Ohio
State AG certifies proposed ban on police immunity after loss at U.S. Supreme Court
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Prompted by a stinging defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Tuesday said he was putting aside his objections and allowing a proposed constitutional amendment that would end qualified immunity for police and other government employees to move forward.
Yost’s action came the same day the high court declined to stay a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, which sided with the measure’s backers that their First Amendment rights to free speech had likely been violated.
With Ohio’s nearly century-old ballot initiative process at risk of being permanently declared unconstitutional, Yost moved immediately to dismiss the appeal he had filed in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Yost had repeatedly rejected proposed summary language for the measure as not being a fair and accurate representation of what the measure would do.
However, lower courts found that he had placed a “severe burden” on organizers when it came to communicating with voters and meeting the filing deadline. They also rejected Yost’s argument that the case belonged to the Ohio Supreme Court.
“Dave Yost has demonstrated that he can’t be trusted with that amount of power,” said Mark Brown, an attorney for the organizers. “It’s a lot of power to give any state official, especially an elected official. The Supreme Court made the right decision.”
Yost issued a statement saying he planned to work with the Republican-supermajority state Legislature to craft legislation “to reform the ballot initiative summary process to protect the integrity of Ohio’s elections and freedom of speech.”
The constitutional amendment would end qualified immunity, special legal protections that prevent people from suing over claims that police or government workers violated their constitutional rights. It proceeds next to the Ohio Ballot Board.
Pennsylvania
U.S. Justice Department drops lawsuit accusing Pennsylvania city of diluting power of Hispanic voters
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn its lawsuit that accused a heavily Hispanic city in Pennsylvania of illegally diluting the political power of its growing Hispanic population.
U.S. District Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton approved the dismissal of the case against Hazleton on Tuesday, a day after the Justice Department requested it.
It is the latest example of the department under President Donald Trump dropping or withdrawing from a voting rights case begun under former President Joe Biden, including a case in Georgia.
The department didn’t explain in its court filing why it is withdrawing or issue a statement on the case Tuesday.
The department’s initial lawsuit, filed in January, said the “at-large” system of electing city council members, as opposed to electing them by district, was unfair to Hispanic voters and prevented them from getting elected to city council.
The Justice Department argued that the system violated the federal Voting Rights Act and had sought a court order requiring the city, the five-member City Council and Republican Mayor Jeff Cusat to come up with a new system.
City officials insisted the system was lawful and gave equal voting rights to all citizens. They pointed out that Hispanic residents serve on city boards and authorities, although none have been elected to city council.
In a statement Tuesday, Cusat took credit for the dismissal, saying the city’s arguments in court “exposed the fundamental weaknesses” in the department’s accusations. The department had adopted the “baseless” assumption that the city’s non-Hispanic white voters vote as a bloc to defeat Hispanic candidates, Cusat wrote.
The city’s voters can change the system through a referendum, he said.
Hazleton’s 30,000 residents are about two-thirds Hispanic, according to U.S. Census figures. One-third is non-Hispanic white.
The lawsuit’s claims echoed a separate lawsuit filed by two Hispanic parents against the at-large system of voting for members of the Hazleton Area School District board. The school district denied the allegation.
Arizona
Lori Vallow Daybell convicted of conspiring to kill her estranged husband in 2019
PHOENIX (AP) — A woman whose doomsday religious beliefs led her to kill her two youngest children and engage in a plot to kill a romantic rival in Idaho was convicted Tuesday in Arizona for conspiring to murder her estranged husband.
Jurors found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty after deliberating for about three hours, and she faces another possible life sentence on top of the three she is already serving in Idaho. She will not be sentenced in Arizona until after she goes on trial in another alleged murder conspiracy.
Prosecutors said Vallow Daybell had help from her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow at her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. They say she was motivated by an opportunity to cash in on Vallow’s life insurance policy and a marriage to then-boyfriend Chad Daybell who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
Chad Daybell is also serving life sentences for the deaths of Vallow Daybell’s children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and his wife, Tammy. Authorities in Idaho said the case included bizarre claims by Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell that the children were zombies and that Vallow Daybell was a goddess tasked with ushering in an apocalypse.
Vallow Daybell, who isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at trial in Arizona, sat mostly still as the verdict was read but glanced occasionally at jurors as they were asked to confirm they found her guilty on the single charge.
One of the jurors, Victoria Lewis, said outside the courthouse that Vallow Daybell didn’t do herself any favors by choosing to represent herself.
“Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn’t seem to take anything very seriously,” Lewis told reporters.
Vallow Daybell told the jury that Vallow chased her with a bat inside her home, and her brother shot Vallow in self-defense as she left the house. She told jurors the death was a tragedy, not a crime.
Cox died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.
Vallow’s siblings, Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow, told reporters outside court that they are grateful for the jury’s decision.
“We gotcha, and you’re not the smartest person in the room,” Woodcock said when asked if she has a message for Vallow Daybell. “Everybody’s going to forget about you.”
The Associated Press left email messages seeking comment Tuesday from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and the lawyers who served as legal advisers to Vallow Daybell during the trial.
Last week Adam Cox, another brother of Vallow Daybell, testified on behalf of the prosecution, telling jurors that he had no doubt that his siblings were behind Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said the killing happened just before he and Vallow were planning an intervention to bring his sister back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He testified that before Vallow’s death, his sister had told people her husband was no longer living and that a zombie was living inside his body.
Four months before he died, Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets. He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in early June, accused in a plot to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived.
California
Jury convicts judge of murder in his wife’s shooting death
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors convicted a Southern California judge of second-degree murder on Tuesday for fatally shooting his wife while the couple argued and watched television at home.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was on trial for the 2023 death of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home. Ferguson took the stand in his own defense, admitting to shooting his wife but saying it was an accident.
Jurors reached their decision Tuesday afternoon, a day after deliberations began. After the verdict was read in court, Ferguson was given a moment to hug his son before he was handcuffed and taken into custody. He was also found guilty of a felony gun enhancement and faces a maximum prison term of 40 years to life when he is sentenced June 13.
Ferguson’s attorney Cameron Talley said the defense plans to appeal.
“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Talley said. “At the same time, we all know that juries don’t always get it right ... I still believe in Jeff.”
The verdict comes after a previous jury deadlocked in March and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter declared a mistrial. Hunter has overseen the case to avoid a conflict of interest with the Superior Court in Orange County, where Ferguson presided over criminal cases until the shooting.
The case had roiled the legal community in the county, which is home to 3 million people between Los Angeles and San Diego. Many have known or worked with Ferguson for decades, including Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
“There are no winners here,” Spitzer said during a news conference after the verdict. “Justice was achieved, but I’m very sad for the Ferguson family.”
Prosecutors said Ferguson had been drinking before he made a gun-like hand gesture toward his wife of 27 years during an argument about family finances they had during dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Aug. 3, 2023.
Prosecutors said the argument continued at home while the couple was watching “Breaking Bad” on TV with their adult son, and Sheryl Ferguson chided her husband to point a real gun at her. He did, then pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.
Ferguson testified that he was removing the gun from his ankle holster to place it on a table, and fumbled it, and it discharged.
Immediately after the shooting, Ferguson and his son both called 911, and Ferguson texted his court clerk and bailiff saying, “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry,” according to a copy of a text message shown to jurors. His son Phillip testified to tackling his father to wrestle the gun away after the shooting and performing CPR on his mother.
Ferguson spoke with police outside his home and again once he was in custody, and was seen on video sobbing and saying his son and everyone would hate him. In the video, he said he killed his wife and pleaded for a jury to convict him.
Authorities said they found 47 weapons, including the gun used in the shooting, and more than 26,000 rounds of ammunition at the home, and said Ferguson had ample experience and training in firearms.
“This was not an accident. Ferguson was trained to never point a gun at anything he didn’t intend to destroy,” Spitzer said in a statement about the verdict.
Ferguson was a long-time prosecutor who became a judge in 2015. He began his legal career in the district attorney’s office in 1983 and went on to work on narcotics cases, winning various awards.
Ferguson had been out on $2 million bail but was not presiding in court as the state constitution bars a judge facing a felony charge from hearing cases.
State AG certifies proposed ban on police immunity after loss at U.S. Supreme Court
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Prompted by a stinging defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Tuesday said he was putting aside his objections and allowing a proposed constitutional amendment that would end qualified immunity for police and other government employees to move forward.
Yost’s action came the same day the high court declined to stay a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, which sided with the measure’s backers that their First Amendment rights to free speech had likely been violated.
With Ohio’s nearly century-old ballot initiative process at risk of being permanently declared unconstitutional, Yost moved immediately to dismiss the appeal he had filed in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Yost had repeatedly rejected proposed summary language for the measure as not being a fair and accurate representation of what the measure would do.
However, lower courts found that he had placed a “severe burden” on organizers when it came to communicating with voters and meeting the filing deadline. They also rejected Yost’s argument that the case belonged to the Ohio Supreme Court.
“Dave Yost has demonstrated that he can’t be trusted with that amount of power,” said Mark Brown, an attorney for the organizers. “It’s a lot of power to give any state official, especially an elected official. The Supreme Court made the right decision.”
Yost issued a statement saying he planned to work with the Republican-supermajority state Legislature to craft legislation “to reform the ballot initiative summary process to protect the integrity of Ohio’s elections and freedom of speech.”
The constitutional amendment would end qualified immunity, special legal protections that prevent people from suing over claims that police or government workers violated their constitutional rights. It proceeds next to the Ohio Ballot Board.
Pennsylvania
U.S. Justice Department drops lawsuit accusing Pennsylvania city of diluting power of Hispanic voters
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn its lawsuit that accused a heavily Hispanic city in Pennsylvania of illegally diluting the political power of its growing Hispanic population.
U.S. District Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton approved the dismissal of the case against Hazleton on Tuesday, a day after the Justice Department requested it.
It is the latest example of the department under President Donald Trump dropping or withdrawing from a voting rights case begun under former President Joe Biden, including a case in Georgia.
The department didn’t explain in its court filing why it is withdrawing or issue a statement on the case Tuesday.
The department’s initial lawsuit, filed in January, said the “at-large” system of electing city council members, as opposed to electing them by district, was unfair to Hispanic voters and prevented them from getting elected to city council.
The Justice Department argued that the system violated the federal Voting Rights Act and had sought a court order requiring the city, the five-member City Council and Republican Mayor Jeff Cusat to come up with a new system.
City officials insisted the system was lawful and gave equal voting rights to all citizens. They pointed out that Hispanic residents serve on city boards and authorities, although none have been elected to city council.
In a statement Tuesday, Cusat took credit for the dismissal, saying the city’s arguments in court “exposed the fundamental weaknesses” in the department’s accusations. The department had adopted the “baseless” assumption that the city’s non-Hispanic white voters vote as a bloc to defeat Hispanic candidates, Cusat wrote.
The city’s voters can change the system through a referendum, he said.
Hazleton’s 30,000 residents are about two-thirds Hispanic, according to U.S. Census figures. One-third is non-Hispanic white.
The lawsuit’s claims echoed a separate lawsuit filed by two Hispanic parents against the at-large system of voting for members of the Hazleton Area School District board. The school district denied the allegation.
Arizona
Lori Vallow Daybell convicted of conspiring to kill her estranged husband in 2019
PHOENIX (AP) — A woman whose doomsday religious beliefs led her to kill her two youngest children and engage in a plot to kill a romantic rival in Idaho was convicted Tuesday in Arizona for conspiring to murder her estranged husband.
Jurors found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty after deliberating for about three hours, and she faces another possible life sentence on top of the three she is already serving in Idaho. She will not be sentenced in Arizona until after she goes on trial in another alleged murder conspiracy.
Prosecutors said Vallow Daybell had help from her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow at her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. They say she was motivated by an opportunity to cash in on Vallow’s life insurance policy and a marriage to then-boyfriend Chad Daybell who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
Chad Daybell is also serving life sentences for the deaths of Vallow Daybell’s children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and his wife, Tammy. Authorities in Idaho said the case included bizarre claims by Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell that the children were zombies and that Vallow Daybell was a goddess tasked with ushering in an apocalypse.
Vallow Daybell, who isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at trial in Arizona, sat mostly still as the verdict was read but glanced occasionally at jurors as they were asked to confirm they found her guilty on the single charge.
One of the jurors, Victoria Lewis, said outside the courthouse that Vallow Daybell didn’t do herself any favors by choosing to represent herself.
“Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn’t seem to take anything very seriously,” Lewis told reporters.
Vallow Daybell told the jury that Vallow chased her with a bat inside her home, and her brother shot Vallow in self-defense as she left the house. She told jurors the death was a tragedy, not a crime.
Cox died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.
Vallow’s siblings, Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow, told reporters outside court that they are grateful for the jury’s decision.
“We gotcha, and you’re not the smartest person in the room,” Woodcock said when asked if she has a message for Vallow Daybell. “Everybody’s going to forget about you.”
The Associated Press left email messages seeking comment Tuesday from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and the lawyers who served as legal advisers to Vallow Daybell during the trial.
Last week Adam Cox, another brother of Vallow Daybell, testified on behalf of the prosecution, telling jurors that he had no doubt that his siblings were behind Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said the killing happened just before he and Vallow were planning an intervention to bring his sister back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He testified that before Vallow’s death, his sister had told people her husband was no longer living and that a zombie was living inside his body.
Four months before he died, Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets. He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in early June, accused in a plot to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived.
California
Jury convicts judge of murder in his wife’s shooting death
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors convicted a Southern California judge of second-degree murder on Tuesday for fatally shooting his wife while the couple argued and watched television at home.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was on trial for the 2023 death of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home. Ferguson took the stand in his own defense, admitting to shooting his wife but saying it was an accident.
Jurors reached their decision Tuesday afternoon, a day after deliberations began. After the verdict was read in court, Ferguson was given a moment to hug his son before he was handcuffed and taken into custody. He was also found guilty of a felony gun enhancement and faces a maximum prison term of 40 years to life when he is sentenced June 13.
Ferguson’s attorney Cameron Talley said the defense plans to appeal.
“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Talley said. “At the same time, we all know that juries don’t always get it right ... I still believe in Jeff.”
The verdict comes after a previous jury deadlocked in March and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter declared a mistrial. Hunter has overseen the case to avoid a conflict of interest with the Superior Court in Orange County, where Ferguson presided over criminal cases until the shooting.
The case had roiled the legal community in the county, which is home to 3 million people between Los Angeles and San Diego. Many have known or worked with Ferguson for decades, including Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
“There are no winners here,” Spitzer said during a news conference after the verdict. “Justice was achieved, but I’m very sad for the Ferguson family.”
Prosecutors said Ferguson had been drinking before he made a gun-like hand gesture toward his wife of 27 years during an argument about family finances they had during dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Aug. 3, 2023.
Prosecutors said the argument continued at home while the couple was watching “Breaking Bad” on TV with their adult son, and Sheryl Ferguson chided her husband to point a real gun at her. He did, then pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.
Ferguson testified that he was removing the gun from his ankle holster to place it on a table, and fumbled it, and it discharged.
Immediately after the shooting, Ferguson and his son both called 911, and Ferguson texted his court clerk and bailiff saying, “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry,” according to a copy of a text message shown to jurors. His son Phillip testified to tackling his father to wrestle the gun away after the shooting and performing CPR on his mother.
Ferguson spoke with police outside his home and again once he was in custody, and was seen on video sobbing and saying his son and everyone would hate him. In the video, he said he killed his wife and pleaded for a jury to convict him.
Authorities said they found 47 weapons, including the gun used in the shooting, and more than 26,000 rounds of ammunition at the home, and said Ferguson had ample experience and training in firearms.
“This was not an accident. Ferguson was trained to never point a gun at anything he didn’t intend to destroy,” Spitzer said in a statement about the verdict.
Ferguson was a long-time prosecutor who became a judge in 2015. He began his legal career in the district attorney’s office in 1983 and went on to work on narcotics cases, winning various awards.
Ferguson had been out on $2 million bail but was not presiding in court as the state constitution bars a judge facing a felony charge from hearing cases.
