Daily Briefs

Wayne County gun buyback seeks to get weapons off streets


DETROIT (AP) — The Wayne County sheriff’s office is working to get guns off the streets to decrease shootings.

A gun buyback program is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Oak Grove AME Church in Detroit.

The Caliber Collection and Caliber Foundation are working with the sheriff’s office on the event. A $50 gift card will be exchanged for each unloaded gun turned in.

Sheriff Benny Napoleon says gun buyback programs “are effective because they allow people to get rid of weapons in their homes they don’t want around.”

Portions of the weapons collected will be melted down and molded into jewelry and other forms of artwork. The Caliber Collection donates some of its profits to police gun buyback programs.

 

Lost Purple Hearts to be returned to dead soldiers’ families
 

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Relatives of three dead U.S servicemen plan to gather in western Michigan to receive lost Purple Heart medals their loved ones had earned in World War II.

The medals are scheduled to be returned to family members Tuesday at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and Library in Grand Rapids. The effort is being undertaken by the Georgia, Vermont-based group Purple Hearts Reunited, which has made it its mission to track down misplaced medals.

The medals were awarded to Staff Sgt. Marinum Gillesse, who was wounded in action and died in 2003, and Pvts. James Nameth Jr. and Clayton Richard, both killed in action.

The nonprofit foundation says it has returned roughly 450 medals since its 2012 founding.

 

Court: No retroactivity in change to Michigan sentencing rules
 

DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court says a major change in the state’s sentencing rules won’t be applied retroactively when appeals have been long exhausted.

The unanimous decision was released Monday in the case of a Wayne County man who is serving a minimum 42-year prison sentence for second-degree murder and other crimes. Tim Barnes was sentenced in 2002.

The court in 2015 said sentencing guidelines followed by judges are advisory, not mandatory. But the court says the burden of applying the rules retroactively “would be incalculable” if courts were reopened to people sentenced in the last two decades.

The justices say Barnes exhausted his appeals more than 10 years before the sentencing rules changed.
 

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