Missouri
Ex-police officer declines plea deal in beating of colleague
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former St. Louis police officer who was set to plead guilty in the 2017 beating of a Black colleague who was working undercover is now taking his case to trial.
A judge on Monday scheduled Christopher Myers’ trial on a federal charge of destruction of evidence for May 2, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. He had been set to plead guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge of deprivation of rights, in which he would have admitted to damaging Detective Luther Hall’s phone on the night Hall was beaten by fellow officers.
Myers, who is white, would have agreed to a sentence of probation in the deal. Now, Myers faces years in prison if he’s convicted.
Myers announced his change of mind about the plea agreement after U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber recused himself from Myers’ case last week. Webber did not list a reason for his recusal.
Two juries in separate trials last year were unable to reach a verdict in cases where Myers faced charges of destruction of evidence. In his first trial, Myers was acquitted of a civil rights violation count.
Myers was one of several now-former officers charged in Hall’s beating. Randy Hays was sentenced last year to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty in 2019 to using unreasonable and excessive force in the beating. Dustin Boone was convicted last year of deprivation of rights under the law and sentenced in November to one year and a day in prison. Bailey Colletta was sentenced to three years’ probation for lying to the FBI and a grand jury about the beating.
Last year, a jury acquitted former Officer Steven Korte of charges of deprivation of rights under color of law and of lying to the FBI about the attack.
Prosecutors have said the officers mistakenly believed that Hall was participating in a protest in September 2017 following the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a white officer accused of fatally shooting a Black man following a high-speed chase. Hall required multiple surgeries after the beating, which he said left him with permanent damage. He settled a lawsuit against the police for $5 million.
Maine
State wants man to be held without bail for killing
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A judge is considering whether to permanently revoke bail for a man charged last year in a 2011 killing in Portland.
Abdi Awad was at the Maine State Prison serving a sentence for aggravated assault when he was charged last August with murder in the death of Allen MacLean, 41, of South Portland, 10 years earlier.
On Monday, prosecutors argued that bail should be revoked to ensure he remains in custody. The judge plans to issue a ruling later.
Police say witnesses heard a gunshot and then saw MacLean run from behind a building and across a street before collapsing on a sidewalk.
Awad was serving a 12-year sentence at the Maine State Prison when he was arrested. He completed that sentence but remains in the Cumberland County Jail because of the murder charge.
Mother nears settlement over clinic failure to report abuse
ORONO, Maine (AP) — The federal government has agreed to pay $10 million to a Maine woman after a medical clinic failed to tell her or the state about signs that her son had been abused, according to court records.
The agreement between the mother and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services still must be approved by a federal judge. It would set aside $7 million for the boy’s long-term medical care, the Bangor Daily News reported on Monday. The boy suffered significant injuries from the abuse by an ex-boyfriend of the mother.
The mother sued with a claim that medical personnel at the Brewer Medical Center, a federally funded clinic, didn’t tell her about signs of abuse, and didn’t report it to authorities.
The mother’s lawsuit was against the federal government because Medicaid paid for the care her son received. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment to The Associated Press about the settlement.
The abuse left the boy blind and with brain injuries. The ex-boyfriend is now incarcerated in a Maine prison.
Brewer Medical Center is run by Penobscot Community Health Care, the largest federally qualified health center in Maine. A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment to the AP.
Washington
Supreme Court to review Native American child adoption law
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has agreed to review a case involving a federal law that gives Native Americans preference in adoptions of Native children.
The high court said Monday it would take the case that presents the most significant legal challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act since it was passed in 1978. The law has long been championed by Native American leaders as a means of preserving their families and culture.
The law gives Native American families priority in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native children, and it places reporting and other requirements on states. A federal appeals court in April upheld the law and Congress’ authority to enact it. But the judges also found some of the law’s provisions unconstitutional, including preferences for placing Native American children with Native adoptive families and in Native foster homes.
The case won’t be argued until after the high court begins its new term in October.
Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and seven individuals — three non-Native couples and the biological mother of a Native American child that was adopted by a non-Native family — had sued over provisions in the law. The children are enrolled or potentially could be enrolled as Navajo or Cherokee, White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.
A federal district court in Texas initially sided with the group of plaintiffs in 2018 and struck down much of the law, ruling it was unconstitutional because it was race-based and violates the Equal Protection Clause.
But in 2019, a three-judge federal appeals court panel voted 2-1 to reverse the district court and uphold the law. The full court then agreed to hear the case, and struck some provisions. It upheld the determination that the law is based on the political relationship between the 574 federally recognized tribes and the U.S. government, not race.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to review the case, arguing that the provisions should not have been struck.
Before the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their homes and placed with adoptive families, in foster care or in institutions. Most were placed with white families or in boarding schools in attempts to assimilate them.
