Justices rule against Montana homeowners near Superfund site
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court delivered a setback Monday to Montana homeowners who are seeking additional cleanup of arsenic left over from years of copper smelting.
The court said the homeowners cannot proceed with efforts to decontaminate their own property near the shuttered Anaconda smelter without the permission of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The smelter belongs to BP-owned Atlantic Richfield Co. and sits at the center of a 300-square-mile Superfund site. The company says it has spent $470 million to clean the site.
Homeowners who are dissatisfied with the EPA-ordered cleanup want Atlantic Richfield to pay for the removal of more arsenic-tainted soil from their properties. And the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that their claims could proceed in state court.
But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the high court that federal environmental law requires the homeowners to seek EPA approval for additional cleanup. “That approval process, if pursued, could ameliorate any conflict between the landowners’ restoration plan and EPA’s Superfund cleanup, just as Congress envisioned,” Roberts wrote.
High court declines to hear Nebraska, Missouri death cases
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is passing for now on deciding whether juries must find all facts necessary to impose a death sentence or whether judges can play a role, an issue Nebraska and Missouri death row inmates had asked the court to take up.
The high court on Monday declined to hear appeals brought by Nikko Jenkins and Craig Wood. The court, as is usual, didn’t comment in turning away the cases.
Wood is on death row in Missouri after being convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 10-year-old Hailey Owens in 2014. The jury that convicted Would couldn’t decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without parole. That left the decision up to the judge who oversaw Wood’s trial.
Jenkins is on death row in Nebraska after killing four people in Omaha shortly after his 2013 release from prison, where he had served 10 years for two carjackings. Jenkins pleaded no contest to the killings and a three-judge panel was appointed to sentence him. Jenkins waived his right to have a jury assess aggravating circumstances and the panel sentenced him to death.
High court to hear case about reach of computer hacking law
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide a case from Georgia about the reach of a federal computer hacking law.
The case involves Nathan Van Buren, who was a police sergeant in Cumming, Georgia. The FBI set up a sting operation to find out if Van Buren would provide law enforcement information in exchange for cash, and he was offered money in exchange for searching a Georgia license plate database.
Van Buren was ultimately convicted of fraud and violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Van Buren argued the law didn’t apply because he accessed a database that he was authorized to access.
The case won’t be argued before the fall.
