Tag Archives: Judge

U.S. judge extends ban of online 3-D printed gun blueprints

By Tina Bellon

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Monday extended a ban on the online distribution of 3-D printed gun blueprints, a win for a group of mainly Democratic-led states that said such a publication would violate their right to regulate firearms and endanger their citizens.

U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle issued the extension of a nationwide injunction, blocking a Texas-based group from disseminating files for printing plastic weapons on the internet.

Lasnik’s prior order issued on July 31 blocked the release of the blueprints hours before they were set to hit the internet. That temporary ban was set to expire on Tuesday and the new ban will remain in place until the case is resolved.

Monday’s decision blocks a settlement President Donald Trump’s administration had reached with Defense Distributed, a group arguing that access to the online blueprints is guaranteed under First and Second Amendment rights, respectively to free speech and to bear arms.

A group of 19 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in July sued the U.S. government, arguing that publishing blueprints would allow criminals easy access to weapons. They also said the Trump administration had failed to explain why it settled the case.

Lasnik said the states have submitted sufficient evidence that they are likely to suffer “irreparable harm” if the blueprints are published. The judge also said Defense Distributed’s First Amendment concerns were “dwarfed” by the states’ safety considerations.

Defense Distributed had put the files on the internet a few days before Lasnik issued the initial temporary ban and the blueprints continue to be available on several other online websites.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Marguerita Choy)

Judge revokes bond for Nashville shooting suspect after public outcry

Travis Reinking, the suspect in a Waffle House shooting in Nashville, is under arrest by Metro Nashville Police Department in a wooded area in Antioch, Tennessee, U.S., April 23, 2018. Courtesy Metro Nashville Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) – A Tennessee judge on Tuesday revoked a $2 million bond set for the man accused of opening fire at a Nashville-area Waffle House restaurant, killing four people, while new details emerged of the suspect’s struggles with paranoia and delusions.

Davidson County Judge Michael Mondelli did not give a reason for overturning the bond order issued by a night magistrate following the arrest of Travis Reinking, but his decision followed a public outcry over the possibility that the suspect could potentially be freed from jail.

The Nashville District Attorney’s office was “inundated with calls” from angry members of the public saying the shooting rampage suspect should not be released under any circumstances, spokesman Steve Hayslip said.

“The fact that he might be able to bond out set that fear and panic back in their hearts again,” Hayslip said.

Reinking, a 29-year-old construction worker with a history of erratic behavior and brushes with the law, was captured in woods outside Nashville on Monday after more than a day on the run and charged with four counts of murder.

A hearing set in the case for Wednesday was postponed until May 7. Jon Wing, a Davidson County public defender representing Reinking, did not respond to a request for comment.

Police say a nearly naked Reinking opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday at the Waffle House restaurant.

The gunman, who began shooting outside before moving inside, aborted his attack and fled when a customer, 29-year-old James Shaw Jr., wrestled the rifle from him in what authorities called an act of heroism.

Police say they still did not know what motivated the attack and that Reinking was not speaking to investigators.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall told reporters on Tuesday that the suspect was under medical observation and a suicide watch.

“We have to protect other inmates from him,” Hall said. “And we have to protect him from other inmates.”

Previous brushes with law enforcement show that Reinking appeared to struggle with delusions of being stalked by people, including pop star Taylor Swift.

Former colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Crane Service where Reinking worked in Salida, Colorado, told a Salida Police Department investigator this week that he was intelligent and quiet, but they worried about his mental health.

They described him as a loner who often played video games, especially ones that involve shooting, and that he was obsessed with Swift, according to a report released by Salida police. Reinking lived in Salida for six months starting in late 2016.

Reinking told everyone he was gay, which two colleagues said appeared to contradict his claims that he would someday marry the 28-year-old female singer.

“Travis was a good kid, very polite and a hard worker but a little off. It’s just unfortunate that he snapped,” John Turley, a mechanic at the Crane service, told Reuters in a telephone interview. “As the laws are written, he never should have had a gun. I feel sorry for everybody who is suffering.”

Reinking moved to Nashville in 2017 from Illinois. The U.S. Secret Service said it arrested him in Washington in July of last year after he attempted to get into the White House.

After that episode, authorities in Illinois revoked his gun license and confiscated four firearms, including what police said was the rifle used in the Waffle House shooting.

The guns were given to his father, Jeffrey Reinking, who told police he would lock them up and keep them away from his son at their home in Tazewell County, Illinois.

But the elder Reinking eventually returned the weapons to his son, Nashville police said on Sunday. The Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office never took custody of the guns and was not investigating the matter, Chief Deputy Jeffrey Lower said in an email.

Marcus Watson, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Reinking’s father could face federal charges if he knowingly transferred weapons to a person who was prohibited from owning them. Jeffrey Reinking could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Tim Ghianni; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Brendan O’Brien and Keith Coffman; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool)

Judge denies motion to drop case against widow of Orlando gunman

FILE PHOTO: Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, U.S. on June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

By Joey Roulette

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss charges against the widow of the gunman in the 2016 massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, saying that the gunman’s father’s work an FBI informant was not relevant to the case.

Over the weekend, prosecutors disclosed that Omar Mateen’s father, Seddique, had worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation before his son carried out the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in June 2016.

In opening their case, lawyers for Mateen’s widow, Noor Salman, argued that the judge should dismiss the charges against her or declare a mistrial because prosecutors had failed to reveal the FBI’s relationship to Mateen’s father and other evidence related to him beforehand.

Salman, 31, is accused of helping her husband carry out surveillance of possible attack sites and doing nothing to stop him. Mateen, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent who claimed allegiance to a member of the Islamic State militant group, was killed by police after more than three hours in the Pulse nightclub.

An FBI agent on Monday testified that years before Mateen carried out the attack, the agency considered using him as an informant, like his father.

Those discussions took place while the FBI was investigating comments made by the younger Mateen about overseas links to militants, Special Agent Juvenal Martin said in federal court in Orlando. That investigation closed without charges, he said.

Martin did not say why the FBI decided against enlisting Omar Mateen as an informant.

Salman’s attorneys say that the disclosure by prosecutors that Seddique Mateen had been an informant from January 2005 to June 2016 violated a Supreme Court ruling barring prosecutors from withholding evidence.

After resting their case, prosecutors said agents probing the nightclub rampage found receipts of money transfers made from the United States to Turkey and Afghanistan made by the elder Mateen. An active investigation was under way, they said.

If the defense had known about the transfers, it would have investigated whether Seddique Mateen was involved in the attack or had prior knowledge of it, Fritz Scheller, a lawyer for Salman, said in the motion to dismiss.

But U.S. District Judge Paul Byron said, “It is not clear whether the purpose of the transfers was illegal.”

He said the omission of any evidence related to Seddique Mateen had no bearing on the culpability of Salman.

Salman faces possible life in prison if convicted on charges of aiding her husband in the attack and obstructing an investigation.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Additional reporting and writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)

Federal judge blocks Down syndrome abortion ban in Ohio

Supporters of Planned Parenthood (L) rally next to anti-abortion activists outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 11, 2017. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday blocked an Ohio law due to take effect later this month that would criminalize abortions based on a Down syndrome diagnosis, ruling that it violates a woman’s right to choose.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Black’s decision came after the Ohio state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Cincinnati, arguing the legislation violated the liberty and privacy clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Because H.B. 214 prevents women from making the choice to terminate their pregnancy prior to viability, it is unconstitutional on its face,” Black wrote in his 22-page ruling.

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder caused when abnormal cell division results in an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21.

Under the legislation, signed into law by Republican Governor John Kasich last December, doctors would lose their medical licenses in the state and face a fourth-degree felony charge if they were to perform an abortion with that knowledge.

Mothers would not face criminal charges.

“The Down syndrome abortion ban violates four and a half decades of legal precedent that says a woman has the unfettered right to choose whether to end a pregnancy before the point of viability,” Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio said in a statement.

A spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Wednesday that his office was planning to defend the law passed by the state’s majority of Republican lawmakers.

“While we are reviewing this ruling to determine further action, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office will continue to vigorously defend Ohio law,” spokesman Dan Tierney said.

The Ohio law marks the 20th restriction on abortion and reproductive rights signed by Kasich since 2011, according to NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

Similar laws have been passed in Indiana and North Dakota. An Indiana District Court issued a permanent injunction on a similar Down syndrome abortion ban on Sept. 22, 2017.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Lisa Shumaker)

Victims’ father charges at ex-U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor in court

Randall Margraves (L) lunges at Larry Nassar,(wearing orange) a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault charges, during victim statements of his sentencing in the Eaton County Circuit Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., February 2, 2018.

(Editor’s Note: Please be advised that this story contains language in fifth paragraph that may offend some readers)

By Steve Friess

(Reuters) – The enraged father of three daughters sexually abused by Larry Nassar charged toward the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor and tried to attack him during a sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom on Friday.

He was nearly within striking distance of Nassar before court guards tackled him roughly to the ground in front of his shocked daughters.

The chaotic scene began after sisters Lauren and Madison Margraves had finished tearfully reading their victim statements on the second day of hearings at a court in Eaton County, much as nearly 200 women have done before them at earlier hearings. Standing alongside his daughters and wife, Randall Margraves, a tall man with an intense gaze dressed in an electricians’ union sweatshirt, then asked to speak.

“I would ask you as part of the sentencing to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon,” he said to the judge, gesturing toward Nassar, who has already been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison at an earlier hearing after pleading guilty to molesting young women under the guise of medical treatment.

Judge Janice Cunningham told him he knew she could not do that, and chastised him after he called Nassar a son of a bitch. He asked for one minute alone instead. The judge demurred as some in the courtroom laughed uncomfortably.

Margraves then bolted toward Nassar, seated in an orange jump suit behind a nearby table. His daughters’ hands flew to their mouths, and one of Nassar’s lawyers moved to shield his client.

Gasps, cries and shouts filled the courtroom as Margraves was wrestled to the ground, knocking things off a desk on the way down, and put in handcuffs while Nassar was taken out to safety.

“One minute!” he demanded repeatedly, his head pinned to the floor. As court officers pulled him from the room, he implored them, “What if this happened to you guys?” Some victims fled the room in tears.

Looking distressed, the lead prosecutor, Angela Povilaitis, turned to the victims and relatives in the courtroom and tried to restore calm, saying she did not want to see anyone else end up in handcuffs.

“I understand Mr. Margraves’ frustration but you cannot do this,” she said. “This is not helping your children.”

The hearing resumed after a short break, with the judge addressing what she called a “scary” scene.

“My heart started beating fast and my legs started shaking,” Cunningham said. “We cannot react by using physical violence,” she told the courtroom, noting she could not imagine Margraves’ pain as a father. Nassar was back in his seat, looking downcast.

The hearing then reverted to the ritual established at earlier sessions: woman after woman rising to confront Nassar with accounts of a revered doctor they trusted making them strip naked and penetrating them with ungloved hands, and affirmations that they are no longer victims but survivors.

Margraves was being held in a cell at the courthouse, according to a corrections officer, but it was not immediately clear whether he would face any charges.

People reacted on social media with empathy for Margraves, with some offering to help cover any legal costs he faces.

Views were more mixed at the courthouse.

“If he had gotten some licks in, I wouldn’t have cried over it,” Lavonda Simon, whose daughter was among Nassar’s victims, said. “I totally understand the feeling of wanting to hurt him. You bet.”

Mariah McClain, who testified about Nassar’s abuse of her after the break, said she had to leave when Margraves erupted.

“It was very upsetting,” she said. “It was just too much for me.”

Nassar, who is also serving a 60-year federal term for child pornography convictions, has sparked broader outrage after numerous victims accused USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, and Michigan State University, where Nassar worked, of failing to investigate complaints about him going back years.

U.S. Olympic officials have also been criticized by some of the sport’s biggest stars, including gold medalists Aly Raisman, Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney. Multiple investigations, including at least two by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, are ongoing into how Nassar was able to abuse women for so long.

(Reporting by Steve Friess; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay)

U.S. judge extends deadline for bank records of firm behind Trump dossier

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge has given an unnamed bank more time to respond to a congressional subpoena for financial records of the Washington research firm that hired a former British spy to compile a dossier on presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Russians paid Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, for research on their own dealings with Trump and his campaign. The Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has sought Fusion’s bank records in an effort to pursue those allegations.

In a closed-door hearing with Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson said there was no connection between the firm’s work on the dossier and its legal research on a lawsuit involving Russians who attended a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law and close aide, Jared Kusher, and former campaign chief Paul Manafort, sources familiar with the hearing said.

It has been widely reported that supporters of Republican Jeb Bush, a primary opponent of Trump, initially paid for the firm’s research, and the law firm Perkins Coie, which represented Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, confirmed on Tuesday that it hired Fusion GPS in April 2016.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan had set a Thursday evening deadline for the unnamed bank to give the committee its last two years of records on Fusion GPS. But in an order posted on the court docket late on Thursday, she extended the deadline until Monday morning.

The decision indicates that lawyers for Fusion and the House committee are negotiating in an effort to settle their dispute out of court, sources familiar with the matter said.

Joshua Levy, a lawyer for Fusion, declined to comment, and the House of Representatives lawyer on the case did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by John Walcott and Tom Brown)

Federal judge strikes down two abortion restrictions in Alabama

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday struck down two abortion restrictions in Alabama that limited how close clinics can be to public schools and banned a procedure used to terminate pregnancies in the second trimester.

The decision is a blow to abortion opponents in Alabama, who have joined conservatives in other states in enacting new laws that critics said were chipping away at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama found the laws unconstitutional and permanently enjoined the state from enforcing the measures, which were signed into law in May 2016 by former Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, a Republican.

The same court last year temporarily blocked both measures in a preliminary injunction, which was under appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The school-proximity law banned clinics within 2,000 feet of a K-8 public school and was the only law of its kind in the United States. Thompson said it would likely have forced the closing of clinics in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, where 72 percent of the state’s abortions are performed.

The “fetal-demise law,” which effectively banned the most common method of second-trimester abortion, known as dilation and evacuation, would have prohibited abortions after 15 weeks, Thompson wrote.

“Because these laws clearly impose an impermissible undue burden on a woman’s ability to choose an abortion, they cannot stand,” he wrote.

The ACLU of Alabama had challenged the laws on behalf of two women’s health clinics in a state where abortion providers have faced what Thompson’s ruling called a “climate of hostility.”

“Both would have had a devastating impact on the ability of women to access abortion in Alabama,” said Randall Marshall, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama.

Alabama’s Attorney General and Republican Governor Kay Ivey’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank that supports abortion rights.

Those laws have led to a spate of legal challenges in Alabama and elsewhere. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a Texas law that required clinics to meet hospital-like standards and for clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; editing by Patrick Enright and Grant McCool)

Second federal judge blocks Trump’s curbs on travel to U.S.

Protesters gather outside the White House for "NoMuslimBanEver" rally against what they say is discriminatory policies that unlawfully target American Muslim and immigrant communities, in Washington, U.S., October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A second U.S. federal judge has blocked parts of President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban on people entering the United States from eight countries, dealing another legal blow to the administration’s third bid to impose travel restrictions.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, in a ruling issued overnight, said the policy as applied to six majority-Muslim countries likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on religious discrimination. He also ruled the ban ran afoul of immigration law.

Trump’s ban would have taken effect on Wednesday but was blocked on Tuesday by a U.S. federal judge in Hawaii in a separate challenge.

Together, the pair of rulings set up a high-stakes battle over the president’s executive authority that is expected to ultimately wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump’s latest order targeted people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea, as well as certain government officials from Venezuela. Neither of the court rulings lifts the restrictions on North Korea and Venezuela.

In the Maryland ruling, Chuang questioned the government’s argument that the restrictions are needed until the affected countries provide more information on travelers to the United States.

He cited various statements made by Trump, including his 2015 call for a “total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States.”

Chuang wrote that the president’s public statements “not only fail to advance, but instead undermine, the position that the primary purpose of the travel ban now derives from the need to address information sharing deficiencies.”

The latest ban, announced last month, was the third version of a policy that targeted Muslim-majority countries but had been restricted by the courts. The Maryland case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several advocacy groups, including the International Refugee Assistance Project.

“Like the two versions before it, President Trump’s latest travel ban is still a Muslim ban at its core. And like the two before it, this one is going down to defeat in the courts,” said ACLU lawyer Omar Jadwat.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu said Hawaii was likely to succeed in proving that the policy violated federal immigration law. The White House called the ruling flawed and said it would appeal.

Unlike the Hawaii ruling, the Maryland decision would lift the restrictions only for people with family connections to the United States.

White House representatives had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Black Lives Matter movement cannot be sued, U.S. judge rules

Black Lives Matter movement cannot be sued, U.S. judge rules

(Reuters) – A Louisiana police officer cannot sue Black Lives Matter because it is a social movement, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday, finding the campaign could not be held responsible for injuries he got at a protest.

The unidentified officer sued Black Lives Matter and an activist involved in a July 2016 protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the officer was struck by a rock.

The Black Lives Matter movement began with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media in 2012 after black high school student Trayvon Martin was shot dead in Sanford, Florida, by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter.

It grew into a nationwide movement in response to the use of excessive force by police, particularly against black men.

“‘Black Lives Matter,’ as a social movement, cannot be sued, however, in a similar way that a person cannot plausibly sue other social movements such as the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT rights movement or the Tea Party movement,” Chief Judge Brian Jackson of a U.S District Court in Baton Rouge wrote in a 24-page ruling.

While the movement itself lacked the capacity to be sued, an associated entity could be held liable, Jackson said. But the judge found the officer had not made a sufficient case against such a group or an individual involved and dismissed the lawsuit.

Billy Gibbens, an attorney for DeRay Mckesson, the activist named in the lawsuit, said his client “does not condone violence of any kind, and we are very sorry that the officer was injured.”

“The court was absolutely correct to find that DeRay is not responsible for the criminal conduct of an unidentified person,” Gibbens said in an email.

Attorneys for the officer, Black Lives Matter and the activist named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It was not clear how the ruling might affect a related lawsuit filed by an officer who was wounded during protests last year in Baton Rouge.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein)

U.S. judge throws out Texas voter ID law supported by Trump

FILE PHOTO: A ballot is placed into a locked ballot box by a poll worker as people line-up to vote early at the San Diego County Elections Office in San Diego, California, U.S., November 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – A federal court judge on Wednesday threw out a Texas voter identification law that was supported by the Trump administration, but the state’s attorney general said his office would appeal the ruling.

The judge’s ruling said changes to the law passed earlier this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature that were meant to be less discriminatory than an earlier one did not accomplish that.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the Southern District of Texas said the state did not allow enough types of photo IDs for voters, “even though the (5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) was clearly critical of Texas having the most restrictive list in the country.”

President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting voter fraud, picking up a theme of fellow Republicans across the country. Critics have said the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other Republican-governed states are an effort to suppress voting, including among blacks and Hispanics who tend to favor Democrats.

Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election, in which Clinton won the popular vote but lost the decisive Electoral College count.

“Today’s ruling is outrageous,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

Paxton, a Republican, added that changes to the law passed by the legislature included all those asked for by the 5th Circuit.

The Justice Department filed a brief last month asking the court to halt action against the Texas voter ID law, saying the state’s new law fixed discriminatory issues of the state’s 2011 voter ID law.

Texas Democrats welcomed Ramos’ ruling.

“Jim Crow-era tactics have kept Texas Republicans in power,” said state Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. “From discriminatory gerrymandering to discriminatory voter ID laws, it has become entirely clear that Texas Republicans are rigging our election system.”

Ramos wrote in a 27-page ruling that voters with little education, or simply a lack of confidence, may forfeit their legitimate right to vote because of fear of being charged with perjury.

She said Texas was overreaching by “threatening severe penalties for perjury,” and noted that the state’s “history of voter intimidation” led her not to accept the new voter ID law as a solution for the “purposeful discrimination” in the one it attempted to improve upon.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)