National Roundup

West Virginia
Judge hears case over where governor lives

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia judge has heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by a Democratic state delegate against Republican Gov. Jim Justice demanding that he live in the county where West Virginia’s capital city is located.

Assistant Minority Whip Isaac Sponaugle submitted a writ of mandamus requesting the Kanawha County Circuit Court order Justice to live in the county. Justice has said several times that he does not live at the governor’s mansion in Charleston, but at his Lewisburg home in Greenbrier County.

The state constitution requires the governor to live at the government’s seat in Kanawha County and says a governor shall also keep records there.

An attorney for Justice says the governor complies with the constitution and asked that the case be dismissed.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the judge didn’t rule on Monday, but asked attorneys to file briefs for further review.

Montana
Appeals court sides with death row inmate

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A man on Missouri death row for killing three convenience store workers in 1994 will get another chance to argue that a medical condition would make lethal injection too painful.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a lower court mistakenly dismissed Ernest Lee Johnson’s appeal in September 2016. Johnson, who’s 58, argues that Missouri’s lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, could trigger seizures due to a brain condition. Johnson still has part of a benign tumor in his brain, and surgery to remove the rest of the tumor in 2008 forced removal of up to 20 percent of his brain tissue.

U.S. District Judge Greg Kays ruled in 2016 that Johnson hadn’t argued enough facts to have his case heard in full.

New York
Weinstein seeks to appeal judge’s ruling in ‘casting couch’ lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Harvey Weinstein want to appeal a court ruling that lets an aspiring actress’ lawsuit equating Hollywood’s casting couch to sex trafficking move forward.

The lawyers filed papers in Manhattan federal court Monday asking a judge to let them immediately appeal his ruling two weeks ago that gave the lawsuit the green light.

Kadian Noble said that Weinstein molested her in 2014 in a Cannes, France, hotel room.

Judge Robert Sweet ruled that the lawsuit was fairly brought under sex trafficking laws because the proverbial casting couch could be considered a “commercial sex act.”

Weinstein’s lawyers argued there was no legal precedent for the ruling. They said the sex trafficking statute could not be used if there was no allegation of trafficking women.

California
Man pleads not guilty to dine-and-dash dating allegations

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Los Angeles County prosecutors have filed extortion, grand theft and other charges against a man accused of being the “Dine-and-Dash Dater.”

Authorities say 45-year-old Paul Guadalupe Gonzales used dating apps to meet women, took them to dinner at restaurants and then left without paying any part of the bill.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Fern says eight women ended up paying themselves and in two cases restaurants picked up the check. The complaint says the women were defrauded of a total of $950.

Gonzales pleaded not guilty to a dozen counts at his arraignment Monday.

If convicted, he faces up to 13 years in prison.

New York
Defense lawyer uses Trump  argument that flippers should be outlawed

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York defense lawyer has wasted no time using President Donald Trump’s argument that cooperators, or flippers, in criminal cases “almost ought to be illegal.”

Attorney KIafahni Nkrumah on Thursday tried to bring up Trump’s statement to disparage a cooperator who was testifying against his client in a drug trial. But a judge disallowed it.

Trump’s remark aired earlier the same day during a “Fox & Friends” interview in which he suggested it should be illegal for people facing prosecution to cooperate with the government in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Nkrumah’s client, Jamal Russell, was convicted the same day on a drug charge and exonerated on a weapons count.

Ohio
Judge sentences convicted killer to death at resentencing

CINCINNATI (AP) — An Ohio judge has sentenced a convicted serial killer to the death penalty in the man’s resentencing for slaying two teenage girls.

The judge on Tuesday followed the jury’s recommendation in the resentencing of 49-year-old Anthony Kirkland.

Kirkland was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing 14-year-old Casonya Crawford and 13-year-old Esme Kenney. Ohio’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence.

Kirkland’s lawyers argued for life in prison without the possibility of parole. They argued Kirkland was sexually, physically and mentally abused as a child and his life should be spared.

The prosecutor sought the death penalty, citing the “human carnage” committed. Authorities say he strangled the teens and burned their bodies.

Kirkland is serving a life sentence for killing two women in 2006.

Texas
Son of ex-cartel leader also gets prison sentence

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The son of an imprisoned former Mexican drug cartel leader must serve more than two years behind bars for falsely claiming to be a U.S. law enforcement officer and flashing a gun at a Texas bar.

Osiel Cardenas Jr. was sentenced Monday in Brownsville to 27 months. The 26-year-old Cardenas earlier this year pleaded guilty to impersonating a U.S. marshal and being a felon with a firearm.

Prosecutors say the case involved a March incident in Brownsville in which Cardenas displayed a gun and a gold-colored badge while falsely saying he was a federal agent.

His father, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, in 2010 was convicted in Texas on drug charges and sentenced to 25 years. His son in 2015 was convicted of attempting to smuggle ammunition into Mexico.