National Roundup

Ohio
Court: School workers must have training to carry guns

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) — Employees must have the same kind of training that police officers receive to carry concealed weapons at an Ohio school district where two students were shot and wounded by a classmate, a state appeals court ruled.

The decision Monday by the 12th District Court of Appeals in Middletown came after a Butler County judge dismissed a complaint filed by parents from the Madison Local Schools opposing the weapons policy, The Journal-News reported.

The district’s school board voted to allow armed school employees after a 2016 shooting in which two students were shot and wounded by a 14-year-old boy. Teachers and staff members who wished to arm themselves were required to have a concealed carry permit and have completed 24 hours of active shooter training.

Butler County Judge Charles Pater in dismissing the parents’ lawsuit said teachers and school staff did not need extensive training because they are not law enforcement officers.

The appeals court judges said Ohio law requires anyone who carries a firearms in schools to have undergone a minimum of 728 hours of law enforcement training.

Madison Local Superintendent Lisa Tuttle-Huff said in a statement Tuesday that the district is “exploring all our options,” including an appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania
U.S. appeals court: Attack on gay man enough for asylum claim

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An asylum seeker from Ghana who said he was attacked by a mob led by his father because of his sexuality has shown a valid fear of persecution, a U.S. appeals case said in a case argued by two law students.

The petitioner, a gay man in his late 20s from Accra, said he had a secret relationship with a friend from his Muslim school days when his father found out in 2016 and flew into a rage. He said he was beaten, doused with kerosene and threatened with being beheaded before escaping, naked and bleeding.

He later made his way to the U.S., where immigration judges rejected his case, in part because it involved only a single attack. The initial judge suggested he could avoid further prosecution back home if he kept his sexuality a secret, according to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Same-sex male relationships are misdemeanors in Ghana and can bring up to three years in prison, the ruling said. The Associated Press is not naming the petitioner at the request of his lawyer, Adrian Roe of Pittsburgh, who fears for his client’s safety if he is deported and hopes to have his name redacted from court records.

“(He) was threatened with death by fire or decapitation while being assaulted, doused with fuel and exposed to a cutlass. All that was left for the mob to do was to cut off his head or set him on fire,” U.S. Circuit Judge L. Felipe Restrepo wrote in directing the immigration court to reconsider the claim.

The case was argued last year by then-students Paige Beddow and Scott A. Cain of the Immigration Law Clinic at West Virginia University College of Law. Justice Department lawyers in Washington, who opposed the asylum bid, did not immediately return a message left Tuesday with the press office.

“The government was arguing that one (attack) does not create a significant incident, or does not constitute past persecution. And the court said that one incident can be enough,” Roe said.

Iowa
Coach accused of inappropriately touching girls

DES MOINES, Wash. (AP) — A 66-year-old teacher and track coach at a Des Moines high school has been charged with four counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, accused of inappropriately touching and making sexual comments to three members of the school track team, according to King County prosecutors.

Jeffrey Blount, of Des Moines, was arrested Tuesday and remains jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail, The Seattle Times reported.

Catherine Carbone Rogers, a spokeswoman for the Highline School District, wrote in an email that Blount was placed on paid administrative leave from Mount Rainier High School in on May 1, as soon as school officials learned of the allegations. The district also filed a report with the Washington State Office of Public Instruction about Blount, who is set to retire at the end of this school year, she wrote.

As a teacher and coach, Blount abused his position of trust and authority over the female student-athletes, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Celia Lee wrote in charging papers. The charges cover from March 2018 through June 2019, when two girls were 17 years old and the third was 14 but turned 15, the charges say.

“He had female athletes change (clothes) in his classroom, he invited students to his house, he delegated his duties to students, he inappropriately touched them, made overtly sexual and inappropriate comments to them, and talked to athletes about their bodies in a sexual and inappropriate way,” Lee wrote.

Wyoming
State asks U.S. Supreme Court to deny death row appeal

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming’s attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a death row inmate’s request for appeal, arguing he did not preserve his ability to appeal the case.

Dale Wayne Eaton, 75, asked the country’s highest court in February to take his case, arguing his trial attorney failed to properly investigate his competence to stand trial, The Casper Star-Tribune reported  Monday.

Prosecutors indicated last year in state court they intend to have Eaton put to death following his conviction for the 1988 kidnapping, rape and murder of Lisa Marie Kimmell, who disappeared while driving from Colorado to Montana. The teenager’s body was found in the North Platte River.

Eaton was convicted in 1998 in a separate assault case. Wyoming authorities collected Eaton’s DNA and found it linked him to Kimmell’s body.

Jurors convicted Eaton in 2004 of premeditated murder, felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and sexual assault. A federal appeals court threw out Eaton’s sentence in 2014 and he remains incarcerated while awaiting a new sentencing hearing.

The proceeding remains on hold while Eaton seeks a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Eaton’s lawyers argued no court has determined whether his trial lawyers harmed his case by failing to investigate his competence before the trial began.

The attorney general’s response Monday argued Eaton’s claim to ineffective assistance of counsel was not properly preserved outside the federal courts’ rulings on the trial’s death-penalty phase.

By failing to maintain Eaton had a separate ineffective assistance claim, he waived his right to the appeal, the state attorneys argued.