Arkansas
Widow of Little Rock airport director killed in raid sues ATF over husband’s death
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The widow of an Arkansas airport director who was killed during a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raid on his home last year sued the agency and several officials, claiming the agency and officers acted recklessly and negligently.
Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport Executive Director Bryan Malinowski died days after he was shot when ATF agents were executing a warrant March 19, 2024, at his home in Little Rock. The ATF said Malinowski shot at agents, striking and injuring one, after which agents returned fire.
An affidavit released after the shooting said the warrant was related to accusations that Malinowski bought over 150 guns between May 2021 and February 2024 and that he resold many without a dealer’s license.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Little Rock, Maria “Maer” Malinowski accused the ATF and 10 agents and task force officers of violating hers and her husband’s constitutional rights. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and requested a jury trial.
“The Constitution requires reasonableness and, specifically here, that defendants both knock and announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before entry,” the lawsuit said. “The ATF failed to do so, resulting in an entirely predictable, needless and tragic outcome.”
The ATF said it does not comment on ongoing legislation.
A local prosecutor last year said an ATF agent was justified in fatally shooting Bryan Malinowski. Malinowski’s death prompted criticism from some Republican lawmakers in Arkansas who have called for more information from the ATF.
Malinowski was a lifelong gun collector who would attend shows on weekends where he would buy, sell and trade with others, the lawsuit said. He did not know he was under investigation and reasonably believed the agents entering his home were intruders because they didn’t knock and give him adequate time to come to the door, the complaint said.
“Today’s lawsuit seeks justice for the nightmare I’ve been living for the last 14 months,” Maria Malinowski said in a news release.
Florida
Court strikes down law letting minors get an abortion without parents’ consent
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that a state law that allows minors to get an abortion without their parents’ consent is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth District Court of Appeal found that the state’s judicial waiver law violates parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process, citing the state’s parental rights laws, a recent ruling by the Florida Supreme Court and the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away federal abortion rights.
“Whatever asserted constitutional abortion rights may have justified Florida’s judicial-waiver regime in the past unequivocally have been repudiated by both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court,” reads the appeals court opinion penned by Judge Jordan Pratt and joined by Judges John MacIver and Brian Lambert.
For years, anti-abortion activists and Republican state lawmakers have worked to unravel minors’ rights to petition a judge to access the procedure in Florida, which bans most abortions after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant.
The appeals panel flagged the case as “a question of great public importance” for the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in 2024 that a privacy clause in the Florida Constitution does not guarantee a right to an abortion.
The three-judge panel sided with arguments made by state Attorney General James Uthmeier and ruled against a 17-year-old girl who is nearly six weeks pregnant and seeking an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her father.
The appeals court affirmed a lower court ruling that the girl, who is only identified as Jane Doe, lacks the “requisite maturity” to make the decision without a parent or legal guardian involved.
The opinion said the decision was based on her lack of “emotional development and stability, her credibility and demeanor as a witness, her ability to accept responsibility, and her ability to assess the immediate and long-range consequences of her choices.”
South Carolina
Man convicted of murdering two people gets June execution date
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who was twice sentenced to die for killing two people nearly two decades ago was scheduled Friday to be executed on June 13.
The state Supreme Court issued the death warrant against Stephen Stanko for the Horry County shooting death of a friend. Stanko is also on death row for killing a women he was living with in Georgetown County and raping her teenage daughter.
Stanko is the first person whose death has been scheduled in South Carolina’s since Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad on April 11. Mahdi’s lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
Stanko will get to decide if he dies by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. The deadline for his decision is May 30.
Stanko, 57, is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner’s home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying and then shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said.
Stanko stole Turner’s truck, cleaned out his bank account and then spent the next few days in Augusta, Georgia, where he told people in town for the Masters golf tournament that he owned several Hooters restaurants.
He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She then called police once she saw his photo and that he was wanted for murder, police said.
Hours before killing Turner, Stanko beat and strangled his girlfriend in her home and raped her daughter before slashing the teen’s throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at one of his trials.
Greg Hembree, who prosecuted one of the trials, later became a state senator and was the chief sponsor of the 2021 law that allowed South Carolina to use a firing squad.
Stanko admitted to the killings. His defense said he had problems with the frontal lobe of his brain that left him aggressive, unable to control his impulses and without empathy. They argued that he was either not guilty by reason of insanity or that he at least shouldn’t get the death penalty because of his mental illness.
In his appeals, Stanko said his trial attorney ruined his chance at a fair trial and lost any sympathy with jurors by calling him a “psychopath.”
Any final appeals by Stanko in the weeks before his execution will likely include the problems Mahdi’s lawyers raised after his firing squad death.
The only photo of Mahdi taken at his autopsy shows two apparent chest wounds. Officials said all three bullets fired by the three volunteer prison employees hit Mahdi, with two going through the same hole.
During the state’s first firing squad death, the autopsy found that Brad Sigmon’s heart had been destroyed. Just one of the four chambers of Mahdi’s heart was perforated, which likely meant he didn’t die in the 15 seconds experts predicted he would have if the squad’s aim was true, according to his lawyers.
Witnesses said Mahdi, who had a hood over his head, groaned 45 seconds after he was shot.
Stanko will be the sixth inmate killed in South Carolina since an unintended 13-year pause on executions ended in September 2024.
The state struggled for years to get the drugs needed for lethal injections until it passed a shield law that allowed the execution procedures, and the names of the drug supplier and execution team members, to remain secret.
Three South Carolina inmates have died by lethal injection over the past eight months, while two have chosen the firing squad.
Across the U.S., 16 executions have taken place in 2025, with at least six more scheduled before Stanko is set to die.
Washington
Family of Black man fatally shot by sheriff’s deputy settles lawsuit for $3.5 million
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Family members of a Black motorist fatally shot by a deputy in southwestern Washington state during a traffic stop have settled their wrongful death lawsuit for $3.5 million.
The Clark County Council agreed Wednesday to make the payment in the 2021 death of 30-year-old Jenoah Donald, The Columbian reported.
Donald lived in the city of Battle Ground, Washington, and died Feb. 12, eight days after he was shot in the head by Sean Boyle, a deputy with the Clark Sounty Sheriff’s Office.
The family filed the federal lawsuit in 2022 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma alleging wrongful death, assault and battery, negligence and deprivation of civil rights. Trial was set to start June 9.
Attorneys for the Donald family said in a statement that the settlement provides accountability and closure.
“This outcome honors Jenoah Donald’s life and underscores a simple truth: When officers ignore their training and resort to needless lethal force, they will be held accountable,” attorney Angus Lee said in the statement.
The county “continues to deny liability for this unfortunate incident,” county spokeswoman Joni McAnally told the newspaper.
Prosecuting attorneys from outside Clark County examined the shooting and found it was justified in protecting the deputies.
Deputies that night responded to a call about two cars suspiciously driving around a neighborhood and pulled over Donald’s car for what they described as a faulty rear light.
Lawyers for Donald’s family argued in the lawsuit that was an unlawful stop, citing a 1999 Washington Supreme Court case that found it is unconstitutional for police to use a traffic stop as an excuse to investigate suspected criminal activity.
The family’s attorneys said Donald was cooperative initially. The situation escalated after another deputy, Holly Troupe, said she saw a sharp object inside Donald’s vehicle, which investigators later said was a screwdriver.
A struggle ensued as Boyle and Troupe tried to pull Donald out of the car, an outside investigation showed. Boyle fired twice when Donald ignored commands to let him go as the car lurched forward with the deputy partially inside, according to investigators. One bullet hit and killed Donald.
Donald was on the autism spectrum and prone to withdrawal in stressful situations, his lawyers have said.
Donald was the second Black man killed by deputies in four months. On Oct. 29, a law enforcement task force attempted a drug sting involving 21-year-old Kevin Peterson Jr. It ended with three deputies firing at Peterson as he ran away while carrying a gun.
Peterson’s family, represented by the same attorneys, sued the county in 2022.
The county later agreed to pay his family $1.25 million to settle the lawsuit. That shooting also was deemed justified by prosecutors.
Widow of Little Rock airport director killed in raid sues ATF over husband’s death
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The widow of an Arkansas airport director who was killed during a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raid on his home last year sued the agency and several officials, claiming the agency and officers acted recklessly and negligently.
Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport Executive Director Bryan Malinowski died days after he was shot when ATF agents were executing a warrant March 19, 2024, at his home in Little Rock. The ATF said Malinowski shot at agents, striking and injuring one, after which agents returned fire.
An affidavit released after the shooting said the warrant was related to accusations that Malinowski bought over 150 guns between May 2021 and February 2024 and that he resold many without a dealer’s license.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Little Rock, Maria “Maer” Malinowski accused the ATF and 10 agents and task force officers of violating hers and her husband’s constitutional rights. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and requested a jury trial.
“The Constitution requires reasonableness and, specifically here, that defendants both knock and announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before entry,” the lawsuit said. “The ATF failed to do so, resulting in an entirely predictable, needless and tragic outcome.”
The ATF said it does not comment on ongoing legislation.
A local prosecutor last year said an ATF agent was justified in fatally shooting Bryan Malinowski. Malinowski’s death prompted criticism from some Republican lawmakers in Arkansas who have called for more information from the ATF.
Malinowski was a lifelong gun collector who would attend shows on weekends where he would buy, sell and trade with others, the lawsuit said. He did not know he was under investigation and reasonably believed the agents entering his home were intruders because they didn’t knock and give him adequate time to come to the door, the complaint said.
“Today’s lawsuit seeks justice for the nightmare I’ve been living for the last 14 months,” Maria Malinowski said in a news release.
Florida
Court strikes down law letting minors get an abortion without parents’ consent
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that a state law that allows minors to get an abortion without their parents’ consent is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth District Court of Appeal found that the state’s judicial waiver law violates parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process, citing the state’s parental rights laws, a recent ruling by the Florida Supreme Court and the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stripped away federal abortion rights.
“Whatever asserted constitutional abortion rights may have justified Florida’s judicial-waiver regime in the past unequivocally have been repudiated by both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court,” reads the appeals court opinion penned by Judge Jordan Pratt and joined by Judges John MacIver and Brian Lambert.
For years, anti-abortion activists and Republican state lawmakers have worked to unravel minors’ rights to petition a judge to access the procedure in Florida, which bans most abortions after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant.
The appeals panel flagged the case as “a question of great public importance” for the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in 2024 that a privacy clause in the Florida Constitution does not guarantee a right to an abortion.
The three-judge panel sided with arguments made by state Attorney General James Uthmeier and ruled against a 17-year-old girl who is nearly six weeks pregnant and seeking an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her father.
The appeals court affirmed a lower court ruling that the girl, who is only identified as Jane Doe, lacks the “requisite maturity” to make the decision without a parent or legal guardian involved.
The opinion said the decision was based on her lack of “emotional development and stability, her credibility and demeanor as a witness, her ability to accept responsibility, and her ability to assess the immediate and long-range consequences of her choices.”
South Carolina
Man convicted of murdering two people gets June execution date
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who was twice sentenced to die for killing two people nearly two decades ago was scheduled Friday to be executed on June 13.
The state Supreme Court issued the death warrant against Stephen Stanko for the Horry County shooting death of a friend. Stanko is also on death row for killing a women he was living with in Georgetown County and raping her teenage daughter.
Stanko is the first person whose death has been scheduled in South Carolina’s since Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad on April 11. Mahdi’s lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
Stanko will get to decide if he dies by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. The deadline for his decision is May 30.
Stanko, 57, is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner’s home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying and then shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said.
Stanko stole Turner’s truck, cleaned out his bank account and then spent the next few days in Augusta, Georgia, where he told people in town for the Masters golf tournament that he owned several Hooters restaurants.
He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She then called police once she saw his photo and that he was wanted for murder, police said.
Hours before killing Turner, Stanko beat and strangled his girlfriend in her home and raped her daughter before slashing the teen’s throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at one of his trials.
Greg Hembree, who prosecuted one of the trials, later became a state senator and was the chief sponsor of the 2021 law that allowed South Carolina to use a firing squad.
Stanko admitted to the killings. His defense said he had problems with the frontal lobe of his brain that left him aggressive, unable to control his impulses and without empathy. They argued that he was either not guilty by reason of insanity or that he at least shouldn’t get the death penalty because of his mental illness.
In his appeals, Stanko said his trial attorney ruined his chance at a fair trial and lost any sympathy with jurors by calling him a “psychopath.”
Any final appeals by Stanko in the weeks before his execution will likely include the problems Mahdi’s lawyers raised after his firing squad death.
The only photo of Mahdi taken at his autopsy shows two apparent chest wounds. Officials said all three bullets fired by the three volunteer prison employees hit Mahdi, with two going through the same hole.
During the state’s first firing squad death, the autopsy found that Brad Sigmon’s heart had been destroyed. Just one of the four chambers of Mahdi’s heart was perforated, which likely meant he didn’t die in the 15 seconds experts predicted he would have if the squad’s aim was true, according to his lawyers.
Witnesses said Mahdi, who had a hood over his head, groaned 45 seconds after he was shot.
Stanko will be the sixth inmate killed in South Carolina since an unintended 13-year pause on executions ended in September 2024.
The state struggled for years to get the drugs needed for lethal injections until it passed a shield law that allowed the execution procedures, and the names of the drug supplier and execution team members, to remain secret.
Three South Carolina inmates have died by lethal injection over the past eight months, while two have chosen the firing squad.
Across the U.S., 16 executions have taken place in 2025, with at least six more scheduled before Stanko is set to die.
Washington
Family of Black man fatally shot by sheriff’s deputy settles lawsuit for $3.5 million
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Family members of a Black motorist fatally shot by a deputy in southwestern Washington state during a traffic stop have settled their wrongful death lawsuit for $3.5 million.
The Clark County Council agreed Wednesday to make the payment in the 2021 death of 30-year-old Jenoah Donald, The Columbian reported.
Donald lived in the city of Battle Ground, Washington, and died Feb. 12, eight days after he was shot in the head by Sean Boyle, a deputy with the Clark Sounty Sheriff’s Office.
The family filed the federal lawsuit in 2022 in U.S. District Court in Tacoma alleging wrongful death, assault and battery, negligence and deprivation of civil rights. Trial was set to start June 9.
Attorneys for the Donald family said in a statement that the settlement provides accountability and closure.
“This outcome honors Jenoah Donald’s life and underscores a simple truth: When officers ignore their training and resort to needless lethal force, they will be held accountable,” attorney Angus Lee said in the statement.
The county “continues to deny liability for this unfortunate incident,” county spokeswoman Joni McAnally told the newspaper.
Prosecuting attorneys from outside Clark County examined the shooting and found it was justified in protecting the deputies.
Deputies that night responded to a call about two cars suspiciously driving around a neighborhood and pulled over Donald’s car for what they described as a faulty rear light.
Lawyers for Donald’s family argued in the lawsuit that was an unlawful stop, citing a 1999 Washington Supreme Court case that found it is unconstitutional for police to use a traffic stop as an excuse to investigate suspected criminal activity.
The family’s attorneys said Donald was cooperative initially. The situation escalated after another deputy, Holly Troupe, said she saw a sharp object inside Donald’s vehicle, which investigators later said was a screwdriver.
A struggle ensued as Boyle and Troupe tried to pull Donald out of the car, an outside investigation showed. Boyle fired twice when Donald ignored commands to let him go as the car lurched forward with the deputy partially inside, according to investigators. One bullet hit and killed Donald.
Donald was on the autism spectrum and prone to withdrawal in stressful situations, his lawyers have said.
Donald was the second Black man killed by deputies in four months. On Oct. 29, a law enforcement task force attempted a drug sting involving 21-year-old Kevin Peterson Jr. It ended with three deputies firing at Peterson as he ran away while carrying a gun.
Peterson’s family, represented by the same attorneys, sued the county in 2022.
The county later agreed to pay his family $1.25 million to settle the lawsuit. That shooting also was deemed justified by prosecutors.
