California
Judge’s order preserves NSA’s spying records
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in San Francisco stopped the destruction of millions of telephone records collected by the National Security Agency more than five years ago.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who is overseeing an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the agency, issued a nationwide order Monday to safeguard evidence until March 19, when he will hold a hearing on extending the deadline further.
The secret federal court that approved the agency’s surveillance has required that documents be purged after five years for privacy reasons. On Friday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court denied the federal government’s request to keep the records for the sake of pending lawsuits.
The NSA, which has acknowledged obtaining phone numbers and other information on all U.S. calls, was prepared on Tuesday to destroy all records collected more than five years ago, according to court documents.
White said he was enforcing an order he had issued in an earlier NSA surveillance case that halted evidence from being destroyed.
He wrote that “the Court would be unable to afford effective relief once the records are destroyed” and before he decided if their collection was legal. The plaintiffs in the lawsuits include civil rights, environmental and religious groups as well as gun organizations and marijuana advocates.
The NSA started collecting domestic phone call records in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since 2006, the agency has obtained warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The White House referred questions on the NSA records to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Florida
Decision delayed in loud music killing sentencing
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of attempted murder in a confrontation over loud music will have to wait until at least Friday to see if a judge sentences him or waits until after the 47-year-old software developer’s retrial on first-degree murder.
Jurors deadlocked last month on the murder charge against Michael Dunn in the shooting of 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Prosecutors have vowed to retry him on the count.
Dunn could face a maximum of 60 years in prison for the charges on which he already has been convicted.
Dunn’s attorney on Monday asked that sentencing be postponed until after the second trial. Defense attorney Cory Strolla says he is concerned that statements Dunn makes at a sentencing hearing could be used against him in his second trial.
Strolla also said he is stepping down as Dunn’s attorney and asked Judge Russell Healey to appoint public defenders.
Healey, an interim circuit judge, said he has never come across a case with similar circumstances in 150 trials.
“I’ve never had a hung jury,” Healey said at Monday’s hearing.
A mistrial was declared on the murder charge after jurors deliberated for four days. The 12 jurors found him guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and a count of firing into an occupied car.
Dunn was charged with fatally shooting Davis, of Marietta, Ga., in 2012 after the argument over loud music coming from the SUV occupied by Davis and three friends. The teens were black. Dunn, who is white, had described the music to his fiancee as “thug music.”
Georgia
King daughter gives up father’s Bible, Nobel prize
ATLANTA (AP) — A lawyer involved in a dispute over Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible and Nobel Peace Prize says few words were exchanged as King’s daughter surrendered the items to be put in a safe deposit box.
A judge had ordered the items be kept there, with the keys held by the court, until the dispute is settled.
Lawyer William Hill, who represents the slain civil rights icon’s estate, tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the Rev. Bernice King gave the items to her brother Martin Luther King III so they could be placed in the safe deposit box during a Monday meeting that was over in five minutes.
Bernice and her father’s estate, which is controlled by her brothers, are locked in a legal dispute over the ownership of the Bible and peace prize.
Florida
Teens held in throat-slashing attack on mother
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — Two central Florida teenagers are accused in a throat-slashing attack on the mother of one of the teens.
Circuit Judge David Eddy on Monday set an arraignment hearing for the 15-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl who are said to have planned to attack the girl’s family so they could be together.
The Ocala Star-Banner reports that authorities say the attack happened early Sunday when the girl lured her mother into the garage, where the boy was waiting with a kitchen knife. After slashing the mother’s throat, the boy went into the master bedroom and confronted the father. Instead, he was convinced to drive the mother to the hospital, where she’s now recovering.
The parents opposed the teens’ relationship.
The judge appointed public defenders to represent both teens.
Missouri
$100M civil rights suit filed in editor’s slaying
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — An attorney for a man whose conviction in a Missouri sports editor’s slaying was overturned has filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking $100 million.
Kathleen Zellner says police fabricated evidence against Ryan Ferguson in an investigation into the 2001 killing of Kent Heitholt, a Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Zellner also alleges that the police investigation was incomplete.
The lawsuit, which has been filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, asks for actual damages of $75 million and compensatory damages of $25 million.
It names 13 defendants, including the City of Columbia, the Columbia Police Department and Boone County.
Zellner has demanded a jury trial.
