National Roundup

Arkansas
Court rejects appeal of man who shot Army recruiters
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a man who fatally shot a U.S. Army soldier and wounded another outside a recruiting station in Little Rock.

The ruling dated Thursday and first reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said Abdulhakim Muhammad’s appeal is without merit.

Muhammad, 34, was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to the 2009 fatal shooting of Pvt. William Long of Conway and wounding of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville outside the Little Rock Army-Navy Career Center.

In an interview with The Associated Press shortly after his arrest, Muhammad, who changed his name from Carlos Bledsoe, said he didn’t consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.

Serving as his own attorney, Muhammad said in a handwritten appeal that Pulaski County Circuit Court “lacked jurisdiction to try this case based on the fact federal courts not state courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all offenses over laws of the United States.

The state’s highest court, in an opinion written by Associate Justice Robin Wynne, disagreed.

“Under the doctrine of dual sovereignty, the State of Arkansas may prosecute any person whose conduct violated state law even if the person’s conduct also violated federal law,” Wynne wrote.

Indiana
Court suspends ex-prosecutor’s law license
VINCENNES, Ind. (AP) — The Indiana Supreme Court has suspended a former southwestern Indiana prosecutor’s law license after concluding that he abused his authority by retaliating against a police detective who discovered his sexual relationship with a criminal defendant.

Joseph Burton had served as Knox County’s chief deputy prosecutor until he retired from that post in April 2018. A recent order issued by the state Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Commission immediately suspended the man’s Indiana law license for 90 days, followed by an automatic reinstatement.

The court’s order states that Burton retaliated against a Vincennes Police Department detective who had learned that a woman facing methamphetamine-related charges in adjacent Greene County was having a sexual relationship with a prosecutor.

The detective then interviewed that woman, who said she had been in an on-and-off relationship with Burton for about 20 years, according to the court’s order. After the woman was convicted, sentenced and incarcerated, she told Burton that the detective had spoken to her, prompting him to reply that the officer has “got it coming now.”

Burton instructed the woman to provide him and Knox County Prosecutor J. Dirk Carnahan with a statement about her interview with the detective, giving her specific guidance on what to include in that statement.

After receiving that letter, Carnahan filed an employee misconduct complaint with Vincennes police against the detective, the order states.

The commission concluded that Burton had “committed attorney misconduct by abusing his prosecutorial authority as part of a campaign of retaliation against a detective.”

Carnahan’s case is still pending before the court’s disciplinary commission, The Indiana Lawyer reported.

Virginia
Judge refuses to vacate Somali pirate’s sentence
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge in Virginia has refused to vacate the life sentence handed down to a Somali man convicted in a 2010 attack on a U.S. Navy vessel off the coast of Africa.

A judge in Norfolk issued a ruling Friday rejecting Mohamed Abdi Jama’s claim that his sentence should be overturned because his lawyer was ineffective.

Jama was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 for piracy. He filed a motion last year claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. Jama claimed his lawyer failed to understand the laws and fact needed to prove piracy and failed to argue jurisdictional and other law regarding piracy offenses and territory. He also argued that his lawyer failed to advise him of plea deals and failed to negotiate or explain any plea offers.

The judge said the court record provides no support for Jama’s claims and shows that his lawyer shared a plea offer by prosecutors of 25 years in prison. Jama’s lawyer said in an affidavit that his client refused to cooperate.

Jama claimed that he was never told about a 25-year plea offer, and that his attorney advised him to reject a 30-year plea offer.

The judge noted that regardless of whether Jama’s lawyer told him about any plea offer, Jama testified that he was not willing to testify against any of his codefendants as part of a plea deal.

According to court records, Jama and his codefendants approached the USS Ashland in April 2010 in the Gulf of Aden and opened fire with AK-47s. Crew members of the Ashland returned fire and took the pirates into custody.

Pennsylvania
Death penalty sought in slayings of woman, 97, and adult son
EASTON. Pa. (AP) — Prosecutors have announced plans to seek the death penalty against a man accused of baking cookies and taking them to the home of a 97-year-old bedridden woman before killing her and her adult son and setting fire to their eastern Pennsylvania home a year ago.

Thirty-eight-year-old Drew Rose of Bethlehem is charged with homicide, arson and burglary in the January 2019 slayings of Virginia Houck and 61-year-old Roger Houck in Palmer Township.

Prosecutors allege that Rose, son of a former caretaker of Virginia Houck, needed rent money and hatched a scheme to rob the woman. Police say his ex-girlfriend told a grand jury that Rose arrived at the house with the cookies and told her son he was a family friend who had worked for his mother, but once inside ordered the man to buy items online for him and have them shipped to the residence.

When Roger Houck refused, prosecutors allege, Rose assaulted and strangled him, fleeing with $280. Prosecutors allege that he returned in the early morning hours, tied up the woman and threw her down the basement steps before setting the home on fire.

A coroner said Virginia Houck was found still bound and died of smoke inhalation and burns, while her son, also bound at the feet, died of “homicidal violence.”

Prosecutors said Friday they will seek execution if Rose is convicted of first-degree murder. They said capital punishment would be justified because there were multiple victims and the slayings occurred during commission of several felonies.