National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Prosecutor: City lacks authority to regulate guns
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A prosecutor is telling Pittsburgh’s city council that it lacks the authority to pass proposed restrictions on some firearms and ammunition.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala says in a letter to a councilman, dated Jan. 9, says he understands the effort to curtail gun violence, but believes the proposed legislation would be unconstitutional.
The bills would ban semi-automatic rifles and certain ammunition and firearms accessories within city limits.

City Council introduced the bills last month in the wake of the October massacre at Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 worshippers were killed.

The gunman shot his victims with an AR-15 — the weapon used in many of the nation’s mass shootings — and three handguns.

Zappala says the restrictions would need to come from the state legislature.

State law prohibits municipalities from regulating firearms.

Utah
Police tactics ­questioned in ex-Utah State player investigation
LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors questioned the tactics used by a police detective when he investigated a rape allegation against a promising Utah State University football player as the handling of the allegations surfaced during trial.

Defense attorneys for Torrey Green called Logan detective Kendall Olsen to the stand Monday, asking Olson about Green’s willingness to be interviewed after a woman reported an allegation in 2015.

Green, 25, is accused of sexually assaulting six women when he was a student from 2013 to 2015. His trial on 11 felony counts began last week.

Green, of Rubidoux, California, has denied any wrongdoing. He was signed as a rookie lineman for the Atlanta Falcons, but the team dropped him in 2016 after the allegations surfaced.

Green’s lawyer, Skye Lazaro, has argued that the women came forward after Green signed the rookie contract because they wanted attention.

Detective Olsen had investigated several reports of sexual assaults involving Green, but prosecutors declined charges in April 2015 after he had filed his report. Charges weren’t filed until the next year.

Olsen testified that Green was not hesitant but seemed nervous to sit down for a police interview in 2015.

During cross-examination, Deputy Cache County Attorney Spencer Walsh questioned the detective’s interactions with Green, criticizing Olsen for never getting confrontational and never asking hard questions.

Lazaro asked Olsen if his interaction with Green was deceptive and an investigative tactic.

“I believe so,” Olsen said, noting his method of downplaying the allegation now “may come across as not giving it full attention it deserves.”

Ohio
Hospital: Doc gave near-death patients ­excessive pain meds
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio hospital system says an intensive care doctor ordered “significantly excessive and potentially fatal” doses of pain medicine for at least 27 near-death patients in the past few years after families asked to stop lifesaving measures.

The Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System says it fired the doctor, notified authorities and removed 20 employees from patient care pending further investigation. Those include pharmacists and nurses who administered medication.

The announcement came after a family sued, alleging medicine was used to hasten a patient’s death. The lawsuit was filed Monday against the health system, a pharmacist, a nurse and the doctor, which it identifies as William Husel.

Kentucky
Teenage girl pleads guilty to killing ­stepmother
DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky teenager faces a recommended 15-year sentence for killing her stepmother and stealing her car.

News outlets report 17-year-old Jenna Oakley pleaded guilty Monday in Boyle Circuit Court to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 52-year-old Rhonda Oakley.

Prosecutor Richie Bottoms said the charge was amended down from murder. She also pleaded guilty to theft.

Rhonda Oakley’s body was found Sept. 1, 2016 in her Danville home by her 13-year-old son. Jenna Oakley was found two days later with the car in New Mexico.

Her lawyer pushed unsuccessfully to move her case back into juvenile court. Now her sentencing is set for Feb. 22.

The victim’s husband and teen’s father, Phillip Oakley, said he thinks her recommended sentence is too short.

Alabama
Judge voids law protecting ­Confederate monuments
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A judge has overturned an Alabama law meant to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments from public property, ruling the act infringed on the rights of citizens in a mostly black city who are “repulsed” by the memorial.

The 10-page ruling issued late Monday by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo said a 2017 state law barring the removal or alteration of historical monuments wrongly violated the free speech rights of local communities.

The law can’t be enforced, Graffeo ruled, but the state could still appeal. The attorney general’s comment had no immediate response to an email seeking comment Tuesday.

The state sued the city of Birmingham after officials tried to remove a 52-foot-tall (16-meter)-tall obelisk that was erected to honor Confederate veterans in a downtown park in 1905. Rather than toppling the stone marker, the city built a 12-foot (3.6-meter)-tall wooden box around it.

Birmingham’s population of 210,000 is more than 70 percent black, and the judge said it was indisputable that most citizens are “repulsed” by the memorial. He rejected the state’s claims that lawmakers had the power to protect historical monuments statewide.

The law includes a $25,000 penalty for removing or altering a historical monument, but the judge said the penalty was unconstitutional. The city hasn’t had to pay while the lawsuit worked its way through court.

The ruling came hours after the inauguration of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who signed the law and opened her campaign last year with a commercial that prominently showed Confederate monuments.

“We can’t change or erase our history, but here in Alabama we know something that Washington doesn’t. To get where we are going means understanding where we have been,” Ivey said in the ad.

Supporters of the law contend it protects not just Confederate memorials but historical markers of any kind, but rebel memorials have been an issue nationwide since a white supremacist gunman killed nine worshippers in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.