Wisconsin
High court rules Republican had no right to bring lawsuit challenging mobile voting
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Republican Party official lacked the standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the use of a mobile voting van in 2022.
The lawsuit sought to ban the use of mobile voting vans in any future election in the presidential battleground state. The court did not address the legality of mobile voting sites in its ruling, meaning mobile voting vans could be used in future elections.
A single van has been used only once — in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others argue that nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans.
But the court did not rule on the merits of the case. The court ruled 4-3 to dismiss the case, with four liberal justices in the majority and three conservative justices dissenting.
Instead, it ruled that the Racine County voter who brought the lawsuit, the county’s Republican Party chairman, Ken Brown, was not “aggrieved” under state law and therefore was not permitted to sue. The ruling could make it more difficult to bring future lawsuits challenging election laws.
Republicans in this case argued that it violates state law to operate mobile voting sites, that their repeated use would increase the chances of voter fraud, and that the one in Racine was used to bolster Democratic turnout.
Wisconsin law prohibits locating any early voting site in a place that gives an advantage to any political party. There are other limitations on early voting sites, including a requirement that they be “as near as practicable” to the clerk’s office.
For the 2022 election, Racine city Clerk Tara McMenamin and the city had a goal of making voting as accessible to as many voters as possible.
Racine purchased its van with grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Republicans have been critical of the grants, calling the money “Zuckerbucks” that they say was used to tilt turnout in Democratic areas.
Wisconsin voters last year approved a Republican-backed constitutional amendment banning the use of private money to help run elections.
The van was used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to that 2022 election, McMenamin said. It traveled for two weeks across the city, allowing voters to cast in-person absentee ballots in 21 different locations.
Brown filed a complaint the day after the August 2022 primary with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing that the van violated state law. He argued that it was only sent to Democratic-leaning areas in the city in an illegal move to bolster turnout.
McMenamin disputed those accusations, saying it shows a misunderstanding of the city’s voting wards, which traditionally skew Democratic.
The elections commission dismissed the complaint four days before the 2022 election, saying there was no probable cause shown to believe the law had been broken. Brown sued.
A Racine County Circuit Court judge sided with Republicans, ruling that state election laws do not allow for the use of mobile voting sites.
Colorado
Prosecutors to present evidence dentist charged in wife’s death tried to kill detective
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — A dentist charged with killing his wife by poisoning her protein shakes offered a fellow jail inmate $20,000 to kill the case’s lead investigator, calling her “the worst, dirtiest detective,” a prosecutor said Friday.
During an evidentiary hearing, Senior Chief Deputy Michael Mauro said the dentist, James Craig, was motivated by animus against Aurora police detective Bobbi Olson.
“This defendant hates Detective Olson for all the work she has done on his case,” he said.
Mauro said Craig also offered his cell mate, Nathaniel Harris, $20,000 each for killing three other people — a police officer investigators haven’t been able to find and two other jail inmates. Craig also allegedly sent letters from jail to Harris’ ex-wife offering her $20,000 each for four people she could find to falsely testify at his trial that they knew his wife, Angela Craig, and that she planned to die by suicide, Mauro said.
One of Craig’s lawyers, Robert Werking, said investigators did not look into whether Craig wrote the letters, including checking his handwriting. He also said that Harris and his ex-wife were prosecuted for forgery for their roles in an alleged fraud ring in 2005, suggesting they could not be trusted.
Judge Shay Whitaker said the letters included very detailed information and background about Angela Craig that could be used to fabricate a relationship with her, consistent with prosecutors’ allegations. She ruled there was enough evidence for Craig to be tried for two new charges filed against him based on the latest allegations — solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury. Prosecutors will have to present more evidence at a trial, though.
Craig, wearing an orange jail uniform, pleaded not guilty to both of the new charges after her ruling. Olson sat with prosecutors just a few feet away. She was swiftly escorted out of court by officers at the end of the hearing.
An Aurora police spokesperson declined to comment on Craig’s alleged comments about Olson.
Outside of court, Werking said he could not comment on the case because of a gag order.
Craig has previously pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, two counts of solicitation to tamper with evidence and a previous charge of solicitation to commit perjury.
Angela Craig, 43, died in March 2023 of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, the latter a substance found in over-the-counter eye drops, according to the coroner. The couple had been married for 23 years and had six children together.
Louisiana
Suit challenges state ballot measure seeking tax law rewrite
A group of Louisiana voters filed suit against Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry on Monday seeking to halt a vote on a state constitutional amendment scheduled for next month that would drastically change state tax law.
According to the language that is scheduled to appear on statewide ballots during the March 29 election, the proposal will lower income taxes, increase tax deductions for those over 65 and provide for a permanent pay bump for Louisiana schoolteachers.
But if passed, the amendment would do much more, including narrowing certain property tax exemptions and liquidating education trust funds. And that, say the plaintiffs, is the problem.
They argue that the single-sentence description that will appear on voters’ ballots — which was based on a bill that runs more than 100 pages — not only fails to fully represent the breadth of changes that would be made, but also actively misrepresents what those changes would be. Because of this, they are asking a judge to issue an injunction and stop the ballot measure from going to voters.
“Democracy only works if state officials are transparent with voters about what they are being asked to vote on. This proposed amendment flunks the basic honesty test,” said William Most, lead attorney on the case, in a press release.
Gov. Jeff Landry has argued that the amendment is necessary to complete the work begun by the Louisiana Legislature in the special session last year. During the session, which the governor called in a bid to make the state’s tax code more business-friendly, lawmakers lowered the state’s corporate tax rate and raised the sales tax rate, among a number of other items. But the changes that will appear in the March 29 proposal require a change to the state’s constitution, which can only be approved by voters.
“As the chief elections officer for Louisiana, the Secretary of State is normally named in any lawsuit relating to the administration of an election,” said a spokesperson for Nancy Landry in a written statement. “The legislature is responsible for drafting constitutional amendment ballot language. Any questions regarding the ballot language should be directed to the legislature.” Jeff Landry’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. In November, the governor called the proposed amendment “a big win” for the state of Louisiana.
At the time, the Louisiana Illuminator reported that Jeff Landry hoped to motivate the public to vote for the amendment by tying it to a provision that would make permanent a $2,000 stipend for public school teachers. But the lawsuit alleges that the framing of the ballot language unfairly biases voters.
“Of the hundreds of changes to (the constitution) that are proposed, only a few of the most appealing changes are included in the ballot language,” the lawsuit states. “None of the unappealing changes are included. The ballot language is all dessert, no vegetables.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the ballot language is factually incorrect. The ballot language for the proposed amendment states that it would retain property tax exemptions for religious organizations, provide a permanent teacher salary increase and modify certain constitutional funds, among other revisions.
Plaintiffs argue that despite the claims in the ballot language, the amendment would actually narrow property tax exemptions for religious organizations, only allowing exemptions on properties used for an explicitly religious purpose. Further, the lawsuit claims that the permanent teacher salary increase cited on ballots won’t apply to all teachers – and comes at the cost of other educational funding in the state. And though the ballot language says the amendment would “modify” constitutional funds, the lawsuit alleges that it would actually “liquidate and drain” three constitutionally protected education trust funds that support a variety of educational programming and services.
The lawsuit further claims that the ballot measure as written violates the Louisiana Constitution, which requires that proposed amendments be confined to “one object” or fully revise an entire article of the Constitution. The lawsuit claims that this ballot measure does neither: it proposes changes to multiple objects in the constitution’s Article VII, which covers revenue and finance, but doesn’t wholly overhaul that article.
“Although the proposed amendment revises less than an entire article, it contains many objects,” the lawsuit states. “There is no ‘single plan’ underlying all of these changes.”
New York
Man confesses to killing roommate after body parts found in East River
NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan man killed his roommate before trying to dispose of his body in the ocean, prosecutors said.
New York City prosecutors have charged the man in the brutal stabbing, which they say was followed by an attempt to cut up and dispose of the body.
Christian Millet, 23, was arraigned on Thursday. He is being held on murder charges without bail. A telephone message was left seeking comment with the public defender listed in his case, attorney Shari Leigh Vrod.
The investigation started on Feb. 5, when police in the NYPD harbor boat unit found body parts, including a severed torso, in a duffel bag floating in the East River.
Police eventually identified the body, including a severed torso, as the remains of Edwin Echevarria, 65.
In court documents, prosecutors said Millet confessed to stabbing Echevarria. They said investigators found blood-soaked paper towels in a closet apartment, along with a potential murder weapon, a screwdriver with a sharp, cylindrical head.
At an arraignment hearing on Thursday, prosecutors described Echevarria as a “grandfather figure” in Millet’s life, according to a report from the New York Times. But prosecutors said at the hearing that Millet confessed to killing the man after “an insane urge to kill.”
High court rules Republican had no right to bring lawsuit challenging mobile voting
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Republican Party official lacked the standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the use of a mobile voting van in 2022.
The lawsuit sought to ban the use of mobile voting vans in any future election in the presidential battleground state. The court did not address the legality of mobile voting sites in its ruling, meaning mobile voting vans could be used in future elections.
A single van has been used only once — in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others argue that nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans.
But the court did not rule on the merits of the case. The court ruled 4-3 to dismiss the case, with four liberal justices in the majority and three conservative justices dissenting.
Instead, it ruled that the Racine County voter who brought the lawsuit, the county’s Republican Party chairman, Ken Brown, was not “aggrieved” under state law and therefore was not permitted to sue. The ruling could make it more difficult to bring future lawsuits challenging election laws.
Republicans in this case argued that it violates state law to operate mobile voting sites, that their repeated use would increase the chances of voter fraud, and that the one in Racine was used to bolster Democratic turnout.
Wisconsin law prohibits locating any early voting site in a place that gives an advantage to any political party. There are other limitations on early voting sites, including a requirement that they be “as near as practicable” to the clerk’s office.
For the 2022 election, Racine city Clerk Tara McMenamin and the city had a goal of making voting as accessible to as many voters as possible.
Racine purchased its van with grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Republicans have been critical of the grants, calling the money “Zuckerbucks” that they say was used to tilt turnout in Democratic areas.
Wisconsin voters last year approved a Republican-backed constitutional amendment banning the use of private money to help run elections.
The van was used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to that 2022 election, McMenamin said. It traveled for two weeks across the city, allowing voters to cast in-person absentee ballots in 21 different locations.
Brown filed a complaint the day after the August 2022 primary with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing that the van violated state law. He argued that it was only sent to Democratic-leaning areas in the city in an illegal move to bolster turnout.
McMenamin disputed those accusations, saying it shows a misunderstanding of the city’s voting wards, which traditionally skew Democratic.
The elections commission dismissed the complaint four days before the 2022 election, saying there was no probable cause shown to believe the law had been broken. Brown sued.
A Racine County Circuit Court judge sided with Republicans, ruling that state election laws do not allow for the use of mobile voting sites.
Colorado
Prosecutors to present evidence dentist charged in wife’s death tried to kill detective
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — A dentist charged with killing his wife by poisoning her protein shakes offered a fellow jail inmate $20,000 to kill the case’s lead investigator, calling her “the worst, dirtiest detective,” a prosecutor said Friday.
During an evidentiary hearing, Senior Chief Deputy Michael Mauro said the dentist, James Craig, was motivated by animus against Aurora police detective Bobbi Olson.
“This defendant hates Detective Olson for all the work she has done on his case,” he said.
Mauro said Craig also offered his cell mate, Nathaniel Harris, $20,000 each for killing three other people — a police officer investigators haven’t been able to find and two other jail inmates. Craig also allegedly sent letters from jail to Harris’ ex-wife offering her $20,000 each for four people she could find to falsely testify at his trial that they knew his wife, Angela Craig, and that she planned to die by suicide, Mauro said.
One of Craig’s lawyers, Robert Werking, said investigators did not look into whether Craig wrote the letters, including checking his handwriting. He also said that Harris and his ex-wife were prosecuted for forgery for their roles in an alleged fraud ring in 2005, suggesting they could not be trusted.
Judge Shay Whitaker said the letters included very detailed information and background about Angela Craig that could be used to fabricate a relationship with her, consistent with prosecutors’ allegations. She ruled there was enough evidence for Craig to be tried for two new charges filed against him based on the latest allegations — solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury. Prosecutors will have to present more evidence at a trial, though.
Craig, wearing an orange jail uniform, pleaded not guilty to both of the new charges after her ruling. Olson sat with prosecutors just a few feet away. She was swiftly escorted out of court by officers at the end of the hearing.
An Aurora police spokesperson declined to comment on Craig’s alleged comments about Olson.
Outside of court, Werking said he could not comment on the case because of a gag order.
Craig has previously pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, two counts of solicitation to tamper with evidence and a previous charge of solicitation to commit perjury.
Angela Craig, 43, died in March 2023 of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, the latter a substance found in over-the-counter eye drops, according to the coroner. The couple had been married for 23 years and had six children together.
Louisiana
Suit challenges state ballot measure seeking tax law rewrite
A group of Louisiana voters filed suit against Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry on Monday seeking to halt a vote on a state constitutional amendment scheduled for next month that would drastically change state tax law.
According to the language that is scheduled to appear on statewide ballots during the March 29 election, the proposal will lower income taxes, increase tax deductions for those over 65 and provide for a permanent pay bump for Louisiana schoolteachers.
But if passed, the amendment would do much more, including narrowing certain property tax exemptions and liquidating education trust funds. And that, say the plaintiffs, is the problem.
They argue that the single-sentence description that will appear on voters’ ballots — which was based on a bill that runs more than 100 pages — not only fails to fully represent the breadth of changes that would be made, but also actively misrepresents what those changes would be. Because of this, they are asking a judge to issue an injunction and stop the ballot measure from going to voters.
“Democracy only works if state officials are transparent with voters about what they are being asked to vote on. This proposed amendment flunks the basic honesty test,” said William Most, lead attorney on the case, in a press release.
Gov. Jeff Landry has argued that the amendment is necessary to complete the work begun by the Louisiana Legislature in the special session last year. During the session, which the governor called in a bid to make the state’s tax code more business-friendly, lawmakers lowered the state’s corporate tax rate and raised the sales tax rate, among a number of other items. But the changes that will appear in the March 29 proposal require a change to the state’s constitution, which can only be approved by voters.
“As the chief elections officer for Louisiana, the Secretary of State is normally named in any lawsuit relating to the administration of an election,” said a spokesperson for Nancy Landry in a written statement. “The legislature is responsible for drafting constitutional amendment ballot language. Any questions regarding the ballot language should be directed to the legislature.” Jeff Landry’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. In November, the governor called the proposed amendment “a big win” for the state of Louisiana.
At the time, the Louisiana Illuminator reported that Jeff Landry hoped to motivate the public to vote for the amendment by tying it to a provision that would make permanent a $2,000 stipend for public school teachers. But the lawsuit alleges that the framing of the ballot language unfairly biases voters.
“Of the hundreds of changes to (the constitution) that are proposed, only a few of the most appealing changes are included in the ballot language,” the lawsuit states. “None of the unappealing changes are included. The ballot language is all dessert, no vegetables.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the ballot language is factually incorrect. The ballot language for the proposed amendment states that it would retain property tax exemptions for religious organizations, provide a permanent teacher salary increase and modify certain constitutional funds, among other revisions.
Plaintiffs argue that despite the claims in the ballot language, the amendment would actually narrow property tax exemptions for religious organizations, only allowing exemptions on properties used for an explicitly religious purpose. Further, the lawsuit claims that the permanent teacher salary increase cited on ballots won’t apply to all teachers – and comes at the cost of other educational funding in the state. And though the ballot language says the amendment would “modify” constitutional funds, the lawsuit alleges that it would actually “liquidate and drain” three constitutionally protected education trust funds that support a variety of educational programming and services.
The lawsuit further claims that the ballot measure as written violates the Louisiana Constitution, which requires that proposed amendments be confined to “one object” or fully revise an entire article of the Constitution. The lawsuit claims that this ballot measure does neither: it proposes changes to multiple objects in the constitution’s Article VII, which covers revenue and finance, but doesn’t wholly overhaul that article.
“Although the proposed amendment revises less than an entire article, it contains many objects,” the lawsuit states. “There is no ‘single plan’ underlying all of these changes.”
New York
Man confesses to killing roommate after body parts found in East River
NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan man killed his roommate before trying to dispose of his body in the ocean, prosecutors said.
New York City prosecutors have charged the man in the brutal stabbing, which they say was followed by an attempt to cut up and dispose of the body.
Christian Millet, 23, was arraigned on Thursday. He is being held on murder charges without bail. A telephone message was left seeking comment with the public defender listed in his case, attorney Shari Leigh Vrod.
The investigation started on Feb. 5, when police in the NYPD harbor boat unit found body parts, including a severed torso, in a duffel bag floating in the East River.
Police eventually identified the body, including a severed torso, as the remains of Edwin Echevarria, 65.
In court documents, prosecutors said Millet confessed to stabbing Echevarria. They said investigators found blood-soaked paper towels in a closet apartment, along with a potential murder weapon, a screwdriver with a sharp, cylindrical head.
At an arraignment hearing on Thursday, prosecutors described Echevarria as a “grandfather figure” in Millet’s life, according to a report from the New York Times. But prosecutors said at the hearing that Millet confessed to killing the man after “an insane urge to kill.”
