Colorado
Prosecutors to lay out evidence in firebomb attack on demonstration
DENVER (AP) — Colorado prosecutors are set to lay out their evidence Tuesday against a man charged with murder, attempted murder and other crimes in a firebomb attack on demonstrators showing their support for Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Investigators say Mohamed Sabry Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall on June 1. But he threw just two of more than two dozen Molotov cocktails he had with him while yelling, “Free Palestine!” Police said he told them he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.
Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, had been living in the U.S. illegally with his family.
The purpose of Tuesday’s preliminary hearing in state court in Boulder is for District Judge Nancy Woodruff Salomone to determine if there’s enough evidence for Soliman to go on trial there.
Soliman already faced dozens of charges in state court as well as hate crime charges in federal court when state prosecutors added murder charges following the death of an 82-year-old woman who was injured in the attack died as the result of her injuries. Karen Diamond helped at her synagogue and volunteered for several local groups, including the University of Colorado University Women’s Club and a local music festival.
Last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Cramer-Babycz told U.S. District Judge John L. Kane that federal prosecutors have not decided yet whether to file additional charges against Soliman related to Diamond’s death.
Federal prosecutors allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. But Soliman’s federal defense lawyers say he should not have been charged with hate crimes because the evidence shows he was motivated by opposition to Zionism, the political movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
Soliman has pleaded not guilty to the hate crime charges. He has not been asked to enter a plea to the state charges yet.
State prosecutors have identified 29 people who are considered victims of the attack, including 13 who were physically injured. The others were nearby and are considered victims because they could have been hurt. A dog was also injured in the attack, so Soliman has also been charged with animal cruelty.
Tuesday’s hearing was set to move ahead over the objections of Soliman’s state public defenders, who asked to delay it after Diamond died and Soliman was charged with murder. In a court filing last week, they said they were not aware of an autopsy report being done for Diamond yet and asked to delay the hearing until October so they would be be able to review “significant medical records” in advance.
California
LA prosecutors must explain why Menendez brothers’ conviction shouldn’t be re-examined
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has ordered Los Angeles prosecutors to explain why Erik and Lyle Menendez’s murder convictions should not be re-examined in light of new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.
The July 7 order by LA County Superior Court Judge William Ryan was in response to a habeas corpus petition filed by the Menendez brothers in May 2023 seeking a review of their 1996 convictions for the killings of their parents based on new evidence.
The brothers were convicted of murdering their father, Jose Menendez — a powerful record executive — and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Their first trials resulted in hung juries. At the second trial for both brothers, the judge excluded a substantial amount of evidence, including testimony from several family members who witnessed or heard about the abuse. The brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In May, a judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in response to a resentencing petition, making them eligible for parole. They will appear before the state parole board in August.
The new evidence included a newly discovered letter from Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in which he describes being abused by his father, and a declaration from Menudo boy band member Roy Rossello that he was raped by Jose Menendez in the 1980s.
While prosecutors argued that the evidence was untimely and inadmissible, Ryan sided with the Menendez brothers, saying they had provided sufficient proof of why the evidence could have changed the outcome of their convictions.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office now has 30 days to explain why the brothers should not be granted habeas corpus relief.
There are several possible outcomes if the judge grants relief, including reduced sentences, a new trial, or even release from prison.
Washington
Senate confirms Trump’s first judicial nominee of his second term
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s first judicial pick of his second term, voting to approve Whitney Hermandorfer as a judge for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The confirmation of Hermandorfer, who worked for Tennessee’s attorney general, comes after the Democratic-led Senate under former President Joe Biden confirmed 235 federal judges and the Republican-led Senate in Trump’s first term confirmed 234 federal judges.
The two presidents each worked to reshape the judiciary, with Trump taking advantage of a high number of judicial vacancies at the end of President Barack Obama’s term and Democrats working to beat Trump’s number after he had the opportunity to nominate three Supreme Court justices.
So far in his second term, Trump has fewer vacancies to fill. While he inherited more than 100 vacancies from Obama, who was stymied by a Republican Senate in his final two years, Trump now has 49 vacancies to fill out of almost 900 federal judgeships.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said last week that the Senate would work to quickly confirm Trump’s judicial nominees, even though “we’re not facing the number of judicial vacancies this Congress we did during Trump’s first term.”
Hermandorfer, who was confirmed 46-42 along party lines, has defended many of Trump’s policies as director of strategic litigation for Tennessee’s attorney general, including his bid to end birthright citizenship. Democrats and liberal judicial advocacy groups criticized her as extreme on that issue and others, also citing her office’s defense of the state’s strict abortion ban.
Before working for the Tennessee Attorney General, she clerked for three Supreme Court justices. But at her confirmation hearing last month, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware criticized what he called a “striking brevity” of court experience since Hermandorfer graduated from law school a decade ago.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that Trump is only focused on “a nominee’s perceived loyalty to him and his agenda — and a willingness to rule in favor of him and his administration.”
The Judiciary panel is scheduled to vote on additional judges this week, including top Justice Department official Emil Bove, a former lawyer for Trump who is nominated for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove’s nomination has come under scrutiny after a fired department lawyer claimed in a complaint that Bove used an expletive when he said during a meeting that the Trump administration might need to ignore judicial commands. Bove has pushed back against suggestions from Democrats that the whistleblower’s claims make him unfit for the federal bench.
Bove has also accused FBI officials of “insubordination” for refusing to hand over the names of agents who investigated the U.S. Capitol riot and ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 criminal cases.
New York
Clerk again refuses to enforce Texas judgment against doctor who provided abortion pills
A county clerk in New York on Monday again refused to file a more than $100,000 civil judgment from Texas against a doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a Dallas-area woman.
New York is among eight states with shield laws that protect providers from other states’ reach. Abortion opponents claim the laws violate a constitutional requirement that states respect the laws and legal judgments of other states.
Republican Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton wants a New York court to enforce a civil decision from Texas against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City in Ulster County, for allegedly prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine.
Acting Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck in March refused an initial request to file the judgment, citing the New York law that shields abortion providers who serve patients in states with abortion bans. A second demand was made last week by the Texas attorney general’s office, which said Bruck had a “statutory duty” to make the filing under New York civil practice law.
Bruck responded Monday that the rejection stands.
“While I’m not entirely sure how things work in Texas, here in New York, a rejection means the matter is closed,” Bruck wrote in a letter to Texas officials.
The Texas case is one of two involving Carpenter that could end up testing shield laws.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this year invoked the state’s shield law in rejecting a request to extradite Carpenter to Louisiana, where the doctor was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor.
Hochul, responding to the latest request from Paxton’s office, claimed he was attempting to dictate “the personal decisions of women across America.”
“Our response to their baseless claim is clear: no way in hell. New York won’t be bullied,” she said in a prepared statement.
Connecticut
Man gets 65 years for killing his girlfriend, but their daughter remains missing
MILFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man was sentenced Monday to 65 years in prison for the 2019 beating death of his girlfriend, Christine Holloway, but their baby daughter disappeared at the time and remains missing.
Jose Morales, 48, was convicted by a jury in April of murder and evidence tampering in Holloway’s killing, which took place inside her home in Ansonia about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of New Haven.
Their daughter Vanessa was 14 months old when Holloway was killed and relatives continue their efforts to find her. Police said in 2019 that Morales was a suspect in the girl’s disappearance, but he was never charged.
Several family members of Holloway spoke at the sentencing.
Morales declined to speak at the hearing in Milford Superior Court. He testified at the trial that two intruders attacked Holloway with a crowbar and assaulted him before they kidnapped Vanessa. Morales also said he was high on PCP at the time.
His lawyer, Edward Gavin, told the judge on Monday, “It’s an extraordinarily difficult case. It shows the ills of PCP and drug use in our society.”
Before handing down the sentence, Judge Shari Murphy called the crime vicious and said Morales showed a careless indifference to human life.
Prosecutors to lay out evidence in firebomb attack on demonstration
DENVER (AP) — Colorado prosecutors are set to lay out their evidence Tuesday against a man charged with murder, attempted murder and other crimes in a firebomb attack on demonstrators showing their support for Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Investigators say Mohamed Sabry Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall on June 1. But he threw just two of more than two dozen Molotov cocktails he had with him while yelling, “Free Palestine!” Police said he told them he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.
Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, had been living in the U.S. illegally with his family.
The purpose of Tuesday’s preliminary hearing in state court in Boulder is for District Judge Nancy Woodruff Salomone to determine if there’s enough evidence for Soliman to go on trial there.
Soliman already faced dozens of charges in state court as well as hate crime charges in federal court when state prosecutors added murder charges following the death of an 82-year-old woman who was injured in the attack died as the result of her injuries. Karen Diamond helped at her synagogue and volunteered for several local groups, including the University of Colorado University Women’s Club and a local music festival.
Last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Cramer-Babycz told U.S. District Judge John L. Kane that federal prosecutors have not decided yet whether to file additional charges against Soliman related to Diamond’s death.
Federal prosecutors allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. But Soliman’s federal defense lawyers say he should not have been charged with hate crimes because the evidence shows he was motivated by opposition to Zionism, the political movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
Soliman has pleaded not guilty to the hate crime charges. He has not been asked to enter a plea to the state charges yet.
State prosecutors have identified 29 people who are considered victims of the attack, including 13 who were physically injured. The others were nearby and are considered victims because they could have been hurt. A dog was also injured in the attack, so Soliman has also been charged with animal cruelty.
Tuesday’s hearing was set to move ahead over the objections of Soliman’s state public defenders, who asked to delay it after Diamond died and Soliman was charged with murder. In a court filing last week, they said they were not aware of an autopsy report being done for Diamond yet and asked to delay the hearing until October so they would be be able to review “significant medical records” in advance.
California
LA prosecutors must explain why Menendez brothers’ conviction shouldn’t be re-examined
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has ordered Los Angeles prosecutors to explain why Erik and Lyle Menendez’s murder convictions should not be re-examined in light of new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.
The July 7 order by LA County Superior Court Judge William Ryan was in response to a habeas corpus petition filed by the Menendez brothers in May 2023 seeking a review of their 1996 convictions for the killings of their parents based on new evidence.
The brothers were convicted of murdering their father, Jose Menendez — a powerful record executive — and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Their first trials resulted in hung juries. At the second trial for both brothers, the judge excluded a substantial amount of evidence, including testimony from several family members who witnessed or heard about the abuse. The brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In May, a judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in response to a resentencing petition, making them eligible for parole. They will appear before the state parole board in August.
The new evidence included a newly discovered letter from Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in which he describes being abused by his father, and a declaration from Menudo boy band member Roy Rossello that he was raped by Jose Menendez in the 1980s.
While prosecutors argued that the evidence was untimely and inadmissible, Ryan sided with the Menendez brothers, saying they had provided sufficient proof of why the evidence could have changed the outcome of their convictions.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office now has 30 days to explain why the brothers should not be granted habeas corpus relief.
There are several possible outcomes if the judge grants relief, including reduced sentences, a new trial, or even release from prison.
Washington
Senate confirms Trump’s first judicial nominee of his second term
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s first judicial pick of his second term, voting to approve Whitney Hermandorfer as a judge for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The confirmation of Hermandorfer, who worked for Tennessee’s attorney general, comes after the Democratic-led Senate under former President Joe Biden confirmed 235 federal judges and the Republican-led Senate in Trump’s first term confirmed 234 federal judges.
The two presidents each worked to reshape the judiciary, with Trump taking advantage of a high number of judicial vacancies at the end of President Barack Obama’s term and Democrats working to beat Trump’s number after he had the opportunity to nominate three Supreme Court justices.
So far in his second term, Trump has fewer vacancies to fill. While he inherited more than 100 vacancies from Obama, who was stymied by a Republican Senate in his final two years, Trump now has 49 vacancies to fill out of almost 900 federal judgeships.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said last week that the Senate would work to quickly confirm Trump’s judicial nominees, even though “we’re not facing the number of judicial vacancies this Congress we did during Trump’s first term.”
Hermandorfer, who was confirmed 46-42 along party lines, has defended many of Trump’s policies as director of strategic litigation for Tennessee’s attorney general, including his bid to end birthright citizenship. Democrats and liberal judicial advocacy groups criticized her as extreme on that issue and others, also citing her office’s defense of the state’s strict abortion ban.
Before working for the Tennessee Attorney General, she clerked for three Supreme Court justices. But at her confirmation hearing last month, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware criticized what he called a “striking brevity” of court experience since Hermandorfer graduated from law school a decade ago.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that Trump is only focused on “a nominee’s perceived loyalty to him and his agenda — and a willingness to rule in favor of him and his administration.”
The Judiciary panel is scheduled to vote on additional judges this week, including top Justice Department official Emil Bove, a former lawyer for Trump who is nominated for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove’s nomination has come under scrutiny after a fired department lawyer claimed in a complaint that Bove used an expletive when he said during a meeting that the Trump administration might need to ignore judicial commands. Bove has pushed back against suggestions from Democrats that the whistleblower’s claims make him unfit for the federal bench.
Bove has also accused FBI officials of “insubordination” for refusing to hand over the names of agents who investigated the U.S. Capitol riot and ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 criminal cases.
New York
Clerk again refuses to enforce Texas judgment against doctor who provided abortion pills
A county clerk in New York on Monday again refused to file a more than $100,000 civil judgment from Texas against a doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a Dallas-area woman.
New York is among eight states with shield laws that protect providers from other states’ reach. Abortion opponents claim the laws violate a constitutional requirement that states respect the laws and legal judgments of other states.
Republican Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton wants a New York court to enforce a civil decision from Texas against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City in Ulster County, for allegedly prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine.
Acting Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck in March refused an initial request to file the judgment, citing the New York law that shields abortion providers who serve patients in states with abortion bans. A second demand was made last week by the Texas attorney general’s office, which said Bruck had a “statutory duty” to make the filing under New York civil practice law.
Bruck responded Monday that the rejection stands.
“While I’m not entirely sure how things work in Texas, here in New York, a rejection means the matter is closed,” Bruck wrote in a letter to Texas officials.
The Texas case is one of two involving Carpenter that could end up testing shield laws.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this year invoked the state’s shield law in rejecting a request to extradite Carpenter to Louisiana, where the doctor was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor.
Hochul, responding to the latest request from Paxton’s office, claimed he was attempting to dictate “the personal decisions of women across America.”
“Our response to their baseless claim is clear: no way in hell. New York won’t be bullied,” she said in a prepared statement.
Connecticut
Man gets 65 years for killing his girlfriend, but their daughter remains missing
MILFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man was sentenced Monday to 65 years in prison for the 2019 beating death of his girlfriend, Christine Holloway, but their baby daughter disappeared at the time and remains missing.
Jose Morales, 48, was convicted by a jury in April of murder and evidence tampering in Holloway’s killing, which took place inside her home in Ansonia about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of New Haven.
Their daughter Vanessa was 14 months old when Holloway was killed and relatives continue their efforts to find her. Police said in 2019 that Morales was a suspect in the girl’s disappearance, but he was never charged.
Several family members of Holloway spoke at the sentencing.
Morales declined to speak at the hearing in Milford Superior Court. He testified at the trial that two intruders attacked Holloway with a crowbar and assaulted him before they kidnapped Vanessa. Morales also said he was high on PCP at the time.
His lawyer, Edward Gavin, told the judge on Monday, “It’s an extraordinarily difficult case. It shows the ills of PCP and drug use in our society.”
Before handing down the sentence, Judge Shari Murphy called the crime vicious and said Morales showed a careless indifference to human life.
