South Carolina
Senate panel approves Michelle Childs for DC appeals court
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina jurist Michelle Childs — recently under consideration for a slot on the U.S. Supreme Court — is one step closer to confirmation for the federal court typically seen as a proving ground for the nation’s highest bench.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 17-5 to approve Childs’ nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
Childs, 56, has been a federal judge on South Carolina’s District Court for more than a decade. Earlier this year, she was on a shortlist of candidates being considered by President Joe Biden for an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, given the pending retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.
Childs had a litany of high-profile advocates, including U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, on whose advice Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign to nominate a Black woman to the high court.
Childs’ supporters also included Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said then he was certain Childs “would have been a reliable vote for the liberal bloc of the Court” but applauded her “open mind and balance that all Americans are looking for.”
Graham, who went on to oppose eventual nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson in a party-line Judiciary Committee vote, added that he felt Childs “would have received a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate.” Three GOP senators ultimately came out in favor of Jackson’s nomination, assuring her eventual confirmation as the high court’s first Black female justice, given unified Democratic support.
During Childs’ appellate confirmation hearing last month, Graham again noted his likely disagreement with some positions from a nominee put forth by a Democratic president but called the position “consequential” and said he hoped people “can rally around the accomplished woman who has worn the robe well and has potential to serve at the highest level of the judiciary.”
At that same hearing, Clyburn pointed to Childs’ “ordinary upbringing that has helped shape her life’s work and made her an example for so many young people in similar circumstances.” It was reminiscent of his promotion of Childs for the Supreme Court, when he pointed to her legal training at the University of South Carolina School of Law — rather than an Ivy League institution — as a characteristic that would help Americans identify with the high court, currently populated almost exclusively with Harvard and Yale graduates.
Last year, Biden nominated Childs for the D.C. Circuit slot, but her hearing was postponed while she was also under consideration for the Supreme Court. Previously serving as a state trial court judge, worker’s compensation commissioner and deputy director of South Carolina’s labor department, Childs also practiced employment law at Nexsen Pruet, where she became the firm’s first Black female partner.
California
Driver charged with attempted murder for hitting children
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A man who drove onto a Southern California sidewalk and hit three children walking to school has been charged with premeditated attempted murder, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Jason Carlos Guzman, 26, of Valencia remained hospitalized with a self-inflicted stab wound to his abdomen, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Guzman’s condition wasn’t immediately released and it wasn’t immediately clear whether he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.
Guzman, who had a 2017 conviction for assault with force likely to commit great bodily injury, went to Taft Elementary School in Santa Ana at around 8 a.m. Monday and told a staff member that he was going to use the bathroom, prosecutors said.
The staffer told him to leave. His Mazda crashed into a barrier in the school parking lot as he drove away, prosecutors said.
A couple of blocks away, the car accelerated, ran onto a sidewalk and hit a group of children walking to Taft, prosecutors said.
An 11-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, and a 6–year-old girl were struck and flew into the air, according to the district attorney’s statement.
Guzman brandished a knife at a woman who saw the crash, and while driving away his car struck an SUV with a woman and her 11-year-old daughter inside, authorities said. No one was seriously injured.
After Guzman’s arrest, investigators said they found containers of flammable liquid in his car.
Authorities haven’t released a motive in the case or said whether drugs or alcohol may have been involved.
Guzman is charged with seven counts of premeditated attempted murder, seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of hit-and-run with injury, and three counts of child abuse, prosecutors said.
He also is charged with a felony count of possession of a flammable liquid, a misdemeanor count of brandishing a deadly weapon, and a misdemeanor count of hit-and-run with property damage.
If convicted of all charges, he could face 49 years to life in prison.
“The actions of a single individual have resulted in undue trauma to the victims he hit as well as countless children, parents, and school staff,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the statement. “These children were innocently walking to school on the sidewalk with their grandparents and but for the grace of God, this incident did not result in a child being seriously injured or killed.”
London
Kevin Spacey charged in UK with 4 counts of sexual assault
LONDON (AP) — British prosecutors said Thursday they have charged actor Kevin Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Spacey “has also been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”
The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and August 2008, and in western England in April 2013.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the service’s Special Crime Division, said the charges follow a review of evidence gathered by London’s Metropolitan Police.
Spacey, a 62-year-old double Academy Award winner, was questioned by British police in 2019 about claims by several men that he had assaulted them.
The former “House of Cards” star ran London’s Old Vic Theatre between 2004 and 2015.
