Wyoming
Library director fired amid book dispute wins $700K settlement
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A former Wyoming library director who was fired amid an uproar over books with sexual content and LGBTQ+ themes that some people complained were inappropriate for youngsters and who sought their removal from youth shelves will be paid $700,000 after settling a lawsuit.
Terri Lesley was fired as the library system director in northeastern Wyoming’s Campbell County in 2023, two years into the book dispute at the library in Gillette. Lesley sued last spring over her termination and reached the settlement with county officials Wednesday.
“I do feel vindicated. It’s been a rough road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment,” Lesley said.
A major coal-mining area on the Western high plains, Campbell County is among the most conservative areas in one of the most conservative states.
Public officials there sided with the book objectors and violated Lesley’s First Amendment rights, Lesley claimed in her federal lawsuit against Campbell County, including its commission and library board.
The county denied Lesley’s claims. Only Lesley’s performance — not the dispute over the books — played a role in her dismissal, the county argued in court documents.
A private-practice attorney hired by the county for the lawsuit, Patrick Holscher, and County Attorney Nathan Henkes didn’t immediately return phone messages Wednesday seeking comment.
The books objected to in Gillette included “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “How Do You Make a Baby” by Anna Fiske, “Doing It” by Hannah Witton, “Sex is a Funny Word” by Corey Silverberg, and “Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy” by Andrew P. Smiler.
“We hope at least that it sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our values against discrimination also remain alive and strong,” said Lesley’s attorney, Iris Halpern. “These are public entities, they’re government officials, they need to keep in mind their constitutional obligations.”
Halpern and her firm, Rathod Mohamedbhai in Denver, have supported fired library employees elsewhere in recent years. Under the settlement agreement, Lesley is dropping her lawsuit, though a separate lawsuit she has filed against three individuals who contested the books will continue.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency tasked with enforcing discrimination laws, allowed the lawsuit against the county officials to be filed based on an earlier EEOC complaint filed by Lesley.
Alabama
Inmate maintains innocence ahead of execution for 1993 murder
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Family members and supporters of an Alabama inmate scheduled to be executed this month pleaded Wednesday for the state to spare his life as he maintained he did not commit the 1993 murder.
Anthony Boyd, 53, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Oct. 23. A judge sentenced Boyd to death for his role in the in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega. Prosecutors said Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him with gasoline and set him on fire over a $200 cocaine debt.
Standing in front of a billboard reading “Save Anthony Boyd,” family members and supporters held a news conference in Talladega to ask the state to halt the execution. The nonprofit Execution Intervention Project and Boyd’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, organized the event. The group is placing billboards across the state.
During the news conference, Boyd called from William C. Holman Correctional Facility and spoke via speaker phone.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing,” Boyd said. At his trial, Boyd’s lawyers maintained he was at a party that night and did not commit the murder.
A witness at the trial testified as part of a plea agreement and said that Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire. A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.
Shawn Ingram, the man prosecutors accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder and is also on Alabama’s death row.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office released a statement that Boyd’s case has been litigated for three decades and, “he has yet to provide evidence to show the jury got it wrong.”
“There was no billboard campaign to save Huguley, and Boyd showed no concern for the ethics of execution when he helped murder Huguley,” according to the statement.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas last year to carry out some executions. The method uses a gas mask to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the inmate to die from lack of oxygen.
Hood, a spiritual adviser who witnessed the first nitrogen execution and is now working with Boyd, placed a gas mask on his face similar to the one used by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Hood said the new method does not deliver the swift death that the state promised.
“What I saw was almost eight minutes of heaving back and forth,” Hood said. Boyd’s mother became emotional and fell to the ground as Hood described what happened at the first nitrogen execution.
The state has argued in court filings that the described movements were either inmates actively resisting or “involuntary movements associated with dying.”
Boyd selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method after the state authorized the method, but at the time the state did not have procedures for using it.
Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is the current chair of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.
“I want people to know that people on death row are not the monsters that the public or the justice system portrays,” he said.
New York
Judge halts county from enforcing transgender athlete ban after roller derby league sues
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities has been halted for now.
A state appeals court on Wednesday barred Nassau County from enforcing the ban while a legal challenge brought on behalf of a local women’s roller derby league plays out.
The decision comes after a lower court judge upheld the local law Monday, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on the roller derby league’s behalf, vowed to challenge the ruling.
Judge R. Bruce Cozzens had ruled the county ban was “narrowly tailored” and “does not categorically exclude transgender individuals from athletic participation” as they can still play in coed sports leagues.
But the state appellate division, in its decision, said that making the women’s roller derby league become coed would “change the identity of the league,” jeopardizing not just its status with the sport’s governing body but also its ability to grow its membership and find teams to compete against.
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena, president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, said players were “thrilled” the higher court saw through Nassau County’s “transphobic and cruel ban.”
Gabriella Larios, an attorney with the NYCLU, said the ruling “made it crystal clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s antidiscrimination laws.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman had proposed the ban as a way to protect girls and women from getting injured while competing against transgender women. It would have affected more than 100 sports facilities in the county on Long Island next to New York City.
The Republican, in an emailed statement, said the county will “continue to protect the integrity and safety of women’s sports.” A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to follow-up questions about whether it would comply with the judge’s order.
Blakeman first imposed the ban through an executive order, but it was struck down after a lawsuit from the roller derby league and the NYCLU. The county’s Republican-controlled Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, setting off another round of litigation.
North Dakota
Judge upholds state’s ban on gender-affirming care for kids
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota judge has upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for children, in a blow to families who have had to travel out of state to obtain the medical treatments they said are crucial for their kids’ well-being.
District Judge Jackson Lofgren’s said in his decision Wednesday that the law discriminates based on age and medical purpose, not sex, and that there’s little evidence the Legislature passed the law for “an invidious discriminatory purpose.” He also noted various concerns and ongoing debates over the medical treatments involved.
“The evidence presented at trial establishes there is a legitimate concern regarding the capacity of minors to understand and appreciate the long-term consequences of the practices prohibited by the Health Care Law,” the judge wrote, adding that he doesn’t believe the law violates the state constitution.
The ruling means parents who decided to seek gender-affirming medical care for their children after the state’s ban took effect in April 2023 will need to do so out of state.
“This ruling is devastating for transgender youth and their families in North Dakota. The evidence in this case was overwhelming: this law inflicts real harm, strips families of their constitutional rights, and denies young people the medical care they need to thrive,” Jess Braverman, the legal director for the gender equity nonprofit Gender Justice, which represented the plaintiff, said in a statement.
Republican state Rep. Bill Tveit, who introduced the legislation, said he is pleased with the ruling.
“It’s a law that needs to be there. We need to protect our youth, and that’s what the whole goal of this thing was from the beginning,” Tveit said.
The lawsuit was brought by several affected families and a pediatric endocrinologist, but the judge dismissed some of their claims and left only the physician as a plaintiff.
About half of U.S. states, nearly all of which have fully Republican-led governments, have banned gender-affirming care for minors. North Dakota’s law makes it a misdemeanor for a health care provider to prescribe or give hormone treatments or puberty blockers to a transgender child. It also makes it a felony to perform gender-affirming surgery on a minor.
The law’s backers said it would protect children from what they said are irreversible effects of treatments and surgeries, though such surgeries were never available in the state. Opponents said the law harms transgender children by denying them crucial medical care.
Although the law exempts children who were already receiving treatments before North Dakota’s ban took effect, attorneys for the families who sued said providers held off because they perceived the law as vague and didn’t want to risk it. That led the families to miss work and school so they could travel to Minnesota for treatment.
The judge later said those kids can receive any medical care they were receiving before the law took effect, though that decision wasn’t enough of a final ruling to satisfy attorneys for health care organizations. His Wednesday ruling granted a request that those kids’ treatments continue, citing the law and his previous findings.
At least two pediatric endocrinologists were providing gender-affirming care in North Dakota before the ban.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states can ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care.
Library director fired amid book dispute wins $700K settlement
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A former Wyoming library director who was fired amid an uproar over books with sexual content and LGBTQ+ themes that some people complained were inappropriate for youngsters and who sought their removal from youth shelves will be paid $700,000 after settling a lawsuit.
Terri Lesley was fired as the library system director in northeastern Wyoming’s Campbell County in 2023, two years into the book dispute at the library in Gillette. Lesley sued last spring over her termination and reached the settlement with county officials Wednesday.
“I do feel vindicated. It’s been a rough road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment,” Lesley said.
A major coal-mining area on the Western high plains, Campbell County is among the most conservative areas in one of the most conservative states.
Public officials there sided with the book objectors and violated Lesley’s First Amendment rights, Lesley claimed in her federal lawsuit against Campbell County, including its commission and library board.
The county denied Lesley’s claims. Only Lesley’s performance — not the dispute over the books — played a role in her dismissal, the county argued in court documents.
A private-practice attorney hired by the county for the lawsuit, Patrick Holscher, and County Attorney Nathan Henkes didn’t immediately return phone messages Wednesday seeking comment.
The books objected to in Gillette included “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “How Do You Make a Baby” by Anna Fiske, “Doing It” by Hannah Witton, “Sex is a Funny Word” by Corey Silverberg, and “Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy” by Andrew P. Smiler.
“We hope at least that it sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our values against discrimination also remain alive and strong,” said Lesley’s attorney, Iris Halpern. “These are public entities, they’re government officials, they need to keep in mind their constitutional obligations.”
Halpern and her firm, Rathod Mohamedbhai in Denver, have supported fired library employees elsewhere in recent years. Under the settlement agreement, Lesley is dropping her lawsuit, though a separate lawsuit she has filed against three individuals who contested the books will continue.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency tasked with enforcing discrimination laws, allowed the lawsuit against the county officials to be filed based on an earlier EEOC complaint filed by Lesley.
Alabama
Inmate maintains innocence ahead of execution for 1993 murder
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Family members and supporters of an Alabama inmate scheduled to be executed this month pleaded Wednesday for the state to spare his life as he maintained he did not commit the 1993 murder.
Anthony Boyd, 53, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Oct. 23. A judge sentenced Boyd to death for his role in the in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega. Prosecutors said Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him with gasoline and set him on fire over a $200 cocaine debt.
Standing in front of a billboard reading “Save Anthony Boyd,” family members and supporters held a news conference in Talladega to ask the state to halt the execution. The nonprofit Execution Intervention Project and Boyd’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, organized the event. The group is placing billboards across the state.
During the news conference, Boyd called from William C. Holman Correctional Facility and spoke via speaker phone.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing,” Boyd said. At his trial, Boyd’s lawyers maintained he was at a party that night and did not commit the murder.
A witness at the trial testified as part of a plea agreement and said that Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire. A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.
Shawn Ingram, the man prosecutors accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder and is also on Alabama’s death row.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office released a statement that Boyd’s case has been litigated for three decades and, “he has yet to provide evidence to show the jury got it wrong.”
“There was no billboard campaign to save Huguley, and Boyd showed no concern for the ethics of execution when he helped murder Huguley,” according to the statement.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas last year to carry out some executions. The method uses a gas mask to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the inmate to die from lack of oxygen.
Hood, a spiritual adviser who witnessed the first nitrogen execution and is now working with Boyd, placed a gas mask on his face similar to the one used by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Hood said the new method does not deliver the swift death that the state promised.
“What I saw was almost eight minutes of heaving back and forth,” Hood said. Boyd’s mother became emotional and fell to the ground as Hood described what happened at the first nitrogen execution.
The state has argued in court filings that the described movements were either inmates actively resisting or “involuntary movements associated with dying.”
Boyd selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method after the state authorized the method, but at the time the state did not have procedures for using it.
Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is the current chair of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.
“I want people to know that people on death row are not the monsters that the public or the justice system portrays,” he said.
New York
Judge halts county from enforcing transgender athlete ban after roller derby league sues
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities has been halted for now.
A state appeals court on Wednesday barred Nassau County from enforcing the ban while a legal challenge brought on behalf of a local women’s roller derby league plays out.
The decision comes after a lower court judge upheld the local law Monday, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on the roller derby league’s behalf, vowed to challenge the ruling.
Judge R. Bruce Cozzens had ruled the county ban was “narrowly tailored” and “does not categorically exclude transgender individuals from athletic participation” as they can still play in coed sports leagues.
But the state appellate division, in its decision, said that making the women’s roller derby league become coed would “change the identity of the league,” jeopardizing not just its status with the sport’s governing body but also its ability to grow its membership and find teams to compete against.
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena, president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, said players were “thrilled” the higher court saw through Nassau County’s “transphobic and cruel ban.”
Gabriella Larios, an attorney with the NYCLU, said the ruling “made it crystal clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s antidiscrimination laws.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman had proposed the ban as a way to protect girls and women from getting injured while competing against transgender women. It would have affected more than 100 sports facilities in the county on Long Island next to New York City.
The Republican, in an emailed statement, said the county will “continue to protect the integrity and safety of women’s sports.” A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to follow-up questions about whether it would comply with the judge’s order.
Blakeman first imposed the ban through an executive order, but it was struck down after a lawsuit from the roller derby league and the NYCLU. The county’s Republican-controlled Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, setting off another round of litigation.
North Dakota
Judge upholds state’s ban on gender-affirming care for kids
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota judge has upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for children, in a blow to families who have had to travel out of state to obtain the medical treatments they said are crucial for their kids’ well-being.
District Judge Jackson Lofgren’s said in his decision Wednesday that the law discriminates based on age and medical purpose, not sex, and that there’s little evidence the Legislature passed the law for “an invidious discriminatory purpose.” He also noted various concerns and ongoing debates over the medical treatments involved.
“The evidence presented at trial establishes there is a legitimate concern regarding the capacity of minors to understand and appreciate the long-term consequences of the practices prohibited by the Health Care Law,” the judge wrote, adding that he doesn’t believe the law violates the state constitution.
The ruling means parents who decided to seek gender-affirming medical care for their children after the state’s ban took effect in April 2023 will need to do so out of state.
“This ruling is devastating for transgender youth and their families in North Dakota. The evidence in this case was overwhelming: this law inflicts real harm, strips families of their constitutional rights, and denies young people the medical care they need to thrive,” Jess Braverman, the legal director for the gender equity nonprofit Gender Justice, which represented the plaintiff, said in a statement.
Republican state Rep. Bill Tveit, who introduced the legislation, said he is pleased with the ruling.
“It’s a law that needs to be there. We need to protect our youth, and that’s what the whole goal of this thing was from the beginning,” Tveit said.
The lawsuit was brought by several affected families and a pediatric endocrinologist, but the judge dismissed some of their claims and left only the physician as a plaintiff.
About half of U.S. states, nearly all of which have fully Republican-led governments, have banned gender-affirming care for minors. North Dakota’s law makes it a misdemeanor for a health care provider to prescribe or give hormone treatments or puberty blockers to a transgender child. It also makes it a felony to perform gender-affirming surgery on a minor.
The law’s backers said it would protect children from what they said are irreversible effects of treatments and surgeries, though such surgeries were never available in the state. Opponents said the law harms transgender children by denying them crucial medical care.
Although the law exempts children who were already receiving treatments before North Dakota’s ban took effect, attorneys for the families who sued said providers held off because they perceived the law as vague and didn’t want to risk it. That led the families to miss work and school so they could travel to Minnesota for treatment.
The judge later said those kids can receive any medical care they were receiving before the law took effect, though that decision wasn’t enough of a final ruling to satisfy attorneys for health care organizations. His Wednesday ruling granted a request that those kids’ treatments continue, citing the law and his previous findings.
At least two pediatric endocrinologists were providing gender-affirming care in North Dakota before the ban.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states can ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care.
