Death row turns to life term for inmate
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A Tennessee inmate is leaving death row eight months before what would have been his execution date, after a judge approved an agreement Friday to convert his death sentence to life in prison.
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman signed the agreement with prosecutors Wednesday, but Nashville Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins did not announce his approval until Friday.
The agreement comes after Abdur'Rahman, who is black, petitioned to reopen his case, presenting evidence that prosecutors at his trial treated black potential jurors differently from white potential jurors.
Abdur'Rahman was sentenced to die in 1987 for the murder of Patrick Daniels, who was stabbed to death. Norma Jean Norman was also stabbed but survived. The stabbing took place in Norman's house while her two young daughters, Katrina and Shawanna, huddled in a back bedroom.
NATO: American killed in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. service member was killed in Afghanistan, NATO said Friday, barely a week after two U.S. Army Green Berets were killed in combat.
The brief statement from the NATO Resolute Support mission said the latest death occurred Thursday but provided no further details. The service member's identity was being withheld until family could be notified.
The announcement came as negotiations between a U.S. envoy and the Taliban appear to be close to an agreement on ending America's longest war.
More than 2,400 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001 to topple the Taliban, whose government had harbored al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaida insurgents used Afghanistan as a base from which to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States.
The U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in 2014, but air and other support continue for Afghan forces fighting the Taliban and an affiliate of the Islamic State. Both extremist groups continue to carry out deadly attacks against civilians and military forces.
Texas ethics panel rips 11 judges over bail
HOUSTON -- Texas' judicial ethics commission has found 11 current and former judges broke the law by indiscriminately denying free bail to thousands of poor people charged with crimes.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct this week publicly admonished the group of Harris County district judges, most of whom have left office, the Houston Chronicle reported. The commission ruled that the judges willfully violated court rules and state law by instructing court officers to routinely deny no-cash bail to most or all newly arrested defendants.
The practice "cast public discredit upon the judiciary," the Commission wrote in each of the rulings.
The findings of the misconduct probe, which was launched in secret early last year, comes after eight of the jurists lost re-election bids or declined to run for office again.
The public reprimand is unusual and comes as Harris County, one of America's most populous counties, works to settle a 2017 lawsuit that claimed officials were violating defendants' constitutional rights by broadly denying so-called personal recognizance bonds.
A lawyer for the judges, Nicole DeBorde, told the Chronicle that the commission's decision was "incorrect" and "based on a misunderstanding of the law surrounding this very complicated issue of bail."
Court revives gun background-check suit
RICHMOND, Va. -- A lawsuit over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to buy the gun he used to kill nine people in an attack at a South Carolina church was reinstated Friday by a federal appeals court.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling from a lower court judge who threw out the claims brought by relatives of people killed in the 2015 shooting at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church, and by survivors.
The lower court judge found that the government was immune from liability. The appeals court disagreed.
The FBI has acknowledged that Roof's drug possession arrest weeks before the shooting should have prevented him from buying a gun.
Roof has been sentenced to death for the slayings.
The appeals court panel disagreed with the judge's finding that the families' claims do not fit into narrow exceptions to laws that shield government employees from liability while carrying out their official duties. The ruling means the lawsuit can move forward.
In arguments before the appeals court in May, a lawyer for the families said an examiner with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System was required under standard operating procedures to do additional research after learning Roof had been arrested.
But a government lawyer told the judges that the standard operating procedures are not binding and are meant only as guidance.
A Section on 08/31/2019