manage homeless encampments that sprung up in the city’s public parks as the cost of housing escalated.
The measure was largely struck down by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found in 2018 that such bans violated the Eighth Amendment by punishing people for something they don’t have control over. The 9th Circuit oversees nine Western states, including California, which is home to about one-third of the nation’s homeless population.
The case comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12%, to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, according to federal data.
The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.
Washington
Supreme Court will take up the legal fight over ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a Biden administration appeal over the regulation of difficult-to-trace ghost guns that had been struck down by lower courts.
The justices by a 5-4 vote had previously intervened to keep the regulation in effect during the legal fight. Ghost guns, which lack serial numbers, have been turning up at crime scenes with increasing regularity.
The regulation, which took effect in 2022, changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale, as they do with other commercially made firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers. The rule does not prohibit people from buying a kit or any type of firearm.
The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Fort Worth, Texas, struck down the rule last year, concluding that it exceeded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ authority. O’Connor wrote that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover all the parts of a gun. Congress could change the law, he wrote.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made up of three appointees of then-President Donald Trump largely upheld O’Connor’s ruling.
The Supreme Court allowed the regulation to remain in effect while the lawsuit continues. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeals process.
Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were appointed by Trump.
Arguments won’t take place before the fall.
Wisconsin
Prosecutor won’t bring charges against lawmaker over fundraising scheme
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin prosecutor said Friday that she won’t bring charges against a Republican lawmaker accused of trying to evade state campaign finance laws in order to unseat the powerful speaker of the Assembly.
Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper said she would not be filing felony charges against Rep. Janel Brandtjen as was recommended by the bipartisan Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
She is the fourth county prosecutor to decide against filing charges against former President Donald Trump’s fundraising committee, Brandtjen and others involved in the effort to unseat Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Ultimately, the state attorney general, Democrat Josh Kaul, could be asked to prosecute the cases.
The ethics commission alleges that Trump’s fundraising committee and Brandtjen, a Trump ally, conspired in a scheme to evade campaign finance laws to support the Republican primary challenger to Vos in 2022. It forwarded recommendations for filing felony charges to prosecutors in six counties.
Vos angered Trump by firing a former state Supreme Court justice Vos had hired to investigate Trump’s discredited allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Vos launched the probe under pressure from Trump, but eventually distanced himself from Trump’s effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin.
Trump and Brandtjen then tried to unseat Vos by backing a GOP primary opponent, Adam Steen. Trump called Steen a “motivated patriot” when endorsing him shortly before the 2022 primary. Vos, the longest-serving Assembly speaker in Wisconsin history, defeated Steen by just 260 votes.
The ethics commission alleges that Trump’s Save America political action committee, Brandtjen, Republican Party officials in three counties and Steen’s campaign conspired to avoid state fundraising limits as they steered at least $40,000 into the effort to defeat Vos.
Opper said her decision did not “clear Rep. Brandtjen of any wrongdoing, there is just not enough evidence to move forward to let a fact finder decide.”
“I am simply concluding that I cannot prove charges against her,” Opper said in a statement. “While the intercepted communications, such as audio recordings may be compelling in the court of public opinion, they are not in a court of law.”
New Hampshire
Man convicted of killing daughter, 5, ordered to be at sentencing after skipping trial
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A judge has ruled that a New Hampshire man convicted of killing his 5-year-old daughter must appear in person for his upcoming sentencing after he didn’t attend his trial.
Adam Montgomery, 34, had attended his first day of jury selection in February, but did not come to court during his two-week trial. Police believe that his daughter, Harmony Montgomery, was killed nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021. Her body was never found.
Montgomery’s lawyer recently asked for him to be excused from his scheduled May 9 sentencing in Manchester, saying Montgomery has maintained his innocence on charges of second-degree murder, second-degree assault and witness tampering. He had admitted to abuse of a corpse and falsifying evidence.
State law says that in second-degree murder cases, “The defendant shall personally appear in court when the victim or victim’s next of kin addresses the judge, unless excused by the court.”
The attorney general’s office said in March that Harmony Montgomery’s next of kin and others would be addressing the judge at the sentencing, so it was mandatory for Adam Montgomery to show up.
“Although the statute allows the judge to exercise its discretion to excuse a defendant from this obligation, the court does not find that the defendant has raised an adequate factual or legal basis to do so here,” Judge Amy Messer wrote in her order Friday.
Messer wrote that the county sheriff’s office “shall take all necessary steps” to ensure that Montgomery appears in person.
The Montgomery case spurred a bill in the state Legislature requiring people charged with serious crimes to be present for the reading of verdicts and at sentencing hearings. The bill passed in the House and awaits action in the Senate.
Last year, Montgomery proclaimed his innocence in the death of his daughter, saying in court he loved Harmony Montgomery “unconditionally.” His lawyers suggested that the girl died while she was with her stepmother.
He faces a sentence of 35 years to life in prison on the second-degree murder charge. He’s currently serving a minimum sentence of 32 1/2 years in prison on unrelated gun charges.
The stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, is expected to be released on parole in May after serving an 18-month sentence for perjury. She testified that her husband killed Harmony Montgomery on Dec. 7, 2019, while the family lived in their car. Kayla Montgomery said he was driving to a fast food restaurant when he turned around and repeatedly punched Harmony in the face and head because he was angry that she was having bathroom accidents in the car.
She said he then hid the body in the trunk of a car, in a ceiling vent of a homeless shelter and in the walk-in freezer at his workplace before disposing of it in March 2020.
