Montana
Judge blocks rule that prevented transgender people from changing their sex on documents
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A state judge in Montana has temporarily blocked policies that prevented transgender people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
District Judge Mike Menahan issued his order Monday, blocking the rule while the case moves through the courts.
Menahan said it was not necessary at this point in the litigation to determine whether transgender Montanans constitute a suspect class on the basis of their transgender status, but he disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is not discrimination on the basis of sex.
“If the challenged state actions discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their transgender status, they also necessarily discriminate on the basis of sex,” he wrote.
The case was filed in April by two transgender women on behalf of themselves and others who have been unable to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their sex,” the complaint said.
One rule in the state blocks transgender people born in Montana from changing the sex designation on their birth certificate. Another policy prevents transgender residents from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses without an amended birth certificate — which they can’t obtain if they were born in Montana.
Plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, who was born in Montana, said she was frustrated that while “being able to live my life openly as the woman I know myself to be,” Montana “wants me to carry around a birth certificate that incorrectly lists my sex as male.”
Birth certificates and driver’s licenses are needed to apply for a marriage license, a passport, to vote or even to buy a hunting license, Alex Rate, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, argued last month. Each time a transgender person is required to produce a document that does not accurately reflect their sex, they are forced to “out” themselves as transgender.
The state had argued that sex is binary, either male or female, and that being transgender is not a protected class of people who could have their constitutional rights to privacy violated.
“The right to privacy does not include a right to replace an objective fact of biological sex on a government document,” Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued for the state.
The hearing was the latest volley in a series of laws, rules and legal challenges over efforts by Republicans in Montana to limit the rights of transgender residents. The state has used various justifications in banning changes to identifying documents, including needing accurate statistical records or saying someone’s biological sex cannot be changed even though someone’s gender identity can.
“The state cannot articulate any legitimate interest in restricting access to accurate identity documents, much less a compelling one,” Rate said during the hearing.
Tennessee
Man sues Memphis and police officers for wrongful conviction in music club robbery
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A man who spent more than 20 years behind bars before he was exonerated of robbing a Memphis music club is suing the city and 10 police officers, alleging they made up evidence that led to his wrongful conviction and a lengthy prison sentence.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday by Artis Whitehead, 61, says Memphis Police Department officers fabricated evidence that led to charges of armed robbery and kidnapping in the 2002 robbery of B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street.
Whitehead, who is Black, was tried, convicted and sentenced in 2003 to 249 years in prison. But Whitehead’s conviction and sentence were thrown out in December 2023 and he was released from prison. A Memphis judge determined that no physical evidence connected Whitehead to the robbery and that police fabricated information about the crime, including false identifications of Whitehead by club employees who had been held hostage and robbed.
The fake evidence included an anonymous tip made by phone against Whitehead by a man detained for two different armed robberies, the lawsuit says. It claims the man who made the call was coerced by officers working the case.
The lawsuit names as defendants the city of Memphis and officers involved in the investigation. It seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages for “loss of liberty, great mental anguish, humiliation, degradation, physical and emotional pain and suffering.”
During a news conference Monday, Whitehead said there is “no price tag” for what he and his family have experienced. Whitehead, who currently lives in Nashville and works two jobs, said he missed valuable time with his children and is in the process of re-establishing relations with them.
The Memphis Police Department declined comment. The city of Memphis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On May 9, 2002, a robber entered B.B. King’s and unsuccessfully tried to access the club’s safe. The robber held five people hostage in the basement office, tying their hands and feet. One of the hostages was wounded when he was shot trying to take a gun from the robber, who took some of their money and jewelry before fleeing.
Despite dozens of leads, officers ignored evidence, such as the correct description of the robber, and eliminated leads on suspects without justification, the lawsuit claims. Officers agreed to coerce a man suspected in other robberies into “helping them fabricate an identification falsely implicating Mr. Whitehead” by paying him and giving him an officer’s cell phone to call in an anonymous tip.
“Defendants became desperate to pin the crime on someone in the face of mounting public and business community pressure,” the lawsuit said.
Whitehead’s lawyers argued, among other things, that the actual robber was short and slim, while Whitehead was 6 feet tall and muscular. The judge who tossed out the conviction said there was no proof presented at trial that Whitehead had ever been to Beale Street or B.B. King’s or that he was familiar with the building.
The lawsuit was filed days after the U.S. Department of Justice released results of a monthslong investigation into the Memphis Police Department that was initiated after the January 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols by five police officers who were fired and charged in federal and state court.
The investigation found that Memphis officers regularly use excessive force and discriminate against Black residents of the majority-Black city.
“Mr. Whitehead’s wrongful conviction is not an isolated occurrence,” the lawsuit said. “Rather, his odyssey through the criminal legal system was instigated by a Memphis Police Department that has and continues to devalue the lives of people of color.”
Alabama
Prosecutor seeks death penalty for 8 charged with kidnapping and killing woman
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the eight people charged in the kidnapping, assault and killing of a 20-year-old mother.
Jefferson County deputy district attorney Charissa Henrich filed notice with the court on Friday that she would seek the death penalty if any of the suspects are convicted of capital murder. Henrich characterized the case as “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel compared to other capital offenses.”
Mahogany Jackson sent a text to her family in the early morning of Feb. 25 that shared her location and said that she had been kidnapped, according to Scott Thurmond, the police chief at the time. The location appeared to show that she was at the residence of someone she knew. The next day, law enforcement found her body on a street in southwest Birmingham. She died from a gunshot wound.
Birmingham homicide detective Mark Green testified that videos taken by the suspects themselves and submitted by an unnamed witness show that Jackson was kidnapped and physically and sexually assaulted before three of the suspects drove her to where she was shot and left on a street, AL.com reported.
“This is undoubtedly one of the most heinous acts I’ve seen in my career. It’s absolutely disgusting,” Thurmond said at the time.
A public defender representing at least one of the suspects has filed a motion to bar the death penalty if the jury verdict is not unanimous.
All eight suspects were being held without bond and were set to be arraigned Monday on capital murder charges. At least one of the suspects pleaded not guilty, his attorney, Glennon Threatt, said. Attorneys for the others didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Five of the suspects were initially charged with felony murder, but a grand jury in September upgraded the charges to capital murder.
Virginia
Man convicted o on terrorism charges for funneling money to Islamic State
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia man targeted by an FBI sting operation has been convicted on terrorism charges for collecting funds on behalf of the Islamic State group.
Mohammed Chhipa, 35, of Springfield, was convicted late Friday afternoon on all five counts against him, including providing material support to a terrorist organization, after a weeklong trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The jury deliberated for about three hours.
Prosecutors said Chhipa met several times with an undercover FBI operative who gave him hundreds of dollars on multiple occasions in 2021 and 2022, earmarked for a Syrian woman and Islamic State group member known as Umm Dujanah.
Prosecutors alleged that bank records showed that Chhipa sent more than $74,000 to the Islamic State group in a similar fashion — collecting donations personally from supporters, converting the cash into bitcoin and sending it to bank accounts in Turkey for use by the group.
Chhipa was particularly interested in sending funds to help women from the Islamic State group escape prison camps to which they had been sent after the terrorist group was routed from territory it held in Iraq and Syria, prosecutors said in the trial’s opening statements.
Chhipa’s lawyers had argued that their client was a target of relentless investigation by the FBI, and played on his clear desire to find a wife by using undercover operatives who, among other ruses, pretended to be marriage brokers or even a willing bride.
“The FBI investigated Mohammed Chhipa for 10 years and came up with nothing. Nothing. So, after a decade of bearing no fruit, the FBI decided to create the crime themselves,” defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said during Friday’s closing arguments.
Chhipa has said in court papers that he is now married to Allison Fluke-Ekren, an American from Kansas who is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Fluke-Ekren pleaded guilty last year to organizing and leading the Khatiba Nusaybah, a battalion in the Islamic State group in which roughly 100 women and girls learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.
Prosecutors, though, say that the marriage was conducted online and has no legal status in the U.S. They said Chhipa, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from India, has been trying to adopt Fluke-Ekren’s children.
Chhipa will be sentenced in May.
Judge blocks rule that prevented transgender people from changing their sex on documents
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A state judge in Montana has temporarily blocked policies that prevented transgender people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
District Judge Mike Menahan issued his order Monday, blocking the rule while the case moves through the courts.
Menahan said it was not necessary at this point in the litigation to determine whether transgender Montanans constitute a suspect class on the basis of their transgender status, but he disagreed with the state’s argument that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is not discrimination on the basis of sex.
“If the challenged state actions discriminate against transgender individuals on the basis of their transgender status, they also necessarily discriminate on the basis of sex,” he wrote.
The case was filed in April by two transgender women on behalf of themselves and others who have been unable to obtain documents “that accurately reflect their sex,” the complaint said.
One rule in the state blocks transgender people born in Montana from changing the sex designation on their birth certificate. Another policy prevents transgender residents from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses without an amended birth certificate — which they can’t obtain if they were born in Montana.
Plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, who was born in Montana, said she was frustrated that while “being able to live my life openly as the woman I know myself to be,” Montana “wants me to carry around a birth certificate that incorrectly lists my sex as male.”
Birth certificates and driver’s licenses are needed to apply for a marriage license, a passport, to vote or even to buy a hunting license, Alex Rate, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, argued last month. Each time a transgender person is required to produce a document that does not accurately reflect their sex, they are forced to “out” themselves as transgender.
The state had argued that sex is binary, either male or female, and that being transgender is not a protected class of people who could have their constitutional rights to privacy violated.
“The right to privacy does not include a right to replace an objective fact of biological sex on a government document,” Assistant Attorney General Alwyn Lansing argued for the state.
The hearing was the latest volley in a series of laws, rules and legal challenges over efforts by Republicans in Montana to limit the rights of transgender residents. The state has used various justifications in banning changes to identifying documents, including needing accurate statistical records or saying someone’s biological sex cannot be changed even though someone’s gender identity can.
“The state cannot articulate any legitimate interest in restricting access to accurate identity documents, much less a compelling one,” Rate said during the hearing.
Tennessee
Man sues Memphis and police officers for wrongful conviction in music club robbery
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A man who spent more than 20 years behind bars before he was exonerated of robbing a Memphis music club is suing the city and 10 police officers, alleging they made up evidence that led to his wrongful conviction and a lengthy prison sentence.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday by Artis Whitehead, 61, says Memphis Police Department officers fabricated evidence that led to charges of armed robbery and kidnapping in the 2002 robbery of B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street.
Whitehead, who is Black, was tried, convicted and sentenced in 2003 to 249 years in prison. But Whitehead’s conviction and sentence were thrown out in December 2023 and he was released from prison. A Memphis judge determined that no physical evidence connected Whitehead to the robbery and that police fabricated information about the crime, including false identifications of Whitehead by club employees who had been held hostage and robbed.
The fake evidence included an anonymous tip made by phone against Whitehead by a man detained for two different armed robberies, the lawsuit says. It claims the man who made the call was coerced by officers working the case.
The lawsuit names as defendants the city of Memphis and officers involved in the investigation. It seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages for “loss of liberty, great mental anguish, humiliation, degradation, physical and emotional pain and suffering.”
During a news conference Monday, Whitehead said there is “no price tag” for what he and his family have experienced. Whitehead, who currently lives in Nashville and works two jobs, said he missed valuable time with his children and is in the process of re-establishing relations with them.
The Memphis Police Department declined comment. The city of Memphis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On May 9, 2002, a robber entered B.B. King’s and unsuccessfully tried to access the club’s safe. The robber held five people hostage in the basement office, tying their hands and feet. One of the hostages was wounded when he was shot trying to take a gun from the robber, who took some of their money and jewelry before fleeing.
Despite dozens of leads, officers ignored evidence, such as the correct description of the robber, and eliminated leads on suspects without justification, the lawsuit claims. Officers agreed to coerce a man suspected in other robberies into “helping them fabricate an identification falsely implicating Mr. Whitehead” by paying him and giving him an officer’s cell phone to call in an anonymous tip.
“Defendants became desperate to pin the crime on someone in the face of mounting public and business community pressure,” the lawsuit said.
Whitehead’s lawyers argued, among other things, that the actual robber was short and slim, while Whitehead was 6 feet tall and muscular. The judge who tossed out the conviction said there was no proof presented at trial that Whitehead had ever been to Beale Street or B.B. King’s or that he was familiar with the building.
The lawsuit was filed days after the U.S. Department of Justice released results of a monthslong investigation into the Memphis Police Department that was initiated after the January 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols by five police officers who were fired and charged in federal and state court.
The investigation found that Memphis officers regularly use excessive force and discriminate against Black residents of the majority-Black city.
“Mr. Whitehead’s wrongful conviction is not an isolated occurrence,” the lawsuit said. “Rather, his odyssey through the criminal legal system was instigated by a Memphis Police Department that has and continues to devalue the lives of people of color.”
Alabama
Prosecutor seeks death penalty for 8 charged with kidnapping and killing woman
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the eight people charged in the kidnapping, assault and killing of a 20-year-old mother.
Jefferson County deputy district attorney Charissa Henrich filed notice with the court on Friday that she would seek the death penalty if any of the suspects are convicted of capital murder. Henrich characterized the case as “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel compared to other capital offenses.”
Mahogany Jackson sent a text to her family in the early morning of Feb. 25 that shared her location and said that she had been kidnapped, according to Scott Thurmond, the police chief at the time. The location appeared to show that she was at the residence of someone she knew. The next day, law enforcement found her body on a street in southwest Birmingham. She died from a gunshot wound.
Birmingham homicide detective Mark Green testified that videos taken by the suspects themselves and submitted by an unnamed witness show that Jackson was kidnapped and physically and sexually assaulted before three of the suspects drove her to where she was shot and left on a street, AL.com reported.
“This is undoubtedly one of the most heinous acts I’ve seen in my career. It’s absolutely disgusting,” Thurmond said at the time.
A public defender representing at least one of the suspects has filed a motion to bar the death penalty if the jury verdict is not unanimous.
All eight suspects were being held without bond and were set to be arraigned Monday on capital murder charges. At least one of the suspects pleaded not guilty, his attorney, Glennon Threatt, said. Attorneys for the others didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Five of the suspects were initially charged with felony murder, but a grand jury in September upgraded the charges to capital murder.
Virginia
Man convicted o on terrorism charges for funneling money to Islamic State
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia man targeted by an FBI sting operation has been convicted on terrorism charges for collecting funds on behalf of the Islamic State group.
Mohammed Chhipa, 35, of Springfield, was convicted late Friday afternoon on all five counts against him, including providing material support to a terrorist organization, after a weeklong trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The jury deliberated for about three hours.
Prosecutors said Chhipa met several times with an undercover FBI operative who gave him hundreds of dollars on multiple occasions in 2021 and 2022, earmarked for a Syrian woman and Islamic State group member known as Umm Dujanah.
Prosecutors alleged that bank records showed that Chhipa sent more than $74,000 to the Islamic State group in a similar fashion — collecting donations personally from supporters, converting the cash into bitcoin and sending it to bank accounts in Turkey for use by the group.
Chhipa was particularly interested in sending funds to help women from the Islamic State group escape prison camps to which they had been sent after the terrorist group was routed from territory it held in Iraq and Syria, prosecutors said in the trial’s opening statements.
Chhipa’s lawyers had argued that their client was a target of relentless investigation by the FBI, and played on his clear desire to find a wife by using undercover operatives who, among other ruses, pretended to be marriage brokers or even a willing bride.
“The FBI investigated Mohammed Chhipa for 10 years and came up with nothing. Nothing. So, after a decade of bearing no fruit, the FBI decided to create the crime themselves,” defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said during Friday’s closing arguments.
Chhipa has said in court papers that he is now married to Allison Fluke-Ekren, an American from Kansas who is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Fluke-Ekren pleaded guilty last year to organizing and leading the Khatiba Nusaybah, a battalion in the Islamic State group in which roughly 100 women and girls learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.
Prosecutors, though, say that the marriage was conducted online and has no legal status in the U.S. They said Chhipa, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from India, has been trying to adopt Fluke-Ekren’s children.
Chhipa will be sentenced in May.
