Court Digest

Georgia
Murder charges dropped after fight to exonerate man who spent 22 years behind bars
ROME, Ga. (AP) — A judge dismissed a murder charge against a Georgia man who spent more than 20 years in prison, ending a decadeslong legal fight to exonerate him.

The Floyd County judge dismissed the case at the request of the district attorney, who decided not to bring Joey Watkins to trial again after his initial conviction was vacated. The Georgia Innocence Project and other attorneys waged a lengthy fight to overturn the conviction.

Watkins and his attorneys said they wept as they called him to say the charges were being dropped.

“Cried like a baby I guess you could say, just knowing that it was finally finished, finally over,” Watkins told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Watkins, now 43, was 20 when he was convicted and sentenced to serve life plus five years in prison for the 2000 slaying of Isaac Dawkins in northwest Georgia. Dawkins was driving his truck along a highway when someone opened fire and shot him in the head.

The Georgia Supreme Court in December agreed with a judge that Watkins should have a new trial, and a judge in January agreed to release him from jail on bond as he awaited his second trial date.

The district attorney’s office filed a motion to drop the prosecution, and a judge granted the request on Thursday, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

Christina Cribbs, senior attorney with the Georgia Innocence Project, said Watkins won the new trial request based on issues with juror misconduct and other factors. But she said cellphone data shows that he was not near Dawkins.

After spending more than half his life behind bars, Watkins said he is trying to adjust and rebuild his life.

“Everything that you knew is different. Places. People. It’s just like time stops and restarts,” he said. “I’m just grateful at another chance of life.”

Cribbs said that while it is joyful to see Watkins released, there is a lot of “sadness there too about what was lost.”

“There is no way Joey can get those 22 years back,” Cribbs said.

The podcast “Undisclosed” aired episodes about the case.

Arizona
Woman arrested after 55 dogs are taken from home
CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — A Chandler woman who ran an animal rescue out of her now-condemned home has been arrested after dozens of abused dogs were discovered and five dead puppies found in a freezer, according to police.

April McLaughlin, 48, was taken into custody Friday after a search warrant was executed at the house.

The search followed multiple calls and reports from concerned neighbors about smells coming from the home and hoarding conditions, police said.

They said most of the 55 dogs removed from the home were elderly and special-needs animals. They were without water and many will likely need to be euthanized.

The air quality in the home was so bad that firefighters had to wear special breathing equipment. The house is now condemned, according to authorities.

McLaughlin was booked into a Phoenix jail on 55 counts of animal abuse, 55 counts of animal cruelty and one count of vulnerable adult abuse because her elderly mother also lived in the home.

According to court documents, McLaughlin told police she didn’t believe there was anything wrong with storing food next to the dead animals in the freezer. She also said she had been running the rescue for a year and had taken on too many dogs.

A judge set McLaughlin’s cash-only bail at $2,500 at her initial court appearance Saturday and said a public defender would be appointed to represent her. A message seeking comment was left with the Maricopa County public defenders’ office, though it was unclear if a specific attorney had been assigned to the case yet.

Alabama
Hazing lawsuit filed against University of Alabama fraternity
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — A student and his parents have filed a lawsuit against a University of Alabama fraternity, saying he suffered a traumatic brain injury while being hazed as a fraternity pledge earlier this year.

The lawsuit filed last week accuses Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and others associated with it of fraud, negligence and assault and battery. The lawsuit was filed by the teen, referred to only as H.B. in the filing because he is a minor; and his parents, who live in Texas.

The lawsuit says H.B. was repeatedly punched, sprayed with a water hose, told to yell a racial slur at a nearby Black student and hit in the head with a basketball, which caused him to lose consciousness, see stars and suffer a traumatic brain injury.

The student left the fraternity house on his own, but later went to a hospital emergency room. The lawsuit says he has a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury and post-concussive syndrome.

“As the direct and proximate result of defendant’s negligence, plaintiff suffered severe injuries, some of which are permanent,” the lawsuit stated.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity Service Center, in a statement to WBRC, said the national organization is investigating what happened at the Alabama chapter and is cooperating with the university and law enforcement investigation.

“It is not our practice to comment on matters related to litigation. Still, we want to be clear that acts of hazing and misconduct do not represent the Fraternity’s values,” the national organization said. “Members who engage in these activities will be held accountable to the fullest extent.”

Louisiana
Man who fled attempted murder trial captured after 32 years
ARCADIA, La. (AP) — A Louisiana man who fled his 1991 trial for attempted murder has been arrested more than three decades later after authorities found him hiding in Mexico, authorities said.

Greg Lawson, 63, was brought back to the United States on Thursday after being located in Mexico, the FBI said. Lawson was accused of shooting a man in 1991 in Bienville Parish.

Lawson fled the courthouse just as the jury was headed back into the courtroom to return a guilty verdict on a charge of attempted murder, KSLA reported. His truck was found a block away from the courthouse at the time.

The FBI posted video to X, previously known as Twitter, of Lawson being escorted by authorities at an airport. He is seen appearing to nervously laugh as authorities place him in handcuffs.

“The three-decades-long search for a man convicted of attempted murder is over, thanks to a tip received by #FBINewOrleans. This morning, 63-year-old Greg Lawson is back in a Louisiana jail awaiting action by Bienville Parish authorities,” the FBI wrote.

New Jersey
Man sentenced to life again in 2011 slaying of rapper
HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to life in prison again in the murder of an aspiring rapper authorities said was shot and killed before his body was set on fire in New Jersey a dozen years ago.

Randy Manning was convicted in a June retrial of murder, arson, desecration of human remains, and weapons offenses in the August 2011 death of Rhian Stoute, a 33-year-old Brooklyn man who performed under the name Kampane.

Prosecutors said Manning, a native of Trinidad and Tobago who lived in Englewood for a time, killed the victim in a vacant Englewood house and returned several hours later to set the victim’s body on fire. He then put Stoute’s body in an SUV he abandoned in Paramus, discarding evidence in sewers there and in Brooklyn, New York, where authorities later recovered it, prosecutors said.

Manning was originally convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2014, but an appellate judge ruled in 2020 that prosecutors hadn’t obtained a warrant before searching his cellphone’s records and location data, NorthJersey.com reported.

Assistant Prosecutor Gary Donatello said Manning could be seen on surveillance video joking and laughing with a gas station attendant hours after shooting the victim as he picked up a gas canister, a lighter and a pair of gloves — items that would be submitted as evidence during the trial.

“These are the actions of a cold-hearted killer,” Donatello said.

Bergen County Judge Gary Wilcox earlier this month called the killing an “abhorrent and horrible act” and said one of the things that stood out was a conversation Manning had with a detective in which he characterized Stoute as only being interested in women and money.

“He didn’t sound like he was talking about somebody that he loved. He sounded jealous and angry,” the judge said, NorthJersey.com reported.

Defense attorney Milagros Camacho argued for a sentence of only 30 years on the murder charge, saying her client maintains his innocence but that didn’t mean he wasn’t “remorseful” or “upset” about what happened.

Texas
Walmart shooter agrees to pay more than $5M to families over 2019 racist attack
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack on Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in 2019 agreed Monday to pay more than $5 million to families of the victims.

Patrick Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences in July after pleading guilty to federal hate crime charges following one of the nation’s worst mass killings. U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama signed off on the amount that Crusius must pay in restitution.

Crusius still faces a separate trial in a Texas court that could end with him getting the death penalty.

Police say Crusius drove more than 700 miles from his home near Dallas to target Hispanics with an AK-style rifle inside and outside the store. Moments before the attack began, Crusius posted a racist screed online that warned of a Hispanic “invasion” of Texas.

Crusius pleaded guilty in February after federal prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. But Texas prosecutors have said they will try to put Crusius on death row when he stands trial in state court. That trial date has not yet been set.

Under the agreement between Crusius and the government, Crusius will pay $5,557,005.55.

In January, the Justice Department proposed changes to how it runs federal prisoners’ deposit accounts in an effort to ensure victims are paid restitution, including from some high-profile inmates with large balances. The move came as the Justice Department faced increased scrutiny after revelations that several high-profile inmates kept large sums of money in their prison accounts but only made minimal payments to their victims.

The 2019 attack was the deadliest of a dozen mass shootings in the U.S. linked to hate crimes since 2006, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

Before the shooting, Crusius had appeared consumed by the nation’s immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and other social media posts that praised then-President Donald Trump’s hardline border policies. Crusius went further in his rant posted before the attack, sounding warnings that Hispanics were going to take over the government and economy.