National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Prosecutor: Cop destroyed woman's phone,  lied about assault

READING, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania district attorney says a police officer lied about being assaulted after breaking the cellphone of a woman driving in a car he pulled over without sufficient cause.

Berks County District Attorney John Adams announced the charges, including official oppression and evidence tampering, against 27-year-old Reading Officer Jesus Santiago-DeJesus. The officer is expected to surrender Thursday and doesn't have an attorney listed in court records.

Adams says the officer claimed in a report that the woman didn't use a turn signal before the stop, although surveillance video from nearby homes and businesses shows she did.

Adams says the officer knocked the phone out of the woman's hand to destroy the video she was recording and wrongly charged her and a passenger.

The officer is on paid leave.

New Mexico
Feds: Law to stop abuse of Indian women has gaps

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A U.S. Justice Department official identified significant gaps Wednesday in a federal law aimed at addressing high rates of violence against Native American women, saying the law should be expanded to broaden tribes' authority over certain child abuse cases.

In 2013, Congress gave tribes power to prosecute non-Native Americans in domestic and dating violence cases. The push for the law came amid outcry from victims' advocates who cited federal figures showing most assaults involved offenders who weren't Native American.

But the scope of the law - known as the Violence Against Women Act - has proven limited, with language saying tribal authorities can only prosecute perpetrators who live or work on tribal land, or are their victim's' spouse or dating partner.

Tracy Toulou, the director of the Justice Department's Office of Tribal Justice, commended the legislation during a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing Wednesday in Washington. But he also said remaining shortfalls leave tribes unable to prosecute child abuse cases involving non-Native offenders - even in instances where the assault or battery on the child goes hand-in-hand with an attack on the mother.

The law also leaves tribes without a way to proceed in their courts when a non-Native suspect attacks an officer during an arrest, he said.

"In these circumstances, the only effective way to hold the perpetrator accountable for all his misconduct, including his crimes against the children, is to prosecute him federally, rather than tribally," he said.

A third "gap" listed in Toulou's testimony centered on whether tribes can charge a suspect accused of threatening or attempting to harm a woman but not actually injuring her.

He cited a case in which a woman's boyfriend attempted to punch her while intoxicated but missed and fell. Since tribal authorities weren't sure whether that confrontation qualified as domestic violence under the law, they didn't bring charges. Later, the man returned to assault the victim again.

Toulou's testimony comes as the Indian Affairs Committee weighs legislation that would follow his recommendation to add protections for Native American children.

The proposal also aims to grant tribes authority to prosecute non-Native American drug traffickers - a move Toulou said he believed should wait, but a tribal representative said was needed.

"Every year brings new challenges that our families are facing, including meth and other drug-related violence," said Dana Buckles, a councilman for the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in Montana. "We have all heard the stories in the news of people essentially having psychotic breakdowns and committing horrendous acts of violence when they are under the influence of these drugs. We are now experiencing this on our reservation."

Washington, D.C.
Court rules man can be denied re-entry to U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is making it easier for the government to deport or otherwise remove people who are not U.S. citizens if they are convicted of seemingly minor state crimes.

The justices ruled 5-3 Thursday that a man who spent 23 years living in New York as a lawful permanent resident can be barred from re-entering the country because of a 1999 conviction for attempted arson.

George Luna Torres had served one day in prison and five years of probation after pleading guilty in state court, but otherwise had a clean record since his parents brought him into the country from the Dominican Republic in 1983.

But the government argued that the state law conviction was equivalent to an aggravated felony for purposes of immigration law.

Under immigration law, a lawful permanent resident can be deported or denied re-entry to the United States after being convicted of an aggravated felony. Those offenses include certain federal crimes as well as state offenses that share the same elements.

Luna argued that the federal crime of arson is different from the state version because it must involve interstate commerce.

Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said that is simply a technical difference needed to give Congress authority over arson crimes and not a meaningful distinction. She said Luna's argument would also exclude more serious state crimes, such as kidnapping, from affecting immigration status simply because a kidnapper failed to cross state lines.

"The national, local or foreign character of a crime has no bearing on whether it is grave enough to warrant an alien's automatic removal," Kagan said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Soto­mayor said the majority was ignoring a strict textual reading of the federal law, which includes interstate commerce as part of the crime.

"An element is an element, and I would not so lightly strip a federal statute of one," Sotomayor said.

She was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

Ohio
Court upholds man's  $985 murder conviction

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the aggravated murder conviction of a man the court earlier ruled can't face the death penalty again when he is resentenced.

The court voted 6-1 Thursday to uphold Bennie Adams' conviction for killing Youngstown State University student Gina Tenney in 1985. The court last year returned Adams' case to a Mahoning County court for resentencing after ruling the death sentence he received was invalid because prosecutors failed to prove Adams committed aggravated burglary during the crime. The court also noted the U.S. Constitution prohibits him from facing the death penalty a second time.

Adams argued in appealing his conviction that his appellate lawyers didn't raise errors he said his trial lawyers made. The Supreme Court disagreed.

Published: Fri, May 20, 2016