Alabama man's execution was botched, advocacy group alleges

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama corrections officials apparently botched an inmate's execution last month, an anti-death penalty group alleges, citing the length of time that passed before the prisoner received the lethal injection and a private autopsy indicating his arm may have been cut to find a vein.

Joe Nathan James Jr. was put to death July 28 at an Alabama prison for the 1994 shooting death of his former girlfriend. The execution was carried out more than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for a stay.

“Subjecting a prisoner to three hours of pain and suffering is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment,” Maya Foa, director of Reprieve US Forensic Justice Initiative, a human rights group that opposes the death penalty, said in a statement. “States cannot continue to pretend that the abhorrent practice of lethal injection is in any way humane.”

The Alabama Department of Forensic Science declined a request to release the state's autopsy of James, citing an ongoing review that happens after every execution. Officials have not responded to requests for comment on the private autopsy, which was first reported by The Atlantic.

At the time of the execution, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters that “nothing out of the ordinary” happened. Hamm said he wasn't aware of the prisoner fighting or resisting officers. The state later acknowledged that the execution was delayed because of difficulties establishing an intravenous line, but did not specify how long it took.

Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University and an expert on lethal injection who witnessed the private autopsy, said it looked like there were numerous attempts to connect a line.

Zivot said he saw “multiple puncture sites on both arms” and two perpendicular incisions, each about 3 to 4 centimeters (1 to 1.5 inches) in length, in the middle of the arm, which he said indicated that officials had attempted to perform a “cutdown,” a procedure in which the skin is opened to allow a visual search for a vein. He said the cutdown is an old-style medical intervention rarely performed in modern medical settings, and that it would be painful without anesthesia. He also said he saw evidence of intramuscular injections not in the vicinity of a vein.

The Alabama Department of Corrections prison system issued a written statement in which it noted that “protocol states that if the veins are such that intravenous access cannot be provided, the team will perform a central line procedure,” which involves placing a catheter in a large vein. “Fortunately, this was not necessary and with adequate time, intravenous access was established,” the statement said.

Alabama does not allow witnesses from news outlets to watch the preparations for a lethal injection. They get their first glimpse of the execution chamber when an inmate is already strapped to the gurney with the IV line connected.

A reporter for The Associated Press who attended the execution observed that James did not respond when the warden asked if he had final words. His eyes remained closed except for briefly fluttering at one point early in the procedure.

Lawyers who spoke with James by telephone said they were disturbed by his reported lack of movements and raised questions about what happened before the lethal injection. Hamm said James was not sedated.

“That wasn’t the Joe that I knew. He always had something to say. He always wanted to be in control," said James Ranson, the attorney who helped James file his appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. "The fact that he did not give any sort of reaction ... and that he didn’t open his eyes, tells me something was up,” Ranson said.

John Palombi, a federal defender who spoke with James twice on the day of his execution, said James, “was certainly alert" earlier in the day.

The Atlantic quoted a friend of James as saying that the inmate had planned to make a final statement.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit organization that analyzes issues concerning capital punishment, said the delay between the Supreme Court’s go-ahead and the execution, combined with the autopsy, points to a "botched execution, and it is among the worst botches in the modern history of the U.S. death penalty.”

“This execution is Exhibit A as to why execution secrecy laws are intolerable," Dunham wrote in an email to the AP. “The public is entitled to know what went on here — and what goes on in all Alabama executions — from the instant the execution team begins the process of physically preparing the prisoner for the lethal injection until the moment the prisoner dies.”

#Alabama #mans #execution #botched #advocacy #group #alleges https://www.globalcourant.com/alabama-mans-execution-was-botched-advocacy-group-alleges/?feed_id=17673&_unique_id=630da21d0580d

Woman arrested after racist rant, assault in restaurant lot

PLANO, Texas -- A woman has been arrested and faces a possible hate crime charge after she was captured on video in a racist rant and assault on women of South Asian descent in a suburban Dallas parking lot, officials said Thursday.

Plano police said in a statement Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and terroristic threat charges. She remained in city jail Thursday with bond set at $10,000.

The statement said the incident also was being investigated as a hate crime. Jail officials had no attorney listed for Upton.

The incident happened shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday outside a Plano restaurant. A widely-circulated video recorded by the women of Indian descent showed Upton unleashing a profanity-laced rant on them, challenging their presence in the United States, threatening to shoot them and physically assaulting the woman shooting the video.

It was unclear from the video what, if anything, triggered the rant and assault.

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Psychologist: School shooter didn't get consistent treatment

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A psychologist who treated Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz when he was 8 years old testified Wednesday that Cruz was a “peculiar child” who had many behavioral and developmental issues but his widowed mother seemed overwhelmed and wasn’t consistent in her discipline or in getting him treatment.

Frederick Kravitz said he began treating Cruz in 2007 on a referral from Cruz's psychiatrist with Lynda Cruz telling him her adopted son suffered from anxiety and nervousness and had trouble controlling his temper. But she also said he was friendly and got along fine with his peers — claims that a neighbor, preschool teachers and an elementary school special education counselor have testified were not true.

Kravitz said that while he suggested weekly sessions for Cruz, his mother only brought him 15 times over a 13-month span, a decade before he murdered 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.

He said that was a major issue — Lynda Cruz would agree that her son needed more consistent treatment and she needed to be more consistent in her discipline of him and his younger half-brother, Zachary, but did not follow through. She was 57, depressed from her husband's sudden 2003 death and dealing with two “tumultuous” young children, he said.

They would yell, throw tantrums and break furnishings, he said.

“They raised it to an art form," Kravitz said. “Nikolas was easily set off and Zachary seemed to derive some pleasure from pushing Nikolas’ buttons.”

That would set off their mother, something both boys seemed to enjoy.

“She lost her cool frequently and backed down to the boys frequently, which only made the problems worse," he said. He said he tried to work with her, but she felt embarrassed by her sons' behavior and felt people were judging her.

Cruz's attorneys are in Day 3 of their defense, hoping to persuade his jury to sentence him to life without parole instead of death. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder and the trial, which began July 18, is only to determine his sentence.

The defense is trying to overcome the prosecution’s case, which featured surveillance video of Cruz, then 19, mowing down students and staff with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle as he stalked a three-story building for seven minutes, photos of the aftermath and a jury visit to the building.

For Cruz to receive a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous. If one juror votes for life, that will be his sentence.

The defense has focused on the mental and emotional problems Cruz exhibited from his earliest days. Testimony has shown that his birth mother was a street prostitute who abused cocaine and alcohol and as a toddler he was developmentally delayed, often violent towards other children and teased and bullied for his small stature, unusual appearance and odd behavior. When he was 8, he acted like a 6-year-old, at best, Kravitz said.

“He stood out like a sore thumb," he said.

Steven Schusler, who lived across the street from the Cruzes from 2009 to 2015, said that when Nikolas Cruz was 10, his landlord called Cruz “the weird one” to his face, causing the boy “to curl up” like a salted snail. He once saw Cruz running around the house with an air gun, his limbs flailing wildly — a move he demonstrated for the jury.

Kravitz said Cruz had a fear of abandonment because of his father's death and his adoption and had an active “bad imagination.”

“He was extremely fearful his mother would forget to pick him up (at school) and he would be stuck there,” Kravitz said, even though that never happened.

He said Cruz had some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder — for example, he always had to have exactly eight chicken nuggets.

He said he asked Cruz what his three wishes would be.

“Pokemon, a dog and more Pokemon,” Kravitz said.

Lynda Cruz died in November 2017, about four months before the shooting.

Under cross-examination, Kravitz conceded that Cruz's mother did get him further psychiatric and psychological treatment and might have been reluctant to keep her son's appointments with him because of the $87 per visit copay her insurance required.

Prosecutor Jeff Marcus asked Kravitz is there was anything about Cruz when he was 8 that would have indicated he would eventually commit mass murder. He said no.

“I've worked with some other very damaged kids and certainly to the best of my knowledge none of them have ever acted out like this,” Kravitz said.

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Closing arguments next in trial of 2 men in Whitmer plot

Jurors will hear closing arguments Monday in the retrial of two men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.

Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. declined to testify Friday as defense lawyers rested their case in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The government has portrayed Fox and Croft as leaders of a wild plan to snatch Whitmer at her vacation home in Elk Rapids, Michigan, and trigger chaos across the U.S.

Fox, Croft and their allies were furious about COVID-19 restrictions and generally disgusted by government, prosecutors say.

Defense lawyers, however, say Fox and Croft were a bumbling, foul-mouthed, marijuana-smoking pair exercising free speech and incapable of leading anything as extraordinary as an abduction of a public official. They say FBI agents and informants fed their outrage and pulled them into their web.

“It has FBI fingerprints all over it,” Christopher Gibbons said.

The jury heard secretly recorded conversations and read violent social media posts, some written before the FBI got involved. Two undercover agents and an informant testified for hours, explaining how the men trained in Wisconsin and Michigan and visited Elk Rapids to see Whitmer's home.

Other witnesses included Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty and insisted the group was not entrapped.

Fox and Croft are on trial for a second time after a jury in April couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict but acquitted two other men.

Croft, 46, is from Bear, Delaware. Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a vacuum shop in the Grand Rapids area.

Whitmer, a Democrat, has blamed then-President Donald Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn hate groups and right-wing extremists like those charged in the plot.

She said Sunday that she hasn't been following the retrial, but that she remains concerned about “violent rhetoric in this country.”

"This is a dangerous trend that is happening. We cannot let it become normalized and I do hope that anyone that’s out there plotting to hurt their fellow Americans is held accountable,” Whitmer said at the Michigan Democratic Party's convention in Lansing.

Trump recently called the kidnapping plan a “fake deal.”

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Find the AP’s full coverage of the kidnapping plot trial: https://apnews.com/hub/whitmer-kidnap-plot-trial

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez

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Texas man accused of threatening conservative convention

SAN ANTONIO -- A Texas man remained jailed Sunday authorities accused him of making threats against a convention of young conservative activists held last month in Florida.

Alejandro Richard Velasquez Gomez, 19, of San Antonio, was arrested earlier this month after FBI agents alleged he posted threats on social media to carry out a mass attack on the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit convention.

The event was held from July 22 through July 24 in Tampa. Turning Point is a Donald Trump-aligned group that organizes young people on college campuses into conservative activism.

FBI agents allege Velasquez posted on Instagram that the first day of the convention would be “the day of retribution the day I will have revenge against all of humanity,” according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Antonio.

Velasquez had bought a plane ticket to fly from Austin to Tampa on July 22 but canceled the ticket the night before his flight, FBI agents said.

According to the complaint, agents said they believed Velasquez had planned an attack similar to a violent rampage in 2014 in which Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six students and wounded more than a dozen others near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before killing himself.

The complaint did not clarify why the event was allegedly targeted, but Tampa police took the threat seriously and obtained an arrest warrant.

Velasquez was arrested in San Antonio and charged with making threatening interstate communications. He was also charged with possession of child pornography for images allegedly found on his phone.

An attorney for Velasquez didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment Sunday.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/texas-man-accused-of-threatening-conservative-convention/?feed_id=13947&_unique_id=63029946da7db

Nicaraguan police detain bishop, other priests in raid

MEXICO CITY -- Nicaraguan police on Friday raided the residence of a Roman Catholic bishop critical of President Daniel Ortega’s administration, detaining him and several other priests in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the church and a government increasingly intolerant of dissent.

The pre-dawn raid came after Nicaraguan authorities had accused Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Álvarez of “organizing violent groups” and inciting them “to carry out acts of hate against the population.”

President Daniel Ortega’s government has moved systematically against voices of dissent, arresting dozens of opposition leaders last year, including seven potential candidates to challenge him for the presidency. They were sentenced to prison this year in quick trials closed to the public.

The congress, dominated by Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front, has ordered the closure of more than 1,000 nongovernmental organizations, including Mother Teresa’s charity.

Early Friday, the Matagalpa diocese posted on social media, “#SOS #Urgente. At this time the National Police have entered the Episcopal rectory of our Matagalpa diocese.”

The National Police confirmed the detentions in a statement later, saying that the operation was carried out to allow “the citizenry and families of Matagalpa to recover normalcy.”

“For several days a positive communication from the Matagalpa diocese was awaited with a lot of patience, prudence and sense of responsibility, that never materialized,” the statement said. “With the continuation of the destabilizing and provocative activities, the aforementioned public order operation became necessary.”

It did not mention specific charges.

Álvarez was being held under guard at a house in Managua, where he had been allowed to meet with relatives and Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the police statement said.

The others who were taken with Álvarez -- they did not specify who or how many -- were still being processed, police said.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the detentions and called for the immediate release of those held.

Edwin Román, a Nicaraguan parish priest exiled in the United States said via Twitter: “MY GOD! How outrageous, they have taken Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, with the priests who were with him.”

Streets around the cathedral in Matagalpa were relatively empty Friday. A few parishioners prayed inside, where a picture of Álvarez had been pinned to the robe of a Jesus Christ figure.

María Lacayo said she felt “very sad because we know that our bishop is innocent and an excellent man."

"We all love him very much because he is there for all of us and it’s a tremendous injustice what is being done to him. But as Catholics we leave everything in God’s hands,” she added.

Álvarez has been a key religious voice in discussions of Nicaragua’s future since 2018, when a wave of protests against Ortega’s government led to a sweeping crackdown on opponents.

“We hope there would be a series of electoral reforms, structural changes to the electoral authority — free, just and transparent elections, international observation without conditions,” Álvarez said a month after the protests broke out. “Effectively the democratization of the country.”

At the time, a priest in Álvarez’s diocese had been wounded in the arm by shrapnel while trying to separate protesters and police in Matagalpa.

Álvarez has kept up such calls for democracy for the past four years, infuriating Ortega and Murillo.

Manuel Orozco, an expert on Nicaragua at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said that Álvarez posed a threat as an obstacle and a symbol to Ortega.

“Nicaraguans are very loyal to the church,” he said. “In a survey I did last year, 70% of Nicaraguans say that to them, the political opinion of the religious authority at the national or the parochial level was important in shaping their political views.”

“(Álvarez’s) narrative, it’s based on the religious script, the biblical script about opposing the oppressor,” Orozco said. “And he makes allusions not to incite violence or to call for resistance, but he does say there is oppression."

Orozco said the government is betting its pressure on the church won't bring a “proportional response” by the international community. "And so they continue to push the envelope because they don’t see that short of a military invasion, there is not going to be anything that can stop them.”

Friday’s arrests follow weeks of elevated tensions between the church and Ortega’s government, which has had a complicated relationship with Nicaragua’s predominant religion and its leaders for more than four decades.

The former Marxist guerrilla infuriated the Vatican in the 1980s, but gradually forged an alliance with the church as he moved to regain the presidency in 2007 after a long period out of power. Now he appears to once again see political benefit in direct confrontation.

Ortega initially invited the church to mediate talks with protesters in 2018, but has since taken a more aggressive position.

Days before last year’s presidential elections, which he won for a fourth consecutive term with his strongest opponents jailed, he accused the bishops of having drafted a political proposal in 2018 on behalf “of the terrorists, at the service of the Yankees. ... These bishops are also terrorists.”

In March, Nicaragua expelled the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomat in Nicaragua.

The government had previously shut down eight radio stations and one television channel in Matagalpa province, north of Managua. Seven of the radio stations were run by the church.

The Aug. 5 announcement that Álvarez was under investigation came just hours after first lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo criticized “sins against spirituality” and “the exhibition of hate” in an apparent reference to Álvarez.

The Archdiocese of Managua had earlier expressed support for Álvarez. The conference of Latin American Catholic bishops decried what it called a “siege” of priests and bishops, the expulsion of members of religious communities and “constant harassment” targeting the Nicaraguan people and the church.

The Vatican remained silent about the investigation of Álvarez for nearly two weeks, drawing criticism from some Latin American human rights activists and intellectuals.

That silence was broken last Friday when Monsignor Juan Antonio Cruz, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the Organization of American States, expressed concern about the situation and asked both parties to “seek ways of understanding.”

The Vatican again offered no comment Friday and didn’t report the news immediately on its in-house media portal. While staying mum, apparently in hopes of not inflaming tensions, the Vatican has been publishing regular expressions of solidarity from Latin American bishops in recent days on its Vatican News site.

The president of Nicaragua’s Episcopal Conference did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The huge street protests across Nicaragua in 2018 called for Ortega to step down. Ortega maintained the protests were a coup attempt carried out with foreign backing and the support of the church.

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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/nicaraguan-police-detain-bishop-other-priests-in-raid/?feed_id=13282&_unique_id=63005756acce5

Arizona parents arrested trying to get in locked-down school

PHOENIX -- Police arrested three Arizona parents, shocking two of them with stun guns, as they tried to force their way into a school that police locked down Friday after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus, authorities said.

The parents were arrested as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody, authorities said.

The scene at Thompson Ranch Elementary School developed nearly three months after hundreds of law enforcement officers in the small Texas city of Uvalde failed to act for more than an hour as a gunman killed two teachers and 19 students.

No shots were fired at Thompson Ranch, the school wasn't breached and no one was hurt, other than a woman taken to a hospital with Taser injuries from officers who say they were trying to stop her from attacking them.

By the time the confrontations with the upset parents began, police had already confirmed that there was no longer a threat, removed a suspicious package and were planning to begin reuniting parents with the children, El Mirage police Lt. Jimmy Chavez said.

But the school was still on lockdown, meaning no one would be allowed on campus, according to the protocols police and the school district have set up. That's when upset parents demanded to be allowed into the school so they could find their children and began confronting police, authorities said.

“Several parents continued with their agitation, made several statements that they were going to come on campus to help protect their kids,” Chavez said. “As a parent I understand that philosophy. However, there are procedures that law enforcement and the school were following.”

Chavez said a man began pushing to get past officers and as police were arresting him, a man and a woman who had also been confronting officers came to his aid. Officers used a Taser to subdue them and they too were arrested. As the first man was being taken into custody, a gun fell to the ground.

The armed parent will face a weapons charge — guns are not allowed on school grounds — and a disorderly conduct charge. The two parents who were stunned with the Taser will face unspecified charges. The woman was taken by ambulance to a hospital, Chavez said. None were immediately identified.

The incident began at about 10:30 a.m. Friday when school officials called police to report that a man, possibly armed with a gun, was trying to get into a locked school building. He could not get in and was chased off by staff before police from El Mirage and two other agencies arrived at the school, Chavez said.

Officers searching the school to ensure it was safe found a suspicious package and called a bomb squad, Chavez said, and moved some children to another part of the campus.

That's when parents began arriving and the confrontations with officers began, with parents "forcefully pushing on the officers trying to get on to campus."

“The parents need to understand that when the school is on lockdown and law enforcement is on scene, nobody is going to be allowed on campus,” Chavez said.

Chavez said the school lockdown procedures between the school district and law enforced “worked to a T.”

Police later located the man who had triggered the lockdown. He was being evaluated late Friday by mental health professionals and a police statement said charges were pending.,

Efforts to reach El Mirage Police Saturday to get additional information were not immediately successful.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/arizona-parents-arrested-trying-to-get-in-locked-down-school/?feed_id=10594&_unique_id=62f865bf042a9

Texas trial begins for man accused of killing his daughters

DALLAS -- A man who evaded arrest for more than 12 years after being accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in a taxi parked near a Dallas-area hotel was “obsessed with possession and control,” a prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements of his capital murder trial.

“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date," prosecutor Lauren Black said. "And he controlled everything in his household."

Yaser Said, 65, is accused of killing 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said on New Year’s Day in 2008. Said, who entered a not guilty plea Tuesday, faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.

About a week before the sisters were killed, they and their mother fled their home in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville to Oklahoma to get away from Yaser Said, who worked as a taxi driver, Black said. The sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Said “put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her,” the prosecutor said.

But, Black said, in another act of “control” and “manipulation” by Said, he told them he had changed and convinced them to return home. The evening the sisters were shot, their father wanted to take just the two of them to a restaurant, she said.

In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said he was not happy with his kids’ “dating activity” but denied killing his daughters. Defense attorney Joseph Patton said in opening statements that the evidence would not support a conviction, that police were too quick to focus on Said and suggested that anti-Muslim sentiment played into that focus. Said was born in Egypt.

Before the sisters were found shot to death in a taxi parked near a hotel in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Sarah Said had managed to call 911 using a cellphone, telling the operator that her father shot her and that she was dying.

Black said Sarah Said was shot nine times and Amina Said was shot twice.

In moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations, Patton said.

In an email to her Lewisville High School history teacher a few days before she and her sister were killed, Amina Said said that she and Sarah did not want to live by their father’s culture and marry men from the Middle East, “especially men we don’t know or love.” So they were running away from their father's home, she said in the email prosecutors read into evidence.

“I know that he will search until he finds us, and he will without any drama nor doubt kill us,” the email read.

After the sisters were found fatally shot in the taxi, police contacted the taxi's registered owner, who said Yaser Said had been driving the taxi for the past 10 days, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.

Said, who had been sought on a capital murder warrant since the slayings, was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list. He was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. His son, Islam Said, and his brother, Yassim Said, were subsequently convicted of helping him evade arrest.

Black said the sisters, both high school students in Lewisville, dreamed of becoming doctors, and that Yaser Said grew “angrier” as they grew up and became more educated and independent.

“When they had more independence, that was less control for him,” Black said.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/texas-trial-begins-for-man-accused-of-killing-his-daughters/?feed_id=5825&_unique_id=62e9c8fb4c2f3

Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena

ATLANTA -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is challenging a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, received a subpoena that was issued on July 26 and orders him to appear before the special grand jury to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers said in a court filing. Graham is seeking to have the challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court in Atlanta rather than before the Fulton County Superior Court judge who’s overseeing the special grand jury.

The senator is one of the Trump allies who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to question as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Graham had said repeatedly that he would fight the subpoena once he received it, which happened last week, according to his lawyers. He has denied meddling in Georgia's election.

In a court filing last month, Willis, a Democrat, wrote that Graham made at least two telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Biden, asking about reexamining certain absentee ballots “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”

When he made those calls, Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his role as then-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and to help inform his vote to certify the election,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Friday.

Graham's lawyers cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that they say “provides absolute protection against inquiry into Senator Graham's legislative acts.” They also argue “sovereign immunity" prevents a local prosecutor from summoning a U.S. senator “to face a state ad hoc investigatory body.” And they assert that Willis has failed to demonstrate “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to order a high-ranking federal official to testify.”

Willis' office will respond in court and expects Graham to testify before the special grand jury, spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said.

Given that Graham has been summoned to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers asked for expedited consideration of his motion to quash. The judge granted that request, setting a hearing for Aug. 10.

Graham had previously filed a federal court challenge in South Carolina to try to stop Willis' efforts to compel him to testify. Before a judge there could hold a hearing, he withdrew that case and agreed to file any challenges to a subpoena in the investigation in either state superior court or federal court in Georgia, according to a court filing.

U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, filed a federal court challenge similar to Graham's after he received a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. After hearing arguments from his lawyers and from Willis' office, a federal judge last week declined to quash his subpoena.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May, who is also assigned to hear Graham's challenge, sent the matter back to Fulton County Superior Court, saying that there are at least some questions that Hice may be compelled to answer. If disagreements arise over whether Hice is protected under federal law from answering certain questions, he can bring those issues back to her to settle, she said.

Willis has confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger during which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly described his call to Raffensperger as “perfect.”

Willis is also interested in false allegations of election fraud made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others during Georgia legislative committee meetings in December 2020. Jacki Pick Deason, a Dallas-based lawyer and podcaster, spoke at one of those meetings on Dec. 3, 2020.

Willis is trying to compel Deason's testimony. Because she lives outside Georgia, Willis has to use a process that involves getting a judge in Texas to order her to appear. A judge in New York has already ordered Giuliani to testify next week.

In a court filing in Texas last week, Deason argued that she shouldn't be ordered to testify. She cited alleged flaws with the paperwork Willis filed seeking her testimony, argued that a summons to appear before a Georgia special grand jury is not recognized in Texas and said that the demand for her appearance is based on a false assertion that she was a lawyer for the Trump campaign. She also said that it would be an undue burden for her to travel to Atlanta on days when the special grand jury is meeting in August because of professional obligations and other commitments.

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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., and Jamie Stengle and Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/sen-graham-challenges-2020-georgia-election-probe-subpoena/?feed_id=5307&_unique_id=62e83e03138dc

No bond for accused rapist of girl who traveled for abortion

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A man accused of raping and impregnating a 9-year-old Ohio girl who traveled to Indiana for an abortion was ordered held without bond Thursday by a judge who cited overwhelming evidence and the fact that he apparently is living in the U.S. illegally.

Gerson Fuentes, 27, faces two counts of raping the girl, who turned 10 before having the abortion in a case that has become a flashpoint in the national discussion about access to the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. He has pleaded not guilty.

If convicted, Fuentes, who is from Guatemala, faces the possibility of life in prison with no chance of parole. That penalty and “not having any ties to this community that can be proved legally makes it a substantial flight risk,” Franklin County Judge Julie Lynch said after a 35-minute hearing.

The girl confirmed that Fuentes attacked her, Fuentes confessed to Columbus police detectives, and DNA testing of the aborted fetus confirmed Fuentes was the father, Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Meyer and detective Jeffrey Huhn said in court Thursday.

Huhn said he was unable, when searching multiple databases, to find any evidence that Fuentes was in the country legally.

In denying bond, Lynch cited that evidence, the violence of the crime and the fact that Fuentes had been living in the same home with the girl and her mother.

“To allow him to return to that home, the traumatic and psychological impact would be undeserving to an alleged victim,” Lynch said. She also cited the “physical, and mental and emotional trauma” the girl suffered from enduring the rapes and the abortion, and finding her case at the center of the country's abortion debate.

The case gained national attention after an Indianapolis physician, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, said the child had to travel to Indiana due to Ohio banning abortions at the first detectable “fetal heartbeat” after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

President Joe Biden cited the case when he signed an order July 8 trying to protect abortion access. Some conservatives and prominent Republicans, including Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, cast doubt on the story initially, then condemned the attack after Fuentes was arrested.

Fuentes' attorney, Bryan Bowen, argued against a no-bond hearing and unsuccessfully asked Lynch to set a reasonable bond. He said there was no evidence that there was physical abuse outside of the rapes or that the girl had been put under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He also said that Fuentes had family ties in Columbus, that he had a job, and that there was no evidence of a criminal history. Fuentes has lived in the area about seven years.

“We've heard evidence about the nature of the offense, but we have not heard any evidence presented about any danger that Mr. Fuentes would pose to any particular person or to the community,” he said. He declined to comment after Lynch's ruling.

Dan Meyer, an assistant Franklin County prosecutor, said Thursday that Fuentes was providing for the girl's family, including her mother.

Columbus police learned about the girl’s pregnancy after her mother alerted Franklin County Children Services on June 22. Huhn said Fuentes confessed to raping the girl, who turned 10 on May 28, on two occasions.

The girl saw a Columbus-area doctor in late June with a plan to have an abortion locally, but that wasn’t possible due to the gestational age, determined to be six weeks and four days, Huhn testified.

Ohio's “heartbeat” abortion ban includes an exception only for an emergency that is life-threatening or involving a “serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Indiana’s Republican Senate leaders proposed a bill this month that would prohibit abortions from the time an egg is implanted in a uterus, with exceptions in cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother. The proposal followed the controversy over the Ohio girl's abortion in Indiana.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/no-bond-for-accused-rapist-of-girl-who-traveled-for-abortion/?feed_id=3501&_unique_id=62e2d9ca785e4

Alabama gov: Execution set despite wishes of victim's family

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's governor said Wednesday that she has decided the state will proceed later this week with a plan to execute a man convicted of killing his former girlfriend decades ago, overriding a plea from the victim's family to spare the man's life.

Gov. Kay Ivey told reporters she won't call off the scheduled lethal injection of Joe Nathan James Jr. at a south Alabama prison on Thursday evening. The inmate was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1994 shooting death of 26-year-old Faith Hall, in Birmingham.

Hall’s daughters, who were just 3 and 6 when their mother was killed, had urged along with Hall's brother that officials change the sentence to life in prison without parole. But Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall urged Ivey to let execution plans proceed and ensure “justice is done."

In making public her decision Wednesday morning, Ivey said, “My staff and I have researched all the records and all the facts and there’s no reason to change the procedure or modify the outcome. The execution will go forward.”

Prosecutors said James briefly dated Hall, but that he had become obsessed after she ended their relationship, stalking and harassing her for months before killing her. On Aug. 15, 1994, he forced his way inside an apartment, pulled a gun from his waistband and shot her three times, they said.

In the weeks leading up to the scheduled execution date, Hall's daughters and brother had said they would rather James serve a life sentence in prison rather than be put to death.

“I know it may sound crazy. Like, you really want this man to live? But ... I just feel like we can’t play God. We can’t take a life. And it’s not going to bring my mom back,” Terryln Hall had told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview.

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who was a friend of Hall's, sent a letter to the governor relaying the family’s request.

“They are simply saying our wish as the family is for him to die in the penal system of the Alabama correctional facility. That's how we want him to suffer and we want to see that suffering for the rest of our lives,” Givan said Wednesday.

Givan said the case was unusual in that the victim's family had asked for clemency. Though James “brutally and senselessly killed” the mother of two simply because she rejected him, Givan said the family's wishes should carry weight.

“This is a tough one,” said Givan, who remembered Hall as a kind and devoted mother.

“She was just the sweetest person you ever wanted to meet,” Givan said.

Meanwhile, James has acted as his own attorney in a bid to halt Thursday's execution procedure, filing handwritten lawsuits and requests for a stay.

He has claimed his lawyers were ineffective and that prison officials did not explain what was at stake when it gave inmates a form in which they could select nitrogen hypoxia as their preferred execution method. Alabama has approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution means but hasn't developed a system for its use or scheduled any executions by that method.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/alabama-gov-execution-set-despite-wishes-of-victims-family/?feed_id=3062&_unique_id=62e1c8f55116a