National Round Up

California: SoCal teacher arrested for sex with student
VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Sheriff’s investigators say a Victorville math teacher has been arrested for having sex with a high school student.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman says Silverado High School officials notified the department when they learned of 33-year-old Floran Calixto Sulit’s relationship with the 17-year-old female student.

Sulit was arrested Aug. 11 and he pleaded not guilty during a Friday court appearance to three counts of oral copulation of a minor and one count of sending harmful material to the girl’s cellular telephone for the purpose of seducing a minor. He’s in jail with bail set at $25,000.

Wyoming: Second man pleads not guilty in Casper slaying
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A second man accused of being involved in the fatal shooting of a Casper man during an attempted robbery has pleaded not guilty.

Nineteen-year-old Dustin Doyle entered his plea in court Tuesday.

Eighteen-year-old Jonathan Kyle Mahaffey has also pleaded not guilty to murder in the death of Chad Ferguson. A third suspect, 23-year-old, Edward Lee Hays is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.

Police say they don’t know which man fired the fatal shots. They say Mahaffey and Doyle claim Hays did while Hays allegedly says it was one of the other two.

The three are accused of trying to rob Ferguson to get money and drugs. According to court documents, he tried to flee and was found shot in the back.

Florida: Ex-lifeguard says she was coerced into sex for job
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A former lifeguard claims teen girls were expected to have sex with Volusia County Beach Patrol officers as a ‘rite of passage.’

The former lifeguard, who is now 19, filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court in Orlando on Aug. 6.

She claims sex with an officer or lifeguard was considered ‘a rite of passage’ among young lifeguards. The girl was 17 when she was a lifeguard.

Two former beach patrol officers have been arrested as part of the investigation into allegations of sexual activity with underage girls.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified money damages.

Colorado: Judge dismisses U.S. bomber’s food lawsuit
DENVER (AP) — A judge in Denver has dismissed claims by Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols that prison officials violated his constitutional rights by depriving him of a diet rich in whole grains, fiber, raw fruits and vegetables.

U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello said in a ruling issued Monday that Nichols didn’t support his claims that the prison’s food amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and violates his right to free exercise of religion.

Nichols sued last year, saying the food served at the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, violated his religious beliefs by causing him to sin.

He is serving life for conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the 1995 federal building bombing that killed 168 people.

Florida: Justices hearing argument on 3 amendments
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court is hearing arguments in challenges to three proposed state constitutional amendments.

In each case Wednesday the state is appealing judges’ decisions to remove from the Nov. 2 ballot an amendment proposed by the Legislature. The judges ruled their ballot summaries were inaccurate or misleading.

Amendment 3 would provide property tax breaks for first-time home buyers and lower a cap on assessment increases for businesses.

Amendment 7 would override anti-gerrymandering provisions in two citizen initiatives on legislative and congressional redistricting also slated for the November ballot.

Amendment 9 would prohibit government health care plans from requiring people to have insurance.

Mississippi: Jackson man found not guilty of murder
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Hinds County jury has acquitted a 29-year-old Jackson man of murder in a love triangle but found him guilty of shooting into a vehicle carrying the woman at the center of the controversy.

Jerel Kimbrough faced charges of depraved heart murder in the shooting death of 39-year-old Michael Smith and shooting into an occupied vehicle where Smith’s longtime companion, Angela Johnson, sat.

Smith was killed during a confrontation July 2, 2008. Johnson was sitting in a truck parked outside when the shooting happened.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Malcolm Harrison sentenced Kimbrough to five years.

Connecticut: Three sentenced to prison for parade shootings
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut judge has sentenced three men to prison for a shootout at a Hartford parade that killed a 21-year-old man and injured six others, including two children.

Hartford Superior Court Judge David Gold on Tuesday sentenced 19-year-old Michael Ledbetter of Hartford to 14 years in prison, 19-year-old Chad Adger of Hartford to 3? years and 18-year-old Sylvester Burrell of Bloomfield to four years.

Ledbetter pleaded guilty to manslaughter, while Adger and Burrell pleaded guilty to accessory to first-degree assault.

Authorities say the three men opened fire at the 2008 West Indian Day Parade, after Ledbetter got into an argument with Ezekiel Roberts of Hartford.

Roberts died. The wounded victims included a 15-month-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.

Arizona: Appeals filed in public campaign finance case
PHOENIX (AP) — Opponents of a key portion of Arizona’s public campaign finance system have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down.

Formal appeals filed by the Goldwater Institute and the Institute for Justice ask the justices to reverse an appellate court’s decision upholding money that is provided to publicly funded candidates who are outspent by privately funded rivals or targeted by independent expenditures.

A federal judge in Phoenix had struck down matching funds as a violation of First Amendment free speech rights for privately funded candidates and their supporters.