National Roundup

Mississippi
ACLU sues over state's 'religious rights' legislation

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union and a gay couple are suing the state of Mississippi over a law to allow workers to cite their own religious objections to same-sex marriage as a reason to deny people services.

House Bill 1523 , passed by the Republican-majority Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Phil Bryant, is set to become law July 1.

Mississippi's law is among similar measures being passed around the country in response to last summer's Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Supporters say the Mississippi law will protect people's religious belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Opponents say it violates the equal-protection guarantee of the Constitution.

"We've had a long history in Mississippi of bigotry and discrimination, and House Bill 1523 brings that back to life," said Oliver Diaz, a former state Supreme Court justice who filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson.

The men suing the state, Nykolas Alford and Stephen Thomas, are both 26. They live in the eastern Mississippi city of Meridian and have been engaged since 2014. They said they hope to marry in Mississippi.

"Our grandparents experienced discrimination for being black, and my parents probably did as well," Alford said. "My parents were born in the '60s and grew up in the '70s and '80s, and so it's always been a part of our lives. We thought this movement was over, you know? We thought that we would be fine. We thought that we would be equal, and here we are today saying that we're not, and we want equality."

The parties are asking a federal judge to declare that House Bill 1523 violates the equal-protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment and to issue an injunction blocking the state from enforcing the law.

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Arkansas
Judge resigns amid investigation into sexual deeds

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - An Arkansas judge accused of having inappropriate sexual relationships with male defendants has resigned.

David Sachar, the executive director of the state's Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, said Monday that part-time Cross County District Judge Joe Boeckmann had submitted his letter of resignation.

Boeckmann has agreed to never seek public office again at the state or local level.

The panel alleges Boeckmann showed preferential treatment to white men and allowed sentencing not recorded on court dockets, including picking up trash at his home. He's accused of taking inappropriate photographs of some defendants during those punishments and later coercing some of them into sexual acts in return for paying their attorney fees.

Boeckmann has denied the allegations.

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Connecticut
Boyfriend changes story over house fire that killed 5

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The contractor who took the blame for accidentally starting a 2011 Christmas Day house fire in Connecticut that killed his girlfriend's three children and her parents now says it was the children's mother who left a bag of fireplace ashes in a mudroom.

The Hartford Courant reports Michael Borcina told attorneys during a lawsuit deposition that he lied to police to protect Madonna Badger.

"To spare her from carrying the burden that maybe she had done something to hurt her family," Borcina said in the deposition.

Borcina had originally told authorities he put the ashes in the room. He later agreed to pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the children's father, Matthew Badger.

Madonna Badger, an advertising executive in New York, and Borcina were dating at the time and escaped the fire that killed 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah Badger, 9-year-old Lily Badger and their maternal grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson.

Authorities said the fire began after Borcina left the bag of fireplace ashes in a bin in the mudroom in the house. Borcina, who was renovating the $1.7 million Victorian home, was accused in the lawsuit of contributing with other defendants to make the house a "firetrap," including failing to install a smoke detection system during the construction.

A lawyer for Borcina didn't return a message Monday seeking comment. A phone listing for Borcina could not be found. Matthew Badger and Madonna Badger did not return messages seeking comment.

Madonna Badger has said Borcina ran his hands over the ashes to make sure they were out before putting the bag in the bin in the mudroom, just before they went to sleep after wrapping presents early on Christmas morning. She has since said she believes the blaze may have been electrical in origin.

Matthew Badger and Monica Badger still have separate lawsuits pending against the city.

Madonna Badger has alleged city officials intentionally destroyed evidence when they demolished the home without notice shortly after the fire. City officials have denied that.

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Florida
Army vet accused of killing mom on Mother's Day

PACE, Fla. (AP) - An Army veteran is accused of killing his mother at their Florida Panhandle home on Mother's Day and hitting a deputy's cruiser with an iron rod.

Santa Rosa County Sheriff's deputies were called to the home Sunday morning and heard yelling and the sounds of someone in distress, The Pensacola News Journal reported.

A bloodied 38-year-old Christopher Reed Lynch approached deputies, wielding an iron rod with a hook on the end, a police report said. He became violent and hit a deputy's cruiser with the rod. The deputy used a stun gun, but Lynch was still trying to punch and kick deputies after repeated shots from the stun gun. Lynch was eventually placed in leg irons and handcuffs.

Deputies found Cheryl Lynch on a blood-covered porch. She told deputies her son hit her but said she couldn't remember what happened. Her eyelids were swollen shut and she had multiple cuts on her face. She was taken to the hospital where she died.

The newspaper reported that Lynch suffered a traumatic brain injury on July 13, 2000, while on training exercises with the Army in France. He returned home and his mother was his caregiver.

In 2009, Cheryl Lynch wrote a letter to the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs, describing his condition.

"If something were to happen to me, who will know enough about my son's individual difficulties and medical needs to continue to manage his care? ... Who would be able to put the proper supports in place for my son not to end up on the streets, institutionalized, or even worse?"

It's not known what caused the confrontation early Sunday.

Lynch remains in jail on an open homicide charge, along with charges of aggravated battery, assault on an officer and resisting an officer with violence.

Published: Tue, May 10, 2016