National Roundup . . .

Pennsylvania
Police; Woman found intruder taking a shower, doing laundry

ERIE, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania State Police say a woman found an intruder taking a shower and doing his laundry at her home when she woke up.

Troopers say the resident summoned police to her home in Greene Township, near Erie, on Saturday morning.

Twenty-four-year-old Erie resident Casey James Shaffer was arrested on charges of criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and loitering and prowling at night.

South Dakota
Judge to hear battle over egg-laying operation 

PARKER, S.D. (AP) — A dispute over a large egg-laying operation planned near Parker in southeastern South Dakota goes before a judge in Turner County this week.

Sioux Falls-based Sonstegard Foods plans to put 6 million birds on a farm 2½ miles from Parker and half a mile from the city’s golf course. Opponents believe that’s too close and will cause problems such as odor, traffic and noise for the 1,200 people who live within a 3-mile radius of the proposed site.

They sued the county and the project developers in February, contending the County Commission approved new zoning regulations to allow for the chicken operation without proper public notice or input from county planners. Opponents hope a judge will block the project.

The county says the zoning ordinance changes were not significant enough to go before the planning commission, and that the county commission followed the law and did nothing wrong.
Company officials have said they’re designing a facility to minimize odor, and that it will create more than 150 jobs. The chicken farm would have 10 barns, two dry manure buildings, a processing plant and a feed mill.

The case goes before a judge Thursday afternoon, after months of court filings and depositions, the Argus Leader newspaper reported.


Arizona
Rental company offers felons second chance

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A Phoenix-based apartment company is expanding to Tucson thanks in part to its target clientele: convicted felons.

Second Chance Rentals brought its practice of renting to felons and evictees, a population other landlords might consider high-risk, to the Tucson market this summer.

“Felons are our best clients,” CEO Les Boynton said. “They value their housing.”

Public defenders such as assistant Pima County public defender Joel Feinman say finding housing is one of several issues people with felony convictions have to deal with.

“It’s not just sex offenders or murderers who suffer these consequences,” he said. “It’s people who are convicted of possession of marijuana or felony shoplifting.”

Boynton, whose clients are all non-violent offenders, said he has rented to more than 22,000 people at 120 apartment complexes in Phoenix since starting his company in 2003. He does not work with sex offenders, habitual drug dealers or people who are frequently in and out of prison, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Second Chance oversees a 52-unit complex in Tucson that Boynton and a group of investors bought in May.

“To my knowledge, there is no model specifically like that in Tucson,” said Mike Chapman, a specialist in multifamily housing for Tucson-based NAI Horizon, a commercial real estate company.
The property has a 96 percent occupancy rate. The company intends to buy or manage another 400 units by the end of the year, Boynton said. It could be needed in a county where nearly 41,000 people have been convicted of felonies in the last decade.

Sharli Pettit, who is 19 and more than eight months pregnant, had difficulty finding a place because of her prior conviction for methamphetamine possession. But just a few hours after checking out a small apartment owned by Second Chance, she signed a contract.

“It’s really hard to find a place that allows people like me, being a felon,” she said. “All I want to do is turn my life around.”

New Hampshire
Prisoner claims religious right to have beard

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A prisoner in New Hampshire is suing the state after he was placed in secure housing and initially denied parole for failing to shave his thick, bushy beard in violation of prison rules.

Corrections officials and lawyers for the state said Frank Staples, 35, was placed in the state prison’s Special Housing Unit — where death row is located and inmates are locked down 23 hours a day — for his safety and because of security concerns. They maintain his beard could be used to hide drugs or weapons and makes him a target of harassment and beatings by other prisoners who are required to shave.

Staples sued, saying he keeps the beard because of his Taoist beliefs and it is protected by his religious freedoms. He was convicted of jumping bail on drug charges in 2011. When he was arrested, Nashua police said he was a convicted felon in possession of a gun, and in 2006, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld an earlier conviction for being a felon in possession of a weapon.

In July, U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty ordered prison officials to assign Staples a lower security classification and to transfer him to a less restrictive housing unit pending the outcome of his religious rights lawsuit. She adopted most of the recommendations made by a federal magistrate in May.

Staples was denied parole last year on the grounds that his placement in SHU indicated he was a risk. When he was granted parole in June, the board cited the court opinions. He remains in the SHU pending approval of his community placement plan.

Lawyers for the prison and parole board are asking the judge to postpone the effective date of McCafferty’s order, citing ongoing security concerns if Staples is released to less restrictive housing. They want to present evidence on why the less restrictive Close Custody Unit doesn’t alleviate safety and contraband concerns.

Prison policy allows beards up to a quarter inch long and makes no exceptions for religious beliefs. Inmates in the SHU may grow beards but must shave them at the time of their transfer to a lower security unit.

In court papers, Staples’ beard is described as coarse and full-length, and prison officials say it’s thick enough to hide a razor blade, pen or drugs such as Suboxone, which can be produced as a thin, wafer-like strip.

“It is undisputed that Staples’s beard could conceal these types of items,” McCafferty wrote, noting the federal magistrate judge saw Staples stick a pen through his beard and keep it there for a few moments while he moved his head.

McCafferty has scheduled an expedited trial on his religious freedom claims under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.