Alabama
Supreme Court denies appeal of regretful Islamic State bride
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a woman who left home in Alabama to join the Islamic State terror group, but then decided she wanted to return to the United States.
The justices declined without comment on Monday to consider the appeal of Hoda Muthana, who was born in New Jersey in October 1994 to a diplomat from Yemen and grew up in Alabama near Birmingham.
Muthana left the U.S. to join the Islamic State in 2014, apparently after becoming radicalized online.
While she was overseas the government determined she was not a U.S. citizen and revoked her passport, citing her father’s status as a diplomat at the time of her birth. Her family sued to enable her return to the United States.
A federal judge ruled in 2019 that the U.S. government correctly determined Muthana wasn’t a U.S. citizen despite her birth in the country. Children of diplomats aren’t entitled to birthright citizenship. The family’s lawyers appealed, arguing that her father’s status as a diplomat assigned to the U.N. had ended before her birth, making her automatically a citizen.
Muthana surrendered to U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as Islamic State fighters were losing the last of their self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria and going to refugee camps.
Muthana said she regretted her decision to join the group and wanted to return to the U.S. with her toddler child, the son of a man she met while living with the group. The man later died.
Her current whereabouts aren’t clear. Family attorney Christina Jump of the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America did not immediately return an email seeking comment Tuesday.
The decision to revoke her passport was made under former President Barack Obama. The case gained widespread attention as former President Donald Trump tweeted about it, saying he had directed the secretary of state not to allow her back into the country.
Kentucky
Court operations return after tornadoes
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Court operations are returning in Graves County, Kentucky, a month after deadly tornadoes heavily damaged the county courthouse.
Graves County has not accepted any court filings since Dec. 13. The Kentucky Supreme Court ordered court operations suspended and has amended the order to resume operations, the Administrative Office of the Courts said.
Operations are resuming Tuesday. Court proceedings will be conducted remotely or in person in another county if the parties agree.
The circuit court clerk’s office will open at a temporary location Mayfield and will serve the public by phone and in person by appointment.
Court documents can be filed by eFiling or placed in the drop box outside the temporary location.
Driver’s license services were taken over earlier than planned by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet because of the storm damage.
California
Firing upheld for police who played video game during holdup
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California appellate court has ruled that two Los Angeles police officers were properly fired for playing Pokémon Go instead of responding to a robbery.
The court ruled on Friday that the LAPD was justified in firing Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell for misconduct in 2017, the Sacramento Bee reported Monday.
On April 15, 2017, a video system in their patrol car captured the officers discussing how to catch a Snorlax and trying to capture the rare Tegetic in the game while ignoring a report of several
people who were in the process of robbing a Macy’s in the Crenshaw area, according to the ruling.
A police captain who arrived at the scene saw another patrol car parked nearby and wondered why the officers hadn’t responded and answered it himself, court documents said.
The officers claimed they hadn’t heard the radio request for backup but on the patrol car recordings, they were heard discussing whether to respond and Lozano could be heard saying, “Ah, screw it,” according to the court filings.
The officers are then heard for the next 20 minutes discussing the GPS-based Pokémon augmented reality cellphone game and driving to various locations to “capture” virtual creatures, the filings said.
They were fired after a police board of rights unanimously ruled that the two officers committed misconduct that was “unprofessional and embarrassing” and violated the public’s trust.
The officers asked a court to overturn their firings, arguing among other things that the recordings of their private conversations were improperly used as evidence but the Superior Court judge denied their petition. The appeals court upheld that decision.
Alabama
Awaiting trial in cop’s death, sentenced on weapons charges
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A man awaiting a state trial in the 2018 death of an Alabama police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison Monday on federal weapons charges.
Marco Perez faces a state capital murder charge in the 2018 death of Mobile police officer Sean Tuder. Monday’s federal court sentence was for the crimes of receiving a firearm while under indictment and possession of a stolen firearm.
He was convicted on those charges in federal court in October. Perez was found not guilty in the October trial of obstructing justice by killing a witness, Tuder, who was working undercover when he tried to arrest Perez in November 2018. The defense argued then that Tuder didn’t identify himself as an officer and Perez acted legally under Alabama’s “stand your ground” law to what he believed was an attack.
Perez’s state capital murder trial is scheduled for August. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
At the time Tuder died, Perez, then 19, was wanted in connection with a string of break-ins and probation violations.
Prior to his October federal trial, a state judge in Mobile County refused to grant Perez immunity from prosecution under the “stand your ground” law, which allows the use of force in self defense.
WALA-TV reports that the federal judge heard testimony from Tuder’s loved ones, including his mother, who described the moment she learned of her son’s death. “I fell to my knees, crying. … I could not and did not want to believe it,” Noreen Tuder said.
Wisconsin
Jury seated to hear triple homicide case
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury has been selected in Kenosha County Circuit Court to hear the case against a man charged with killing three people and wounding three others in a shooting at a crowded bar.
Twenty-five-year-old Rakayo Vinson is facing three counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the April 18 shooting at Somers House Tavern in the village of Somers. Opening statements are expected Tuesday.
According to a criminal complaint, Vinson got in a fight at the bar and he was injured. Surveillance video shows him walking to the bar’s patio and opening fire before fleeing.
Killed were 24-year-old Cedric Gaston; 26-year-old Atkeem Stevenson; and 22-year-old Kevin Donaldson, all of Kenosha. The video shows Vinson exchanging fire with Donaldson outside the tavern. Donaldson left in a car but later died at a hospital, prosecutors said.
Justin Haymond, Jordan Momani and Kevin Serratos were wounded but survived, according to the criminal complaint.
Vinson was arrested in Mount Pleasant after he stole a car from friends, who turned him in after he returned the vehicle, according to Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth.
Somers is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Milwaukee, not far from the Illinois-Wisconsin border.
Missouri
Woman admits to role in Capitol riot days after crash arrest
SULLIVAN, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who was photographed last year carrying a wooden name plate torn from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor for her role in the insurrection and was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and substance abuse treatment.
The Kansas City Star reports that 22-year-old Emily Hernandez, of Sullivan, entered the guilty plea to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds during a video conference.
She was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in a crash last Wednesday on Interstate 44 in Franklin County. The head-on collision killed 32-year-old Victoria Wilson, of St. Clair, and seriously injured her husband.
The patrol said investigators would present the case to the prosecuting attorney once toxicology reports have been completed.
At Monday’s plea hearing, federal prosecutor Jessica Arco told the judge that the crash was “extremely concerning and devastating for all involved.”
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg approved the government’s proposed new restrictions on Hernandez. In addition to the mental health evaluation and alcohol and drug testing and treatment, she also must surrender her passport and will be prohibited from driving, drinking alcohol and possessing firearms.
Hernandez was the first Missouri resident to be charged in connection with the Capitol riot.
She acknowledged in her plea that she breached the Capitol and entered Pelosi’s suite, taking a piece of the broken sign bearing the speaker’s name. She also admitted to entering the rotunda and taking a “Do Not Touch” sign from the foot of a statue and carrying a red “Keep off Fence” sign from the Capitol grounds.
Hernandez is scheduled to be sentenced March 21. She faces a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $100,000 fine, and must pay $500 in restitution for damage to the Capitol building.
Prosecutors say the overall damage totaled about $1.5 million.
Pennsylvania
Man gets 30 to 60 years in strangulation slaying, arson
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison in the strangulation slaying of his girlfriend’s mother whose body was found after a 2019 Pennsylvania fire.
A Dauphin County judge on Monday sentenced 35-year-old Calvin Purdie Jr. to 20 to 40 years for third-degree murder and a consecutive term of 10 to 20 years for aggravated arson. A jury convicted Purdie of the crimes in November after an earlier trial in which jurors were unable to reach agreement on a verdict.
Prosecutors said DNA from the defendant was found under the fingernails of the one hand of 49-year-old Charlotte Chaplin that wasn’t incinerated. Authorities accused him of setting the fire to try to cover up the May 2019 slaying in Hershey.
Authorities said he was living with the victim and dating her daughter at the time, and prosecutors said Purdie had come to see Chaplin as a “barrier” to his relationship with her daughter.
Defense attorneys said their client had nothing to do with the killing and suggested a stalker or ex-boyfriend of the victim may have been responsible, PennLive. com reported. Prosecutors said the other people suggested by the defense all had solid alibis.
Purdie was on parole for aggravated assault at the time and faces revocation of that parole, prosecutors said.
