New Mexico
Lawmakers consider legalizing medically assisted suicide
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico lawmakers are considering whether to legalize medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.
It's the first test of right-to-die legislation since the election last year of a Democratic governor and an enlarged Democratic House majority. Current law that withstood a Supreme Court challenge in 2017 makes it a felony for a physician to assist a patient in ending her or his life.
Legislative committees on Monday began vetting a variety of major policy reforms.
A proposal from Democratic Rep. Deborah Amstrong of Albuquerque and Sen. Liz Stefanics of Santa Fe sets out assisted-suicide protocols that include two-day waiting period to obtain life-ending drugs.
Opponents of the initiative including the Roman Catholic Church are raising ethical objections to provisions for obtaining life-ending prescriptions by remote consultation with medical providers.
Virginia
Newspaper: Settlement reached in jail death lawsuit
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A Virginia jail, the state and the jail's former medical provider have agreed to a $3 million settlement of a federal lawsuit filed by the family of an inmate with mental health problems who died in the jail.
The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk cites court documents in reporting the agreement with Jamycheal Mitchell's family was finalized last week.
The newspaper says the settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing by Hampton Roads Regional Jail, medical provider NaphCare or other defendants.
Part of the settlement agreement, which had been worked on for months, required Gov. Ralph Northam's approval. The court documents don't describe how much money each defendant would have to pay. A federal judge still must approve the agreement.
Mitchell, 24, had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He was jailed in 2015 on charges he stole about $5 in snacks from a Portsmouth convenience store. Mitchell was ordered to a state mental hospital, but his paperwork was stuffed in a hospital employee's desk drawer and he was never sent there. He died about four months later in the jail of heart failure accompanied by severe weight loss, a medical examiner said.
Mitchell's family filed its lawsuit in 2016, claiming Mitchell was beaten, starved and treated "like a circus animal" leading up to his death. The family sought $60 million in damages.
Mitchell's death led the state Board of Corrections to scrutinize all recent jail deaths.
A report last month from a federal investigation of Hampton Roads Regional Jail - where several inmates have died - determined the jail is violating prisoners' rights by failing to provide adequate medical care. It described the jail as lacking enough medical staff to treat a high number of physically sick and mentally ill inmates, many of whom are locked up repeatedly for minor offenses.
Hawaii
High court rejects appeal over abandoned kittens
HONOLULU (AP) - The Hawaii State Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a woman ordered to pay a fine for abandoning kittens at a park.
Susan Owen must pay $150.
Owen took her case to the state's high court after an appeals court upheld a judge's guilty verdict against her.
In 2016, state lawmakers enacted a pet animal desertion law. The crime is punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 and a year in jail.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports Owen told the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals the kittens were not pets because they were not domesticated. She said she only had them for two days and never intended to keep them.
The state Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal last week.
Arizona
High court's chief justice weighing whether to leave bench
PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales is thinking about leaving the bench, a move that would give Republican Gov. Doug Ducey his fifth appointment to the seven-member high court.
Bales' five-year term as chief justice ends June 30 and most recent Arizona chief justices have left the court rather than remain as an associate justice.
The Arizona Capital Times reports that Bales hasn't hired new law clerks for the court year starting next fall and that he said in a recent interview that he's made no decision but has considered what he'd do if he does leave.
Ducey has appointed three justices and will pick a replacement for Justice John Pelander who will retire March 1.
Bales is the court's only Democrat. He can continue to serve until 2026.
Arizona
Holy handcuffs! Arrest made in $1.4 million comics heist
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - A few comic books from a stolen Batman collection worth $1.4 million have been recovered after an arrest in Arizona.
News station ABC-15 in Phoenix reports that police charged Phillip Weisbauer of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, with theft and trafficking in stolen property after he tried to sell four comic books. Those items alone are valued at nearly $100,000, part of a collection of nearly 450 comic books stolen from a storage unit in Boca Raton.
Their owner, Randy Lawrence, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that someone broke into the unit through the ceiling. He discovered the theft on Jan. 8. Now he's hoping the rest of the collection can be recovered.
Pennsylvania
Police seek volunteers to get drunk for them; many respond
KUTZTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania police department's request for volunteers to get drunk for law and order purposes generated a predictably enthusiastic response.
The Kutztown Police Department sought three volunteers to drink hard liquor to the point of inebriation so officers could be trained how to administer field sobriety tests during traffic stops. A call for volunteers on Facebook accumulated hundreds of responses and over 1,000 shares in less than a day.
The post was soon updated with the news that the department had its volunteers for the April 4 training session.
Volunteers were required to have a clean criminal history and have a responsible party to take care of them after the training.
Participants are also required to be willing to drink hard liquor until inebriated.
Published: Tue, Jan 22, 2019
