Washington
High court turns back challenges to laws keeping anti-abortion activists away from clinics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a pair of cases from abortion opponents who say laws limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violate their First Amendment rights.
The majority did not explain their reasoning for turning down the appeals, as is typical, but two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed.
The cities said the laws were passed to address disturbing behavior from protesters outside of health care clinics. But anti-abortion activists said the measures violate free-speech rights and should be on their “deathbed” after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion.
One case comes from Carbondale, Illinois, which is located near the state’s southern border and passed an ordinance after becoming a destination for patients from nearby states with abortion bans. The measure was quickly challenged in court, and has never been enforced. The city argued the appeal should be tossed because the ordinance was repealed shortly before abortion opponents went to the Supreme Court.
The other case is from New Jersey, where activist Jeryl Turco says she has approached women in Englewood for years to try to convince them not to have abortions. She says an 8-foot demonstration-free zone the city passed in 2014 in response to an aggressive group of protesters also wrongly kept her from approaching women.
Englewood argues that Turco has still been able to share her message outside of the immediate area near clinic entrances. Lower courts have ultimately upheld the ordinance, finding it isn’t a major First Amendment burden.
Both challengers pointed out that the high court struck down a Massachusetts law creating 35-foot demonstration free “buffer zones” around clinic doors in 2014. They say the Illinois and New Jersey laws should meet the same fate.
But cities say their rules are in line with a different Supreme Court decision from 2000, when the high court allowed a Colorado law to stand. It barred people from getting within 8 feet of others without permission in a 100-foot “bubble zone” around clinics.
Thomas said that case, known as Hill v. Colorado, was wrongly decided. In a dissent from the decision to decline the Illinois case, he said that the court wrongly treated it differently than other First Amendment cases because abortion was involved. “Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” he wrote.
Indiana
Man sentenced to 105 years in fatal shooting of Dutch soldier, wounding 2 others
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana man has been sentenced to 105 years in prison for the 2022 fatal shooting of a Dutch soldier and wounding of two others in downtown Indianapolis.
A Marion County judge on Monday ordered Shamar Duncan to serve 60 years for murder, 35 years for attempted murder and 10 years for aggravated battery. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
A jury convicted Duncan last month.
Simmie Poetsema, 26, and the other two soldiers had been training at a southern Indiana military camp. The soldiers were walking back to their hotel during a night off in Indianapolis when they clashed with Duncan and a group of his friends, according to court documents.
Witnesses told police that the soldiers tried to defuse the situation but that a brief fight broke out before the gunshots were fired from a passing pickup truck.
Poetsema was a member of the Dutch Commando Corps.
Duncan told one of his friends that he opened fire on the soldiers because he “just spazzed, “ according to an arrest affidavit.
Duncan apologized during the sentencing to the families of the victims. Duncan also told his family he was sorry for “letting them down,” according to WXIN-TV.
Louisiana
Man on death row dies weeks before March execution date
ANGOLA, La. (AP) — A terminally ill man who spent over 30 years on death row in Louisiana for the killing of his stepson died days after a March date was scheduled for his execution by nitrogen gas.
Christopher Sepulvado, 81, died Saturday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, “from natural causes as a result of complications arising from his pre-existing medical conditions,” according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Sepulvado was charged with the 1992 killing of his 6-year-old stepson after the boy came home from school with soiled underwear. Sepulvado was accused of hitting him on the head with a screwdriver and immersing him in scalding water. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1993.
His attorney, federal public defender Shawn Nolan, said in a statement Sunday that doctors recently determined Sepulvado was terminally ill and recommended hospice care. Nolan described his client’s “significant” physical and cognitive decline in recent years.
“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in the prison infirmary is a sad comment on the state of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said. “The idea that the state was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric.”
According to Nolan, Sepulvado had been sent to New Orleans for surgery earlier in the week but was returned to the prison Friday night.
Louisiana officials decided to resume carrying out death sentences earlier this month after a 15 year pause driven by a lack of political interest and the inability to secure legal injection drugs.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry pushed to proceed with a new nitrogen gas execution protocol after the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature last year expanded death row execution methods to include electrocution and nitrogen gas.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement that “justice should have been delivered long ago” and Louisiana “failed to deliver it in his lifetime.”
Sepulvado’s execution was scheduled for March 17. Another man, Jessie Hoffman, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and slated for execution on March 18. Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge on Friday reopened that lawsuit after it was dismissed in 2022 because the state had no executions planned.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.
High court turns back challenges to laws keeping anti-abortion activists away from clinics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a pair of cases from abortion opponents who say laws limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violate their First Amendment rights.
The majority did not explain their reasoning for turning down the appeals, as is typical, but two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed.
The cities said the laws were passed to address disturbing behavior from protesters outside of health care clinics. But anti-abortion activists said the measures violate free-speech rights and should be on their “deathbed” after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion.
One case comes from Carbondale, Illinois, which is located near the state’s southern border and passed an ordinance after becoming a destination for patients from nearby states with abortion bans. The measure was quickly challenged in court, and has never been enforced. The city argued the appeal should be tossed because the ordinance was repealed shortly before abortion opponents went to the Supreme Court.
The other case is from New Jersey, where activist Jeryl Turco says she has approached women in Englewood for years to try to convince them not to have abortions. She says an 8-foot demonstration-free zone the city passed in 2014 in response to an aggressive group of protesters also wrongly kept her from approaching women.
Englewood argues that Turco has still been able to share her message outside of the immediate area near clinic entrances. Lower courts have ultimately upheld the ordinance, finding it isn’t a major First Amendment burden.
Both challengers pointed out that the high court struck down a Massachusetts law creating 35-foot demonstration free “buffer zones” around clinic doors in 2014. They say the Illinois and New Jersey laws should meet the same fate.
But cities say their rules are in line with a different Supreme Court decision from 2000, when the high court allowed a Colorado law to stand. It barred people from getting within 8 feet of others without permission in a 100-foot “bubble zone” around clinics.
Thomas said that case, known as Hill v. Colorado, was wrongly decided. In a dissent from the decision to decline the Illinois case, he said that the court wrongly treated it differently than other First Amendment cases because abortion was involved. “Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” he wrote.
Indiana
Man sentenced to 105 years in fatal shooting of Dutch soldier, wounding 2 others
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana man has been sentenced to 105 years in prison for the 2022 fatal shooting of a Dutch soldier and wounding of two others in downtown Indianapolis.
A Marion County judge on Monday ordered Shamar Duncan to serve 60 years for murder, 35 years for attempted murder and 10 years for aggravated battery. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
A jury convicted Duncan last month.
Simmie Poetsema, 26, and the other two soldiers had been training at a southern Indiana military camp. The soldiers were walking back to their hotel during a night off in Indianapolis when they clashed with Duncan and a group of his friends, according to court documents.
Witnesses told police that the soldiers tried to defuse the situation but that a brief fight broke out before the gunshots were fired from a passing pickup truck.
Poetsema was a member of the Dutch Commando Corps.
Duncan told one of his friends that he opened fire on the soldiers because he “just spazzed, “ according to an arrest affidavit.
Duncan apologized during the sentencing to the families of the victims. Duncan also told his family he was sorry for “letting them down,” according to WXIN-TV.
Louisiana
Man on death row dies weeks before March execution date
ANGOLA, La. (AP) — A terminally ill man who spent over 30 years on death row in Louisiana for the killing of his stepson died days after a March date was scheduled for his execution by nitrogen gas.
Christopher Sepulvado, 81, died Saturday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, “from natural causes as a result of complications arising from his pre-existing medical conditions,” according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Sepulvado was charged with the 1992 killing of his 6-year-old stepson after the boy came home from school with soiled underwear. Sepulvado was accused of hitting him on the head with a screwdriver and immersing him in scalding water. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1993.
His attorney, federal public defender Shawn Nolan, said in a statement Sunday that doctors recently determined Sepulvado was terminally ill and recommended hospice care. Nolan described his client’s “significant” physical and cognitive decline in recent years.
“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in the prison infirmary is a sad comment on the state of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said. “The idea that the state was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric.”
According to Nolan, Sepulvado had been sent to New Orleans for surgery earlier in the week but was returned to the prison Friday night.
Louisiana officials decided to resume carrying out death sentences earlier this month after a 15 year pause driven by a lack of political interest and the inability to secure legal injection drugs.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry pushed to proceed with a new nitrogen gas execution protocol after the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature last year expanded death row execution methods to include electrocution and nitrogen gas.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement that “justice should have been delivered long ago” and Louisiana “failed to deliver it in his lifetime.”
Sepulvado’s execution was scheduled for March 17. Another man, Jessie Hoffman, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and slated for execution on March 18. Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge on Friday reopened that lawsuit after it was dismissed in 2022 because the state had no executions planned.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.
