Nevada
State Supreme Court denies appeal of conservative activist seeking to oust county election official
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A conservative activist who embraced unproven election fraud claims has lost an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in his bid to oust a top county election official and others.
The high court on Wednesday upheld a lower-court judge’s earlier dismissal of Robert Beadles’ lawsuit, which claimed that Washoe County’s registrar of voters, the county manager and a county commissioner violated the state constitution by failing to respond to his complaints of fraud.
“Taking all the factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing every inference in favor of Beadles, he can prove no set facts that would entitle him to relief as pleaded,” the Supreme Court ruled.
Beadles, who once briefly ran for Congress in California in 2010, has alleged that the election system is rife with “flaws and irregularities” that robbed him of his vote in 2020.
Beadles lost an earlier lawsuit in state court in 2022 that sought heightened observation of Washoe County’s vote-counting process. He has helped lead attempts to recall or otherwise oust numerous county officials since he moved to Reno from California in 2019.
Washoe County, which includes Reno-Sparks and the north shore of Lake Tahoe along the California line, is considered a swing county in the Western battleground state of Nevada. Registered voters are divided roughly in equal thirds among Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisans.
The Supreme Court’s ruling said Beadles misapplied a section of the Nevada Constitution guaranteeing the right to assemble and petition the Legislature in his most recent lawsuit, which sought the removal of Jamie Rodriguez, then-Washoe County registrar of voters; Eric Brown, county manager; and Alexis Hill, county commission chairwoman.
“There are no set of facts that could prove a violation of that constitutional right based on respondents’ failure to respond directly to Beadles’ allegations,” Chief Justice Lidia Stiglich wrote in the five-page ruling.
The ruling said state law permits a voter to file a complaint with the secretary of state’s office about election practices, but “these laws do not establish that respondents had a duty to respond to Beadles’ allegations.”
Arkansas
State Supreme Court upholds 2021 voting restrictions that state judge found unconstitutional
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld four voting restrictions passed by Republican lawmakers in 2021 that were struck down by a state judge as unconstitutional.
Justices ruled that the four laws did not violate the U.S. or Arkansas constitutions, reversing and dsimissing the 2022 ruling by a Pulaski County judge. The court had earlier stayed the judge’s decision in the case, so the restrictions were still in effect before Thursday’s ruling
“We hold that the Acts are not clearly incompatible with the sections of the Arkansas Constitution as alleged by Appellees,” justices said in the unanimous ruling.
The measures upheld include a change to the state’s voter ID law that removes the option for someone to sign an affidavit affirming their identity if they don’t present a photo identification at the polls.
The other measures prevent anyone other than voters from being within 100 feet of a polling place, require an absentee voter’s signature on a ballot to match the signature on their voter registration application, and move up the deadline for voters to return absentee ballots in person.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin called the ruling “a total victory for Arkansas voters and the security of our elections moving forward.”
The League of Women Voters, who sued over the restrictions along with Arkansas United and five Arkansas voters, called the ruling a “disappointing blow to voting rights” in Arkansas. The lawsuit argued the restrictions would make it difficult — and in some cases impossible — for voters to exercise their right to vote.
“It is evident that these laws will continue to pose significant challenges to voters, particularly older Arkansans and those living in rural areas,” Bonnie Miller, president of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, said in a statement.
Supporters of the restrictions said they were needed to bolster confidence in the state’s election system. The laws were among an historic number of voting restrictions that were enacted by Republican states following former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
Oregon
Man convicted of sexually abusing 2 teen girls he met online gets 12 1/2 years in prison
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who met two 15-year-old girls on Snapchat, sexually abused them while traveling through three states and finally abandoned them at a park has been sentenced to more than a decade behind bars, prosecutors said Thursday.
Albert Wayne Johnson was sentenced Wednesday to 12 1/2 years in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon said Thursday in a statement.
On Aug. 8, 2022, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call reporting two minors abandoned in a park outside Portland in Boring, Oregon, according to court documents.
The girls told deputies they met Johnson on Snapchat and that he drove them from Washington through Idaho and into Oregon. Johnson sexually abused both of them at a motel in Othello, Washington, and one of them at a campground near La Grande, Oregon, according to court documents.
After arriving in Boring, Johnson left the children at a campsite in Barton Park and never returned.
Johnson, 42, was arrested at his home in La Grande on an outstanding parole violation warrant Aug. 30, 2022. Surveillance video from the motel in Othello showed him with the two girls, documents said.
That November a federal grand jury in Portland returned a three-count indictment charging him with traveling across state lines to engage in a sexual act with a minor, transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and commission of a sex offense by a registered sex offender.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Johnson pleaded guilty this year to transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
In court filings Johnson’s attorney, Elizabeth Daily, said he did not use physical force or coercion against the girls and suggested that a sentence of just over 11 years would be sufficient.
Johnson was previously convicted of luring a minor and attempt to commit sexual abuse in 2018 and was under state supervision in August 2022, according to prosecutors. He had also violated his conditions of release by changing his address without approval and failing to complete sex offender and substance abuse treatment, they said.
Colorado
Man convicted of killing 4 people at ex-girlfriend’s home near Denver
DENVER (AP) — A man was convicted Thursday of killing four people at his ex-girlfriend’s home in suburban Denver in 2022 a week after she was granted a court order to keep him away from her.
Joseph Mario Castorena, 22, was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder after deliberation for killing three of Jessica Serrano’s relatives as well as a man who rented an RV on the family’s property in Aurora on Oct. 30, 2022, prosecutors said. He was also convicted of one count of attempted murder.
Castorena and Serrano, who was not injured, have two children together. Their children were out-of-state with family at the time of the shooting, police have said.
Castorena was arrested over a month after the shooting in Mexico and extradited back to Colorado.
Prosecutors alleged that Castorena broke into the home and waited inside with a gun until family members returned home. When Serrano arrived at about 2 a.m., she noticed Castorena’s keys in her bedroom and called police to report that she thought her ex-boyfriend was in the house and that he was not supposed to be there. Shots were fired as she spoke to dispatchers, prosecutors said.
A week before the shooting, Serrano sought a court protective order, saying that Castorena had held a gun at her and threatened to kill her. She also claimed he held her in his car and would not let her go home.
Castorena faces a mandatory life sentence for each of his four first-degree murder convictions when he is sentenced on Sept. 3.
Mississippi
ACLU: Transgender girl faces discrimination from a school’s dress code
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A transgender girl from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast who wanted to wear a dress to a regional band event was discriminated against when her school insisted she follow a dress code based on her sex assigned at birth, according to a new civil rights complaint.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Mississippi want the Harrison County School District to get rid of its sex-based distinctions in the dress code and stop enforcing the rules in a way that discriminates against girls, according to an administrative complaint filed Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The ACLU says the district’s dress code violates Title IX, the 1972 law originally passed to address women’s rights. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex by any educational programs or activities that receive federal money. The district rule that students’ clothing must match their sex assigned at birth was added to the dress code policy relatively recently, in July 2023.
The district did not immediately respond to a phone message and email seeking comment Thursday.
The complaint was filed Wednesday on behalf of a woman and her daughter, a 16-year-old student at Harrison Central High School. According to the complaint, the school’s principal told the transgender girl she “can’t represent our school dressed like that” by wearing a dress to the band event, and threatened the student with in-school suspension.
Despite pleas to participate, she was told to ask her mother to bring “boys’ clothes” or face exclusion from the event, the complaint said.
The transgender teen’s story “is emblematic of other girls at Harrison County School District who have complained of the discriminatory dress code and hostile learning environment for LGBTQ+ students,” said McKenna Raney-Gray, an LGBTQ Justice Project attorney at the ACLU of Mississippi.
The complaint also wants the Office for Civil Rights to investigate the district focusing on Title IX discrimination.
The girl’s mother said she is deeply concerned about the district’s practices.
“Transgender and gender nonconforming students should not be forced to choose between participating in school events or remaining true to their gender identity,” the mother said.
State Supreme Court denies appeal of conservative activist seeking to oust county election official
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A conservative activist who embraced unproven election fraud claims has lost an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in his bid to oust a top county election official and others.
The high court on Wednesday upheld a lower-court judge’s earlier dismissal of Robert Beadles’ lawsuit, which claimed that Washoe County’s registrar of voters, the county manager and a county commissioner violated the state constitution by failing to respond to his complaints of fraud.
“Taking all the factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing every inference in favor of Beadles, he can prove no set facts that would entitle him to relief as pleaded,” the Supreme Court ruled.
Beadles, who once briefly ran for Congress in California in 2010, has alleged that the election system is rife with “flaws and irregularities” that robbed him of his vote in 2020.
Beadles lost an earlier lawsuit in state court in 2022 that sought heightened observation of Washoe County’s vote-counting process. He has helped lead attempts to recall or otherwise oust numerous county officials since he moved to Reno from California in 2019.
Washoe County, which includes Reno-Sparks and the north shore of Lake Tahoe along the California line, is considered a swing county in the Western battleground state of Nevada. Registered voters are divided roughly in equal thirds among Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisans.
The Supreme Court’s ruling said Beadles misapplied a section of the Nevada Constitution guaranteeing the right to assemble and petition the Legislature in his most recent lawsuit, which sought the removal of Jamie Rodriguez, then-Washoe County registrar of voters; Eric Brown, county manager; and Alexis Hill, county commission chairwoman.
“There are no set of facts that could prove a violation of that constitutional right based on respondents’ failure to respond directly to Beadles’ allegations,” Chief Justice Lidia Stiglich wrote in the five-page ruling.
The ruling said state law permits a voter to file a complaint with the secretary of state’s office about election practices, but “these laws do not establish that respondents had a duty to respond to Beadles’ allegations.”
Arkansas
State Supreme Court upholds 2021 voting restrictions that state judge found unconstitutional
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld four voting restrictions passed by Republican lawmakers in 2021 that were struck down by a state judge as unconstitutional.
Justices ruled that the four laws did not violate the U.S. or Arkansas constitutions, reversing and dsimissing the 2022 ruling by a Pulaski County judge. The court had earlier stayed the judge’s decision in the case, so the restrictions were still in effect before Thursday’s ruling
“We hold that the Acts are not clearly incompatible with the sections of the Arkansas Constitution as alleged by Appellees,” justices said in the unanimous ruling.
The measures upheld include a change to the state’s voter ID law that removes the option for someone to sign an affidavit affirming their identity if they don’t present a photo identification at the polls.
The other measures prevent anyone other than voters from being within 100 feet of a polling place, require an absentee voter’s signature on a ballot to match the signature on their voter registration application, and move up the deadline for voters to return absentee ballots in person.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin called the ruling “a total victory for Arkansas voters and the security of our elections moving forward.”
The League of Women Voters, who sued over the restrictions along with Arkansas United and five Arkansas voters, called the ruling a “disappointing blow to voting rights” in Arkansas. The lawsuit argued the restrictions would make it difficult — and in some cases impossible — for voters to exercise their right to vote.
“It is evident that these laws will continue to pose significant challenges to voters, particularly older Arkansans and those living in rural areas,” Bonnie Miller, president of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, said in a statement.
Supporters of the restrictions said they were needed to bolster confidence in the state’s election system. The laws were among an historic number of voting restrictions that were enacted by Republican states following former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
Oregon
Man convicted of sexually abusing 2 teen girls he met online gets 12 1/2 years in prison
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man who met two 15-year-old girls on Snapchat, sexually abused them while traveling through three states and finally abandoned them at a park has been sentenced to more than a decade behind bars, prosecutors said Thursday.
Albert Wayne Johnson was sentenced Wednesday to 12 1/2 years in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon said Thursday in a statement.
On Aug. 8, 2022, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call reporting two minors abandoned in a park outside Portland in Boring, Oregon, according to court documents.
The girls told deputies they met Johnson on Snapchat and that he drove them from Washington through Idaho and into Oregon. Johnson sexually abused both of them at a motel in Othello, Washington, and one of them at a campground near La Grande, Oregon, according to court documents.
After arriving in Boring, Johnson left the children at a campsite in Barton Park and never returned.
Johnson, 42, was arrested at his home in La Grande on an outstanding parole violation warrant Aug. 30, 2022. Surveillance video from the motel in Othello showed him with the two girls, documents said.
That November a federal grand jury in Portland returned a three-count indictment charging him with traveling across state lines to engage in a sexual act with a minor, transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and commission of a sex offense by a registered sex offender.
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Johnson pleaded guilty this year to transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
In court filings Johnson’s attorney, Elizabeth Daily, said he did not use physical force or coercion against the girls and suggested that a sentence of just over 11 years would be sufficient.
Johnson was previously convicted of luring a minor and attempt to commit sexual abuse in 2018 and was under state supervision in August 2022, according to prosecutors. He had also violated his conditions of release by changing his address without approval and failing to complete sex offender and substance abuse treatment, they said.
Colorado
Man convicted of killing 4 people at ex-girlfriend’s home near Denver
DENVER (AP) — A man was convicted Thursday of killing four people at his ex-girlfriend’s home in suburban Denver in 2022 a week after she was granted a court order to keep him away from her.
Joseph Mario Castorena, 22, was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder after deliberation for killing three of Jessica Serrano’s relatives as well as a man who rented an RV on the family’s property in Aurora on Oct. 30, 2022, prosecutors said. He was also convicted of one count of attempted murder.
Castorena and Serrano, who was not injured, have two children together. Their children were out-of-state with family at the time of the shooting, police have said.
Castorena was arrested over a month after the shooting in Mexico and extradited back to Colorado.
Prosecutors alleged that Castorena broke into the home and waited inside with a gun until family members returned home. When Serrano arrived at about 2 a.m., she noticed Castorena’s keys in her bedroom and called police to report that she thought her ex-boyfriend was in the house and that he was not supposed to be there. Shots were fired as she spoke to dispatchers, prosecutors said.
A week before the shooting, Serrano sought a court protective order, saying that Castorena had held a gun at her and threatened to kill her. She also claimed he held her in his car and would not let her go home.
Castorena faces a mandatory life sentence for each of his four first-degree murder convictions when he is sentenced on Sept. 3.
Mississippi
ACLU: Transgender girl faces discrimination from a school’s dress code
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A transgender girl from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast who wanted to wear a dress to a regional band event was discriminated against when her school insisted she follow a dress code based on her sex assigned at birth, according to a new civil rights complaint.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Mississippi want the Harrison County School District to get rid of its sex-based distinctions in the dress code and stop enforcing the rules in a way that discriminates against girls, according to an administrative complaint filed Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The ACLU says the district’s dress code violates Title IX, the 1972 law originally passed to address women’s rights. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex by any educational programs or activities that receive federal money. The district rule that students’ clothing must match their sex assigned at birth was added to the dress code policy relatively recently, in July 2023.
The district did not immediately respond to a phone message and email seeking comment Thursday.
The complaint was filed Wednesday on behalf of a woman and her daughter, a 16-year-old student at Harrison Central High School. According to the complaint, the school’s principal told the transgender girl she “can’t represent our school dressed like that” by wearing a dress to the band event, and threatened the student with in-school suspension.
Despite pleas to participate, she was told to ask her mother to bring “boys’ clothes” or face exclusion from the event, the complaint said.
The transgender teen’s story “is emblematic of other girls at Harrison County School District who have complained of the discriminatory dress code and hostile learning environment for LGBTQ+ students,” said McKenna Raney-Gray, an LGBTQ Justice Project attorney at the ACLU of Mississippi.
The complaint also wants the Office for Civil Rights to investigate the district focusing on Title IX discrimination.
The girl’s mother said she is deeply concerned about the district’s practices.
“Transgender and gender nonconforming students should not be forced to choose between participating in school events or remaining true to their gender identity,” the mother said.
