Washington
Giuliani disbarred in DC after pushing Trump’s false 2020 election claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington on Thursday, months after he lost his law license in New York for pursuing false claims that then-President Donald Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss.
The brief ruling from Washington D.C.’s appeals court said Giuliani did not respond to an order to explain why he should not be disbarred in Washington after he lost his law license in New York last summer.
Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, called the decision “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice.”
The Manhattan appeals court that stripped Giuliani of his law license in July found he repeatedly made false statements about Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Giuliani had argued that he believed the claims he was making on behalf of the Trump campaign were true.
Mississippi
DOJ finds police in small city discriminate against Black residents
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police in a majority Black Mississippi city discriminate against Black people, use excessive force and retaliate against its critics, the Justice Department said Thursday in a scathing report detailing findings of an investigation into civil rights abuses.
The Lexington Police Department has a “persistent pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct,” according to the Justice Department, which launched an investigation following accusations that officers used excessive force and arrested people without justification.
The Justice Department said the police department “has created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law” through a combination of “poor leadership, retaliation and a complete lack of internal accountability.”
A Lexington Police Department staff member who answered a phone call seeking comment said Police Chief Charles Henderson was not immediately available for an interview. The staff member declined to provide a comment on the department’s behalf.
Investigators found that officers used Tasers like a “cattle-prod” to punish people, in case shocking a Black man 18 times until he was covered in his own vomit and unable to speak, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters.
The investigation also found that police impose fines at “nearly every available opportunity,” often for minor violations, said Todd Gee, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. They unlawfully arrest and hold people behind bars until they can come up with the money they owe, he said.
North Dakota
Court sends back part of pipeline protestor’s lawsuit alleging excessive force
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An appeals court has sent back part of a lawsuit brought by a protester of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, who alleged excessive force by law enforcement officers.
Eric Poemoceah, of Oklahoma, filed the federal court lawsuit in 2020 against Morton County, County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, then-Sheriff of Cass County Paul Laney and other officers, including unidentified ones. He sought unspecified damages to be determined at trial.
Poemoceah alleged that during a demonstration in February 2017, when a protest camp was being evacuated, Bismarck Police Officer Benjamin Swenson tackled him, causing a pelvic fracture. He also alleged other injuries from other officers, and that the officers disregarded his pelvic injury and retaliated against him for livestreaming the events.
The defendants sought to dismiss the case. U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor granted their motions to dismiss the case in December 2020. He said the officers were entitled to qualified immunity regarding use of force, and that Poemoceah didn’t sufficiently back up his claims.
Poemoceah appealed in 2021. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s dismissal of most of Poemoceah’s claims. But the panel said he “plausibly alleges a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim against Swenson,” and sent that claim back for further proceedings.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the pipeline’s Missouri River crossing drew thousands of people who demonstrated and camped for months in 2016 and 2017 near the crossing. Hundreds of arrests resulted from the sometimes-chaotic protests.
The multistate pipeline has been transporting oil since 2017, including during an ongoing, court-ordered environmental review process for the controversial river segment.
Nebraska
Man faces death penalty for killing 4 people in 2022
DAKOTA CITY, Neb. (AP) — A man faces a possible death sentence after being convicted of killing four people in a small northeast Nebraska town.
A jury found 44-year-old Jason Jones guilty Thursday of 10 counts, including four counts of first-degree murder, four felony gun counts and two counts of first-degree arson, according to online court documents.
Jones stands convicted in the August 2022 shooting deaths of Michele Ebeling, 53; Gene Twiford, 86; his wife, Janet Twiford, 85; and their 55-year-old daughter, Dana Twiford.
Prosecutors said during Jones’ trial that he started fires at the victims’ homes after they were killed. A day after the bodies were found, police found Jones in his wife’s house, which sits across the street from Ebeling’s home, suffering from severe burns. He was hospitalized for two months before being released and moved to prison.
Jones was not present at his trial or conviction, citing lingering effects from the burn injuries he suffered.
Jones was linked to the killings and fires through DNA and ballistics evidence, prosecutors said at trial.
The defense team for Jones did not deny that he killed the four victims, but argued during his nearly two-week-long trial that he committed the killings during an episode of mental illness he suffered.
Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty, citing several aggravating circumstances — including that Jones committed multiple killings within a short period and that at least two of the killings were carried out to keep the victims from identifying him.
Jones’ wife, 45-year-old Carrie Jones, is charged with one count of first-degree murder in connection with Gene Twiford’s death, as well as counts of tampering with physical evidence and being an accessory to a felony. She’s accused of helping her badly burned husband hide while authorities searched for him in the hours after the killings.
Giuliani disbarred in DC after pushing Trump’s false 2020 election claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington on Thursday, months after he lost his law license in New York for pursuing false claims that then-President Donald Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss.
The brief ruling from Washington D.C.’s appeals court said Giuliani did not respond to an order to explain why he should not be disbarred in Washington after he lost his law license in New York last summer.
Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, called the decision “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice.”
The Manhattan appeals court that stripped Giuliani of his law license in July found he repeatedly made false statements about Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Giuliani had argued that he believed the claims he was making on behalf of the Trump campaign were true.
Mississippi
DOJ finds police in small city discriminate against Black residents
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police in a majority Black Mississippi city discriminate against Black people, use excessive force and retaliate against its critics, the Justice Department said Thursday in a scathing report detailing findings of an investigation into civil rights abuses.
The Lexington Police Department has a “persistent pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct,” according to the Justice Department, which launched an investigation following accusations that officers used excessive force and arrested people without justification.
The Justice Department said the police department “has created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law” through a combination of “poor leadership, retaliation and a complete lack of internal accountability.”
A Lexington Police Department staff member who answered a phone call seeking comment said Police Chief Charles Henderson was not immediately available for an interview. The staff member declined to provide a comment on the department’s behalf.
Investigators found that officers used Tasers like a “cattle-prod” to punish people, in case shocking a Black man 18 times until he was covered in his own vomit and unable to speak, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters.
The investigation also found that police impose fines at “nearly every available opportunity,” often for minor violations, said Todd Gee, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. They unlawfully arrest and hold people behind bars until they can come up with the money they owe, he said.
North Dakota
Court sends back part of pipeline protestor’s lawsuit alleging excessive force
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An appeals court has sent back part of a lawsuit brought by a protester of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, who alleged excessive force by law enforcement officers.
Eric Poemoceah, of Oklahoma, filed the federal court lawsuit in 2020 against Morton County, County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, then-Sheriff of Cass County Paul Laney and other officers, including unidentified ones. He sought unspecified damages to be determined at trial.
Poemoceah alleged that during a demonstration in February 2017, when a protest camp was being evacuated, Bismarck Police Officer Benjamin Swenson tackled him, causing a pelvic fracture. He also alleged other injuries from other officers, and that the officers disregarded his pelvic injury and retaliated against him for livestreaming the events.
The defendants sought to dismiss the case. U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor granted their motions to dismiss the case in December 2020. He said the officers were entitled to qualified immunity regarding use of force, and that Poemoceah didn’t sufficiently back up his claims.
Poemoceah appealed in 2021. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s dismissal of most of Poemoceah’s claims. But the panel said he “plausibly alleges a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim against Swenson,” and sent that claim back for further proceedings.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the pipeline’s Missouri River crossing drew thousands of people who demonstrated and camped for months in 2016 and 2017 near the crossing. Hundreds of arrests resulted from the sometimes-chaotic protests.
The multistate pipeline has been transporting oil since 2017, including during an ongoing, court-ordered environmental review process for the controversial river segment.
Nebraska
Man faces death penalty for killing 4 people in 2022
DAKOTA CITY, Neb. (AP) — A man faces a possible death sentence after being convicted of killing four people in a small northeast Nebraska town.
A jury found 44-year-old Jason Jones guilty Thursday of 10 counts, including four counts of first-degree murder, four felony gun counts and two counts of first-degree arson, according to online court documents.
Jones stands convicted in the August 2022 shooting deaths of Michele Ebeling, 53; Gene Twiford, 86; his wife, Janet Twiford, 85; and their 55-year-old daughter, Dana Twiford.
Prosecutors said during Jones’ trial that he started fires at the victims’ homes after they were killed. A day after the bodies were found, police found Jones in his wife’s house, which sits across the street from Ebeling’s home, suffering from severe burns. He was hospitalized for two months before being released and moved to prison.
Jones was not present at his trial or conviction, citing lingering effects from the burn injuries he suffered.
Jones was linked to the killings and fires through DNA and ballistics evidence, prosecutors said at trial.
The defense team for Jones did not deny that he killed the four victims, but argued during his nearly two-week-long trial that he committed the killings during an episode of mental illness he suffered.
Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty, citing several aggravating circumstances — including that Jones committed multiple killings within a short period and that at least two of the killings were carried out to keep the victims from identifying him.
Jones’ wife, 45-year-old Carrie Jones, is charged with one count of first-degree murder in connection with Gene Twiford’s death, as well as counts of tampering with physical evidence and being an accessory to a felony. She’s accused of helping her badly burned husband hide while authorities searched for him in the hours after the killings.
