National Roundup

Louisiana
Judge: Jury must decide if man killed himself
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A federal judge in Louisiana has ruled a jury must decide whether the shooting death of a handcuffed man in the rear of a patrol car was a suicide, accident or “at the hand of a sheriff’s deputy.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna refused in a ruling filed Monday to throw out a lawsuit against Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal and a deputy over the March 2014 death of 22-year-old Victor White III.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors ruled out criminal charges in White’s death, but Hanna said it hasn’t been “conclusively established” whether White’s death was a suicide, accident or a homicide.

The judge also said there are “factual discrepancies” that raise questions about the “trustworthiness” of the Louisiana State Police’s investigation of White’s death.

Massachusetts
Aaron Hernandez conviction will not be restored
BOSTON (AP) — A justice on Massachusetts’ highest court has denied prosecutors’ request to reinstate the murder conviction of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez.

The conviction in the 2013 fatal shooting of Odin Lloyd was voided by a Superior Court judge in May because Hernandez killed himself in prison. Under Massachusetts legal principle, courts typically erase the convictions of defendants who die before their direct appeals can be heard.

Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn III in July filed an appeal with a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, saying erasing the conviction would undermine the public’s trust in jury verdicts.

In a brief ruling issued Friday, Justice David Lowy said Quinn’s request is “exercised only in exceptional circumstances.”

Pennsylvania
Man pleads to lesser count for in-flight fondle
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pittsburgh-area man has pleaded guilty to a lesser federal assault charge for fondling a sleeping woman during a flight from Las Vegas.

Fifty-nine-year-old Wei-Ming Shi, of Mount Lebanon, pleaded guilty Monday to simple assault on an aircraft during flight and has agreed to a $5,000 fine.

A federal judge in Pittsburgh can also impose up to six months in jail and probation when Shi is sentenced March 16. The original charge of unlawful sexual contact carried up to three years in prison.

Shi’s attorney told the judge the incident stemmed from flirting aboard the Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Pittsburgh in August 2016.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman disputed there was any flirting before Shi put his hand under the woman’s dress onto her thigh, buttocks and back.

Pennsylvania
Students miss school after teacher posts ‘I’m buying a gun’
BRENTWOOD, Pa. (AP) — A suburban Pittsburgh school district says a teacher’s Facebook post about “buying a gun” caused parents to keep about 60 students home from school or pick them up early from an ­elementary school Friday.

KDKA reports students at Moore Elementary in the Brentwood School District were also kept inside and borough police were notified.

The post said, “I’m going shopping sat. Who wants to go. I’m buying a gun. Watch out world. Hahahaha.”

The district isn’t identifying the staffer who posted the comment or saying what might happen to him or her.

Alabama
Attorneys says prison plan vague and inadequate
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Attorneys for inmates argue Alabama has submitted a vague and inadequate plan to correct prison mental health care that a federal judge ruled was horrendously inadequate.

Attorneys for inmates criticized the state’s proposal in a court filing submitted last week to U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson.

The Department of Corrections told the judge in an earlier filing that it was increasing mental health staff and conducting an analysis to determine security staffing needs.

Inmate attorneys argued there should be more details in that proposal. They also argued that the state should have deadlines for increasing staff and benchmarks for caseloads.

A federal judge this summer ruled mental health care in Alabama prisons is so inadequate that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Washington
Gorsuch: Civility doesn’t mean suppressing disagreement
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says that suppressing disagreement in the name of civility is wrong.

Gorsuch tells a conference of lawyers meeting near the high court that he’s worried that college students with unpopular views aren’t “able to express themselves.”

The newest Supreme Court justice says civility “doesn’t mean suppressing disagreement.”

The 50-year-old justice joined the high court in April. He filled a seat that had been vacant since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last year.

Republicans who control the Senate refused to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee. President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch in January and the Senate confirmed him, largely along party lines.

He’d served on the federal appeals court in Denver for more than 10 years.

Utah
Judge serves eviction notice on unborn baby
PROVO, Utah (AP) — A Utah mom powering through her final days of pregnancy gave her baby an eviction notice and made it official with a judge’s signature. Incredibly, the baby obeyed.

The Daily Herald reports Kaylee Bays was pregnant with her third child, a girl, and thought she was going into labor last Monday, but it stopped.

She went back to work Tuesday to her job as a judicial assistant at the Fourth District Court in Provo, and jokingly asked Judge Lynn Davis to serve an eviction notice on her baby.

It worked, and less than 12 hours later, baby Gretsel was born.

Bays says Judge Davis gladly signed the eviction notice, telling her it was his first eviction notice for a baby in his 31 years as a judge.