Latest news with #AttorneyGeneral
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
‘Maryland man,' accused MS-13 gangbanger, could face death penalty over deadly border disaster: fmr prosecutor
One former federal prosecutor said Kilmar Abrego Garcia could face death penalty-eligible charges if the government finds enough evidence tying him to an incident that left 50 migrants dead. Abrego Garcia was indicted on charges of alien smuggling and conspiracy by a grand jury in Tennessee earlier this month. The indictment says Abrego Garcia played a "significant role" in a human smuggling ring that was in operation for nearly a decade. During a news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi described Abrego Garcia as a full-time smuggler who racked up over 100 trips throughout the U.S., transporting MS-13 gang-affiliated members, children and women. According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia and several co-conspirators are accused of working together to transport illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico to the U.S. for "profit and private financial gain." During one of these trips, Abrego Garcia's alleged co-conspirators' tractor trailer, which was carrying over 150 migrants, overturned, leaving more than 50 migrants dead and many others injured, authorities said. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani told Fox News Digital this incident could be the basis for death penalty-eligible charges, if federal prosecutors choose to go down that route. "Even if Abrego Garcia wasn't in the vehicle, as long as he's a co-conspirator, they could potentially seek the death penalty," Rahmani said. "The classic law school example is this: You and a co-conspirator rob a bank. Your co-conspirator shoots someone during that robbery. Prosecutors can seek the death penalty even though you're not the one who actually pulled the trigger." "If the Justice Department can prove that Abrego Garcia was involved in the alien smuggling death, even though the death occurred in Mexico, as long as the intention was to bring those individuals to the United States, that may appropriately be a death penalty case," he added. Rahmani said the deaths wouldn't need to be intentional for federal prosecutors to bring up death-penalty-eligible charges. "Prosecutors don't have to prove that Abrego Garcia intended to cause any injuries or even intended to hurt anyone. As long as they can show that he intended to smuggle people into the United States and a death resulted, that's enough," Rahmani said. "Prosecutors just have to prove knowledge and intent of the smuggling operation as well as causation. The death resulted therefrom. That's enough for a death penalty case." Rahmani said that being a co-conspirator makes people criminally liable for conduct during the crime, but noted that prosecutors don't typically seek the death penalty in instances like this. Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ and Abrego Garcia's lawyer for comment.
Associated Press
14 hours ago
- Associated Press
Authorities arrest fugitive who police say posted on social media following New Orleans jailbreak
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana authorities captured on Friday one of the 10 men who escaped from a New Orleans jail six weeks ago and who police say released videos on social media while still on the run. State police said Antoine Massey, 33, was taken into custody at a residence in New Orleans. Authorities had recently investigated social media posts by a man who identified himself as Massey and earlier this month raided a New Orleans home where they believed the videos were produced but did not find him. 'Great work by all our law enforcement partners who have been working so hard for this outcome,' Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said. 'One more to go!' Authorities are still searching for convicted murderer Derrick Groves. Police previously captured the other eight escapees following the May 16 jailbreak, one of the largest in recent U.S. history. Authorities said the men yanked open a faulty cell door inside the New Orleans jail, squeezed through a hole behind a toilet, scaled a barbed-wire fence and fled into the dark. The men's absence wasn't discovered until a morning headcount, hours after they bolted for freedom. Authorities found a message drawn around the hole the men used to escape: an arrow pointing at the gap and the words 'To Easy LoL.' Officials have pointed to multiple security lapses in the jail, but authorities remain adamant that the men also had likely had help. A maintenance worker at the jail was arrested for allegedly helping the men escape by turning off the water to the toilet where the hole was cut behind. His lawyer says he has denied knowingly aiding them. Massey, 33, faced charges of rape, kidnapping, domestic violence involving strangulation and violation of a protective order, authorities in nearby St. Tammany Parish said. In Orleans Parish, he faced charges of motor vehicle theft and domestic battery. Murrill said Massey will face additional charges for his role in the escape. A woman police identified as being in an on-again, off-again relationship with Massey was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice and as a principal to aggravated escape, court records show. Authorities said the woman knew of Massey's escape plans beforehand, communicated with him afterward and misled authorities.
Associated Press
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
New Hampshire lawsuit seeks to stop politicization of youth center abuse victims' fund
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Lawyers representing hundreds of men and woman who claim they were abused at New Hampshire's youth detention center filed a class action lawsuit Friday seeking to prevent the independent administrator of the state's settlement fund for victims from being replaced with a political appointee. Lawmakers created the settlement fund in 2022, pitching it as a 'victim-centered' and 'trauma-informed' alternative to litigation that would be run by a neutral administrator appointed by the state Supreme Court. But the Republican-led Legislature changed that process through last-minute additions to the state budget approved Thursday and signed into law by Gov. Kelly Ayotte on Friday. Under the new provisions taking effect July 1, the governor will have the authority to hire and fire the fund's administrator, and the attorney general — also a political appointee — would have veto power over settlement awards. In affidavits filed with their complaint, the lead plaintiffs said the change amounts to a bait and switch that reignited the skepticism they initially felt about the settlement process but tried to put aside. 'I never would have shared the full story of what happened to me if I did not think I would be heard by someone impartial,' said a woman identified only as Jane Doe, who said she ran away from home to escape sexual abuse only to be further abused in state custody. 'I feel incredibly betrayed by the state's actions, but this is just the latest in a long list of betrayals by the state, so maybe I should not be surprised,' she said. 'This also makes me wonder whether the state will next betray the promise of confidentiality, because it seems like their word does not mean anything to them.' Another plaintiff, Andrew Foley, described being diagnosed with PTSD, not from his time as a combat soldier in Iraq but from the physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child. 'As I understand it, the State will now decide for itself how much my claim is worth. That is the opposite of a fair process,' his affidavit said. 'As I always believed, the state cannot be trusted.' Neither Ayotte nor Attorney General John Formella responded to requests for comment Friday. More than 1,300 people have sued since 2020 alleging that they were physically or sexually abused in state custody as children, most of them at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. Only one case has gone to trial, resulting in a $38 million verdict, though the state is trying to slash it to $475,000. Two other cases have been settled for $10 million and $4.5 million. The state also has brought criminal charges against former workers, with two convictions and two mistrials so far. Many of the alleged victims put their lawsuits on hold and applied to the settlement fund, which caps payouts at $2.5 million. As of March 31, 296 cases had been settled, with an average award of $543,000, according to the most recently available statistics. The lawsuit filed Friday seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent the governor from firing the current administrator, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick.
Arab News
19 hours ago
- Arab News
Two sentenced in Texas for role in deaths of 53 migrants
Felipe Orduna-Torres, 30, headed a network that brought adults and children from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico into the USDistrict Judge Orlando Garcia of the Western District of Texas sentenced Orduna-Torres to life in prisonHOUSTON: The leader of a human smuggling ring convicted of involvement in the deaths of 53 migrants in a sweltering truck in Texas in 2022 was sentenced to life in prison on Orduna-Torres, 30, headed a network that brought adults and children from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico into the United States between December 2021 and June 2022, according to was convicted in March of transporting aliens within the United States resulting in death, causing serious bodily injury, and placing lives in Judge Orlando Garcia of the Western District of Texas sentenced Orduna-Torres to life in prison on Friday and a $250,000 fine, the Justice Department said in a convicted member of the smuggling ring, Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 55, was sentenced to 83 years in prison for his involvement in the deaths of the 53 migrants.'These criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison because of their cruel choice to profit off of human suffering,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. 'Today's sentences are a powerful message to human smugglers everywhere: we will not rest until you are behind bars.'Five other defendants have pleaded guilty to their roles in the fatal smuggling operation and are to be sentenced later this alleged member of the smuggling ring, Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco, 48, was extradited to the United States from Guatemala and is scheduled to go on trial in to the US authorities, the smugglers charged $12,000 to $15,000 per person to bring the migrants, who mostly hailed from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, into the United least 64 migrants including eight children and a pregnant woman were loaded into a 53-foot (16-meter) tractor-trailer on or around June 27, 2022 to be moved across the US-Mexico trailer's air conditioning was not working properly and the temperature inside the truck soared as it drove north to San people were dead when the trailer reached San Antonio and five more died later in hospital. Six children and the pregnant woman were among the dead.
CNN
21 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Live updates: Supreme Court limits ability of judges to stop Trump
Update: Date: Title: Here's why this ruling is a "big win" for Trump Content: CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid breaks down what this Supreme Court ruling means for President Donald Trump's agenda. Watch here: The Supreme Court backed President Donald Trump's effort to curtail lower court orders that have hampered his agenda for months. However, it signaled that the president's controversial plan to effectively end birthright citizenship may never be enforced. #cnn #news #supremecourt #scotus #trump Update: Date: Title: State challenging birthright citizenship order confident it can still win in court Content: One of the states challenging President Donald Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship lamented the Supreme Court's decision Friday that makes it harder to block government policies nationwide but nonetheless appeared confident that it could still prevail in stymying Trump's effort. New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who was among several state attorneys general challenging Trump's executive order, said in a statement that 'we are glad the Court recognized that nationwide orders can be appropriate to protect the plaintiffs themselves from harm—which is true, and has always been true, in our case.' 'We are confident that his flagrantly unconstitutional order will remain enjoined by the courts. And in the meantime, our fight continues: we will keep challenging President Trump's flagrantly unlawful order, which strips American babies of citizenship for the first time since the Civil War, and we look forward to a decision in the coming months that holds this disgraceful order unlawful for good,' he said. While the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority limited the power of plaintiffs to seek nationwide orders that temporarily halt the government from enforcing a policy, it left unresolved what will happen with Trump's birthright citizenship order, sending a set of cases over it back to lower courts for further review. Those lower courts could halt the policy on a broad basis again through other legal mechanisms, like class action lawsuits. Update: Date: Title: Vance hails Supreme Court decision on nationwide injunctions as a 'huge ruling' Content: Vice President JD Vance is hailing the Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of judges to stop President Donald Trump's policies from taking effect as a 'huge ruling.' 'A huge ruling by the Supreme Court, smacking down the ridiculous process of nationwide injunctions. Under our system, everyone has to follow the law–including judges,' Vance wrote in a post on X. The Supreme Court on Friday backed President Donald Trump's effort to curtail lower court orders that have hampered his agenda for months. However, it also signaled that the president's controversial plan to effectively end birthright citizenship may never be enforced. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court says states can require age verification for online porn Content: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law that requires age verification for pornographic websites in one of the most closely watched First Amendment cases to arrive at the high court in years. The adult entertainment industry had challenged the Texas law as violating the Constitution because it restricted the ability of adults to access protected online speech. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court divided along ideological grounds with the court's three liberals dissenting. 'The statute advances the state's important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content,' Thomas wrote. 'And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data.' Update: Date: Title: Justice Jackson warns that court's birthright ruling will enable "our collective demise" Content: In a scathing solo dissent penned by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the appointee of former President Joe Biden accused her conservative colleagues of creating 'an existential threat to the rule of law' by allowing Trump to 'violate the Constitution.' She warned that the 'executive lawlessness will flourish' if lower-court judges are now required to let a president 'act unlawfully.' 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more,' Jackson wrote. She continued: 'Perhaps the degradation of our rule-of-law regime would happen anyway. But this Court's complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law (as they interpret it) will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.' Update: Date: Title: Trump touts 'giant win' at SCOTUS, announces 11:30 event at White House Content: President Donald Trump on Friday called the Supreme Court decision curtailing nationwide injunctions a 'giant win.' 'GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard,' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'Congratulations to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Solicitor General John Sauer, and the entire DOJ.' He also announced a press availability at the White House at 11:30 a.m. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court says school policy barring opt-outs for LGBTQ books violates religious rights Content: The Supreme Court on Friday backed a group of religious parents who want to opt their elementary school children out of engaging with LGBTQ books in the classroom, another major legal win for religious interests at the conservative high court. In the latest decision blurring the line that once clearly separated secular education from religious belief, the court said that a suburban school district in Washington, DC, burdened parents' First Amendment rights by refusing to allow them to pull their children from the classroom when the books are used. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the 6-3 conservative majority. 'The board's introduction of the 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' rights to the free exercise of their religion,' Alito wrote for the majority. 'The parents have therefore shown that they are likely to succeed in their free exercise claims.' Update: Date: Title: Barrett's majority opinion came after Trump privately griped about her Content: For months, President Donald Trump has griped in private about some of the Supreme Court justices he appointed during his first term, believing they were not sufficiently standing behind his agenda. But on Friday, all of his appointees — including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the one who's earned his particular ire — ruled in his favor in a case challenging his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, with Barrett writing the majority opinion. The ruling was a decisive win for a president who has long railed against unelected judges blocking some of his executive actions. The decision limits lower courts' ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which have stymied some of the president's executive actions. It could help improve the president's view of Barrett in particular. In private, some of Trump's allies have told him that Barrett is 'weak' and that her rulings have not been in line with how she presented herself in an interview before he nominated her to the bench in 2020, according to sources. Many conservatives were apoplectic in March when Barrett voted to reject Trump's plan to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid. 'It's not just one ruling. It's been a few different events he's complained about privately,' a senior administration official told CNN in June. Now, however, Barrett — along with the court's other five conservatives — handed Trump a win in the most prominent case of the term. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court upholds programs that deliver broadband access to rural and poor communities Content: The Supreme Court on Friday let stand a series of decades-old government programs that reduce the price of broadband internet and telephone services for poor and rural communities, rejecting an argument from a conservative group that claimed the way Congress set up the program violated separation-of-powers principles. The ruling was a rare win for a federal agency at the conservative high court, which in recent years has tended to side with groups challenging executive branch power. In this case, both the Biden and Trump administrations had supported the Federal Communications Commission's effort to expand access to high-speed internet through fees on phone bills paid by millions of Americans. Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal wing, wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court. Three of the court's conservatives – Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – dissented. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court rejects challenge to panel that under Obamacare recommends no-cost preventive care Content: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a task force that recommends preventive health care services that insurers must cover at no cost, turning away the latest legal challenge to Obamacare to reach the high court. Though the appeal never threatened to take down the Affordable Care Act, it could have had a sweeping impact on millions of Americans and their access to preventive services. Keeping preventive care cost free makes it more likely that people will get screenings and other services that are aimed at detecting disease at an earlier stage. The Supreme Court ruled that members of the panel are 'inferior' officers, meaning they do not need to be appointed by the president. The ruling confirms HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his predecessor in the Biden administration, had the ability to name the experts who sit on the panel. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the court. Update: Date: Title: Here's what CNN's SCOTUS expert says about the court's ruling on nationwide injunctions Content: 'Today's ruling nominally allows the Trump administration to put the birthright citizenship order into effect across most of the country, but it's almost certainly going to be more important with regard to the president's other policy initiatives,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. 'That's because lower courts will still be able to (quickly) prevent the birthright citizenship order from being enforced — whether by meeting the higher standard the Court articulated today for a nationwide injunction or by certifying a nationwide class action,' he added. 'The bigger issue is that this is going to make it much harder for litigants to bring challenges to Trump policies in general—because many cases won't present as clear a justification for nationwide relief or a nationwide class as this one does.' Update: Date: Title: Sotomayor's dissent: "No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates" Content: Writing in dissent for the court's three liberal members, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority had 'shamefully' played along with the administration's 'gamesmanship' in the case, which she described as an attempt to enforce a 'patently unconstitutional' policy by not asking the justices to bless the policy, but instead to limit the power of federal judges around the country. She warned that under the ruling, 'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.' 'Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship,' Sotomayor wrote. 'The majority holds that, absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief.' The court's senior liberal member took the rare step of reading parts of her dissent from the bench on Friday. 'With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a 'solemn mockery' of our Constitution. Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent,' she wrote. Update: Date: Title: Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrates ruling Content: US Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to the court's ruling Friday backing President Donald Trump's effort to curtail lower court orders that have hampered his agenda for months. 'Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump. This would not have been possible without tireless work from our excellent lawyers @TheJusticeDept and our Solicitor General John Sauer,' Bondi wrote on X. 'This Department of Justice will continue to zealously defend @POTUS's policies and his authority to implement them.' Update: Date: Title: Amy Coney Barrett delivers majority opinion Content: Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's last Supreme Court nominee, wrote the dramatic opinion. '(F)ederal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them,' Barrett wrote for the majority. 'When a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.' Update: Date: Title: Here's why this is a lasting win for presidential power Content: The court gave Trump a significant part of what he wanted: It limited the ability of plaintiffs to seek nationwide orders that temporarily halt the government from enforcing a policy. Those court orders are at the center of the president's monthslong battle with the federal judiciary over his attempts to unilaterally redefine the nation's immigration policies, slash government spending and take over independent agencies. In that sense, the decision was a significant win for Trump at the high court and it could have lasting implications not only on the remainder of his administration but also for future presidents of both parties. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court limits ability of judges to stop Trump Content: The Supreme Court on Friday backed President Donald Trump's effort to curtail lower court orders that have hampered his agenda for months. However, it signaled that the president's controversial plan to effectively end birthright citizenship may never be enforced. Update: Date: Title: Justices to rule on opt-out policy for LGBTQ books in schools Content: The latest religious appeal to land at the Supreme Court came from a group of parents in Maryland who were denied an opportunity to opt their children out of reading LGBTQ books in elementary school. As part of its English curriculum, the Montgomery County Public Schools district approved a handful of books in 2022. One, 'Prince & Knight,' tells the story of a prince who does not want to marry any of the princesses in his realm. After teaming up with a knight to slay a dragon, the two fall in love, 'filling the king and queen with joy,' according to the school's summary. The appeal arrived at the Supreme Court at a moment when conservatives, including President Donald Trump, have sought to roll back political and cultural gains made by LGBTQ Americans. Parents and schools, meanwhile, have been engaged in a tense struggle since the Covid-19 pandemic over how much sway families should have over public-school instruction. But the case really has more to do with an effort by the Supreme Court's conservative majority to rebalance the tension between the freedom of religious exercise and the First Amendment's admonishment against government 'establishment of religion.' Several of the justices have made clear in public statements and in opinions that they feel the government has gone so far in attempting to honor the principle of separating church and state that they have effectively wound up discriminating against religion. The Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals cited the lack of clarity in siding with the schools 2-1 last year. But during the Supreme Court's arguments in April, most of the conservative justices focused instead on the idea that parents are permitted to pull students out of all sorts of other discussions, such as sex education. The Montgomery County Public Schools argued that an earlier effort to allow opt-outs when the books were in use was disruptive. And they say a win for the parents would create a slippery slope, allowing families that object to any number of classroom discussions to opt out of a wide range of curriculum they find offensive. Update: Date: Title: Supreme Court to weigh in on free preventive services under Obamacare Content: The Supreme Court on Friday will weigh in on a popular provision of Obamacare that requires insurers to cover many preventive services – like cancer screenings and statin medications – for free. The weedy legal issue involved in the case is whether a volunteer task force that recommends which services should be covered for free was legally appointed. A Texas business argued that the 16-member panel should have been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. If the Supreme Court agrees, that will put at risk the recommendations the panel made between 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was enacted, and 2023. The recommendations include lung cancer screenings for certain adults, hepatitis screenings and colorectal cancer screenings for younger adults, according to a brief submitted in the case by Public Citizen and several public health groups. Also at risk would be physical therapy for certain older adults to help prevent falls and counseling to help pregnant women maintain healthy body weights, among other services. The task force structure was challenged by the Texas business, Braidwood Management, that objected on religious grounds to covering certain preventive services, including the PrEP medications, which vastly reduce a person's risk of getting HIV from sex or injection drug use. Update: Date: Title: Agency power, rural internet and a FDR-era legal theory at stake Content: For years, the conservative Supreme Court has whittled away at the power of federal agencies to take action without approval from Congress. The court will have another opportunity to do so on Friday in a case involving the Federal Communications Commission. Most Americans pay a small fee on their phone bills that goes to the Universal Service Fund. That fund, created in 1996, is used to pay for efforts to expand broadband and phone service in rural and low-income urban parts of the country. A conservative consumer group is challenging that fee by arguing that only Congress should be able to levy that fee under its taxing power, not the FCC. The consumer group is relying on legal doctrine that the Supreme Court has not invoked since the 1930s, the nondelegation doctrine. That's the idea that Congress cannot delegate its authority – in this case, its taxing authority – to a federal agency. The doctrine took on prominence in several cases during the Great Depression, as the court sought to clamp down on New Deal powers asserted by Franklin Roosevelt's administration. Since then, the Supreme Court has avoided that doctrine and has instead relied on a far more lenient standard that allows such delegations in many circumstances. Update: Date: Title: Can states require IDs for porn sites? Content: Everyone agrees that minors shouldn't have access to porn. The question for the Supreme Court in a key First Amendment case to be decided Friday is what happens when government regulations to protect young people wind up also making it harder for adults to access the material. Texas enacted a law in 2023 that requires any website that publishes a substantial amount of content that is 'harmful to minors' to verify the age of users. Groups representing the adult entertainment industry say the law forces adults to identify themselves – such as by providing an ID – before accessing pornography, which they say 'chills' free speech rights. Texas' law is similar to more than a dozen others across the country that require users to submit some proof of adulthood. During oral arguments in January, several of the justices signaled they might send the case back to the 5th Circuit to have the appeals court revisit it. But others made clear they ultimately supported Texas' effort.
