Washington
US will appeal judge’s ruling that 9/11 defendants can plead guilty and avoid the death penalty
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department will appeal a military judge’s ruling that plea agreements struck by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and two of his co-defendants are valid, a defense official said Saturday.
The ruling this past week voided Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s order to throw out the deals and concluded that the plea agreements were valid. The judge granted the three motions to enter guilty pleas and said he would schedule them for a future date to be determined by the military commission.
The department will also seek a postponement of any hearing on the pleas, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss legal matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecutor, sent a letter Friday to the families of 9/11 victims informing them of the decision.
The ruling by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, allowed the three 9/11 defendants to enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would spare them the risk of the death penalty. The pleas by Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi would be a key step toward closing out the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense lawyers under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at Guantanamo had approved the agreements. But the deals were immediately slammed by Republican lawmakers and others when they were made public this summer.
Within days, Austin issued an order saying he was nullifying them. He said plea bargains in possible death penalty cases tied to one of the gravest crimes ever carried out on U.S. soil were a momentous step that should only be decided by the defense secretary.
The judge had ruled that Austin lacked the legal authority to toss out the plea deals.
The agreements, and Austin’s attempt to reverse them, have made for one of the most fraught episodes in a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and legal difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to determine the admissibility of statements by the defendants, given their torture in CIA custody.
While families of some of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 prosecutions continue until trial and possible death sentences, legal experts say it is not clear that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever clear the hurdles of trial, verdicts and sentencings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would likely hear many of the issues in the course of any death penalty appeals.
The issues include the CIA destruction of videos of interrogations, whether Austin’s plea deal reversal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men tainted subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence.
Massachusetts
Revising the rules of engagement, court says jilted bride must give back $70,000 ring
BOSTON (AP) — Who gets to keep an engagement ring if a romance turns sour and the wedding is called off?
That’s what the highest court in Massachusetts was asked to decide with a $70,000 ring at the center of the dispute.
The court ultimately ruled Friday that an engagement ring must be returned to the person who purchased it, ending a six-decade state rule that required judges to try to identify who was to blame for the end of the relationship.
The case involved Bruce Johnson and Caroline Settino, who started dating in the summer of 2016, according to court filings. Over the next year, they traveled together, visiting New York, Bar Harbor, Maine, the Virgin Islands and Italy. Johnson paid for the vacations and also gave Settino jewelry, clothing, shoes and handbags.
Eventually, Johnson bought a $70,000 diamond engagement ring and in August 2017 asked Settino’s father for permission to marry her. Two months later, he also bought two wedding bands for about $3,700.
Johnson said he felt like after that Settino became increasingly critical and unsupportive, including berating him and not accompanying him to treatments when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to court filings.
At some point Johnson looked at Settino’s cell phone and discovered a message from her to a man he didn’t know.
“My Bruce is going to be in Connecticut for three days. I need some playtime,” the message read. He also found messages from the man, including a voicemail in which the man referred to Settino as “cupcake” and said they didn’t see enough of each other. Settino has said the man was just a friend.
Johnson ended the engagement. But ownership of the ring remained up in the air.
A trial judge initially concluded Settino was entitled to keep the engagement ring, reasoning that Johnson “mistakenly thought Settino was cheating on him and called off the engagement.” An appeals court found Johnson should get the ring.
In September, the case landed before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ultimately ruled that Johnson should keep the ring.
In their ruling the justices said the case raised the question of whether the issue of “who is at fault” should continue to govern the rights to engagement rings when the wedding doesn’t happen.
More than six decades ago, the court found that an engagement ring is generally understood to be a conditional gift and determined that the person who gives it can get it back after a failed engagement, but only if that person was “without fault.”
“We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue and retire the concept of fault in this context,” the justices wrote in Friday’s ruling. “Where, as here, the planned wedding does not ensue and the engagement is ended, the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault.”
Johnson’s lawyer, Stephanie Taverna Siden, welcomed the ruling.
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision today. It is a well-reasoned, fair and just decision and moves Massachusetts law in the right direction,” Siden said.
A lawyer for Settino said they were disappointed, but respected the court’s decision to follow the majority rule among the states.
“We firmly believe that the notion of an engagement ring as a conditional gift is predicated on outdated notions and should no longer be a legal loophole in our otherwise well-established rule that a breach of a promise to marry is not an injury recognized by law,” Nicholas Rosenberg said.
Harvard Law School professor Rebecca Tushnet, who studies engagement ring law, said she wasn’t surprised that the court rejected the fault standard, saying it really doesn’t fit with modern family law.
“I’m a bit disappointed that they didn’t give more consideration to the other no-fault option. That would be that the gift stays with the person who received it, as is standard for most gifts,” she said. “The court calls an engagement ring a conditional gift, but the rule for engagement rings is not the same as the rule for every other kind of conditional gift.”
Mississippi
Former sheriff convicted of bribery and giving ammo to felon
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former sheriff in Mississippi’s largest county was convicted Friday on federal charges of soliciting bribes and providing ammunition to a convicted felon.
Marshand Crisler was interim sheriff of Hinds County for part of 2021, after the death of the elected sheriff, Lee Vance.
He was solicited and accepted thousands of dollars in exchange for agreeing to provide information about criminal investigations to a person who paid the bribes, according to the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI.
Crisler agreed to protect a jailed relative of that person and to give them a job with the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, prosecutors said. He also gave ammunition to a person he knew to be a convicted felon, they said.
He faces up to 10 years in prison. He remains free until sentencing, which is scheduled for Feb. 6.
Crisler is a former Jackson City Council member. He ran in a 2021 special election to fill the final two years of Vance’s four-year term but lost to Tyree Jones. He challenged Jones again in the 2023 Democratic primary.
Missouri
2 men accused of plotting to shoot at immigrants are convicted of attempting to kill federal agents
Two men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a planned trip to the Texas-Mexico border to shoot at immigrants illegally crossing there and any federal agents who might try to stop them.
A jury at the U.S. District Court in the Missouri state capital of Jefferson City found Jonathan S. O’Dell, 34, of Warshaw, Missouri, and Bryan C. Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, guilty of more than 30 felony counts each, the chief federal prosecutor for western Missouri, Teresa Moore, announced Friday. The convictions Thursday came after jurors deliberated for more than two hours.
O’Dell’s attorney, Jonathan Truesdale, declined comment, but Perry’s attorney, Thomas Kirsch, said his client plans to appeal the verdict. Kirsch said Perry is disappointed in the verdict but said he is grateful for jurors’ dedication and the opportunity to exercise “his fundamental right” of trial by jury.
“My client has a deep love and passion for our country and the values it stands for and what the Constitution stands for, including his right to a trial by jury,” Kirsch said.
A sentencing date for either man has not yet been set. They both face at least 10 years in prison, and possibly life.
Perry also pled guilty to three charges, including escaping from federal custody. Held for trial in a county jail in Rolla, Missouri, he escaped in September 2023 but was captured two days later and about 160 miles (258 kilometers) to the northwest, outside Kansas City, following a high-speed chase.
The two men formed the 2nd Amendment Militia and then in the summer and fall of 2022 tried recruit others to join them, prosecutors said. In September 2022, O’Dell’s home about 100 miles (161 kilometers) became a staging site as the two men collected firearms, ammunition, paramilitary gear and other supplies, according to the government’s evidence.
Prosecutors said Perry posted a TikTok video in September saying that their militia group was going to “go protect this country,” and another in early October saying the group would be “out huntin’.” Prosecutors said the two men viewed U.S. Border Patrol agents as traitors for allowing immigrants to cross into Texas.
The day before they planned to leave for Texas, an FBI team using an armored vehicle served a search warrant on O’Dell’s home, and prosecutors said Perry fired 11 rifle shots at them. O’Dell and his girlfriend surrendered, but after exiting the house, Perry fought with agents.
The charges against the two men also included using a firearm in a violent crime, illegal gun possession and damaging federal property. Perry couldn’t legally have a gun because in 2004, he pled guilty in Tennessee to a felony aggravated robbery charge and served about four years in prison, according to online records.
US will appeal judge’s ruling that 9/11 defendants can plead guilty and avoid the death penalty
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department will appeal a military judge’s ruling that plea agreements struck by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and two of his co-defendants are valid, a defense official said Saturday.
The ruling this past week voided Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s order to throw out the deals and concluded that the plea agreements were valid. The judge granted the three motions to enter guilty pleas and said he would schedule them for a future date to be determined by the military commission.
The department will also seek a postponement of any hearing on the pleas, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss legal matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecutor, sent a letter Friday to the families of 9/11 victims informing them of the decision.
The ruling by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, allowed the three 9/11 defendants to enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would spare them the risk of the death penalty. The pleas by Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi would be a key step toward closing out the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense lawyers under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at Guantanamo had approved the agreements. But the deals were immediately slammed by Republican lawmakers and others when they were made public this summer.
Within days, Austin issued an order saying he was nullifying them. He said plea bargains in possible death penalty cases tied to one of the gravest crimes ever carried out on U.S. soil were a momentous step that should only be decided by the defense secretary.
The judge had ruled that Austin lacked the legal authority to toss out the plea deals.
The agreements, and Austin’s attempt to reverse them, have made for one of the most fraught episodes in a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and legal difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to determine the admissibility of statements by the defendants, given their torture in CIA custody.
While families of some of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 prosecutions continue until trial and possible death sentences, legal experts say it is not clear that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever clear the hurdles of trial, verdicts and sentencings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would likely hear many of the issues in the course of any death penalty appeals.
The issues include the CIA destruction of videos of interrogations, whether Austin’s plea deal reversal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men tainted subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence.
Massachusetts
Revising the rules of engagement, court says jilted bride must give back $70,000 ring
BOSTON (AP) — Who gets to keep an engagement ring if a romance turns sour and the wedding is called off?
That’s what the highest court in Massachusetts was asked to decide with a $70,000 ring at the center of the dispute.
The court ultimately ruled Friday that an engagement ring must be returned to the person who purchased it, ending a six-decade state rule that required judges to try to identify who was to blame for the end of the relationship.
The case involved Bruce Johnson and Caroline Settino, who started dating in the summer of 2016, according to court filings. Over the next year, they traveled together, visiting New York, Bar Harbor, Maine, the Virgin Islands and Italy. Johnson paid for the vacations and also gave Settino jewelry, clothing, shoes and handbags.
Eventually, Johnson bought a $70,000 diamond engagement ring and in August 2017 asked Settino’s father for permission to marry her. Two months later, he also bought two wedding bands for about $3,700.
Johnson said he felt like after that Settino became increasingly critical and unsupportive, including berating him and not accompanying him to treatments when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to court filings.
At some point Johnson looked at Settino’s cell phone and discovered a message from her to a man he didn’t know.
“My Bruce is going to be in Connecticut for three days. I need some playtime,” the message read. He also found messages from the man, including a voicemail in which the man referred to Settino as “cupcake” and said they didn’t see enough of each other. Settino has said the man was just a friend.
Johnson ended the engagement. But ownership of the ring remained up in the air.
A trial judge initially concluded Settino was entitled to keep the engagement ring, reasoning that Johnson “mistakenly thought Settino was cheating on him and called off the engagement.” An appeals court found Johnson should get the ring.
In September, the case landed before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ultimately ruled that Johnson should keep the ring.
In their ruling the justices said the case raised the question of whether the issue of “who is at fault” should continue to govern the rights to engagement rings when the wedding doesn’t happen.
More than six decades ago, the court found that an engagement ring is generally understood to be a conditional gift and determined that the person who gives it can get it back after a failed engagement, but only if that person was “without fault.”
“We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue and retire the concept of fault in this context,” the justices wrote in Friday’s ruling. “Where, as here, the planned wedding does not ensue and the engagement is ended, the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault.”
Johnson’s lawyer, Stephanie Taverna Siden, welcomed the ruling.
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision today. It is a well-reasoned, fair and just decision and moves Massachusetts law in the right direction,” Siden said.
A lawyer for Settino said they were disappointed, but respected the court’s decision to follow the majority rule among the states.
“We firmly believe that the notion of an engagement ring as a conditional gift is predicated on outdated notions and should no longer be a legal loophole in our otherwise well-established rule that a breach of a promise to marry is not an injury recognized by law,” Nicholas Rosenberg said.
Harvard Law School professor Rebecca Tushnet, who studies engagement ring law, said she wasn’t surprised that the court rejected the fault standard, saying it really doesn’t fit with modern family law.
“I’m a bit disappointed that they didn’t give more consideration to the other no-fault option. That would be that the gift stays with the person who received it, as is standard for most gifts,” she said. “The court calls an engagement ring a conditional gift, but the rule for engagement rings is not the same as the rule for every other kind of conditional gift.”
Mississippi
Former sheriff convicted of bribery and giving ammo to felon
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former sheriff in Mississippi’s largest county was convicted Friday on federal charges of soliciting bribes and providing ammunition to a convicted felon.
Marshand Crisler was interim sheriff of Hinds County for part of 2021, after the death of the elected sheriff, Lee Vance.
He was solicited and accepted thousands of dollars in exchange for agreeing to provide information about criminal investigations to a person who paid the bribes, according to the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI.
Crisler agreed to protect a jailed relative of that person and to give them a job with the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, prosecutors said. He also gave ammunition to a person he knew to be a convicted felon, they said.
He faces up to 10 years in prison. He remains free until sentencing, which is scheduled for Feb. 6.
Crisler is a former Jackson City Council member. He ran in a 2021 special election to fill the final two years of Vance’s four-year term but lost to Tyree Jones. He challenged Jones again in the 2023 Democratic primary.
Missouri
2 men accused of plotting to shoot at immigrants are convicted of attempting to kill federal agents
Two men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a planned trip to the Texas-Mexico border to shoot at immigrants illegally crossing there and any federal agents who might try to stop them.
A jury at the U.S. District Court in the Missouri state capital of Jefferson City found Jonathan S. O’Dell, 34, of Warshaw, Missouri, and Bryan C. Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, guilty of more than 30 felony counts each, the chief federal prosecutor for western Missouri, Teresa Moore, announced Friday. The convictions Thursday came after jurors deliberated for more than two hours.
O’Dell’s attorney, Jonathan Truesdale, declined comment, but Perry’s attorney, Thomas Kirsch, said his client plans to appeal the verdict. Kirsch said Perry is disappointed in the verdict but said he is grateful for jurors’ dedication and the opportunity to exercise “his fundamental right” of trial by jury.
“My client has a deep love and passion for our country and the values it stands for and what the Constitution stands for, including his right to a trial by jury,” Kirsch said.
A sentencing date for either man has not yet been set. They both face at least 10 years in prison, and possibly life.
Perry also pled guilty to three charges, including escaping from federal custody. Held for trial in a county jail in Rolla, Missouri, he escaped in September 2023 but was captured two days later and about 160 miles (258 kilometers) to the northwest, outside Kansas City, following a high-speed chase.
The two men formed the 2nd Amendment Militia and then in the summer and fall of 2022 tried recruit others to join them, prosecutors said. In September 2022, O’Dell’s home about 100 miles (161 kilometers) became a staging site as the two men collected firearms, ammunition, paramilitary gear and other supplies, according to the government’s evidence.
Prosecutors said Perry posted a TikTok video in September saying that their militia group was going to “go protect this country,” and another in early October saying the group would be “out huntin’.” Prosecutors said the two men viewed U.S. Border Patrol agents as traitors for allowing immigrants to cross into Texas.
The day before they planned to leave for Texas, an FBI team using an armored vehicle served a search warrant on O’Dell’s home, and prosecutors said Perry fired 11 rifle shots at them. O’Dell and his girlfriend surrendered, but after exiting the house, Perry fought with agents.
The charges against the two men also included using a firearm in a violent crime, illegal gun possession and damaging federal property. Perry couldn’t legally have a gun because in 2004, he pled guilty in Tennessee to a felony aggravated robbery charge and served about four years in prison, according to online records.
