National Roundup

Alabama
Woman charged in fetal death, shooter goes free
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman whose fetus died after she was shot in a fight has been charged with manslaughter, while the woman accused of shooting her has been freed.

AL.Com reports 27-year-old Marshae Jones was indicted by the Jefferson County grand jury Wednesday. She was five months pregnant when 23-year-old Ebony Jemison shot her in the stomach during a December altercation regarding the fetus’s father.

Jemison was initially charged with manslaughter, but the same grand jury declined to indict her after police said an investigation determined Jones started the fight, and Jemison ultimately fired the fatal shot in self-defense.
Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said “the only true victim” was the fetus, who was unnecessarily brought into a fight and was “dependent on its mother to try to keep it from harm.”

Advocates for women’s rights expressed outrage.

“The state of Alabama has proven yet again that the moment a person becomes pregnant their sole responsibility is to produce a live, healthy baby and that it considers any action a pregnant person takes that might impede in that live birth to be a criminal act,” said Amanda Reyes, who directs the Yellowhammer Fund. The organization is a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which aims to help women access abortion services.

Massachusetts
Man convicted of killing sisters in Boston ­apartment
BOSTON (AP) — A man charged with killing his ex-girlfriend and her sister in their Boston apartment in 2011 has been convicted of murder charges.

Prosecutors say a jury on Wednesday found Jean Weevins Janvier guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder in the November 2011 fatal shootings of 21-year-old Steph­anie Emile and 23-year-old Judith Emile.

Janvier faces sentencing Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court.

Prosecutors say Janvier had a brief relationship with Stephanie Emile and was angry when the relationship ended.

Authorities say he fled to Haiti after he was called in for questioning in December 2011. He was indicted in 2012.

He was later added to the U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted list and apprehended at his mother’s home in Haiti in 2017.

North Carolina
Man freed after years in prison won’t be retried for murder
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man who was once on death row for a shopkeeper’s slaying won’t be retried in the case that put him behind bars for more than 40 years.

The prosecutor filed a dismissal notice in the case of 81-year-old Charles Ray Finch of Wilson, who was released last month from Greene Correctional Institution in Maury.

In the notice dated June 14, Wilson County District Attorney Robert Evans wrote that a retrial of the 1976 case is “impractical/ impossible” because witnesses are dead, retired or relocated. Attorney Theresa Newman of the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic, which handled Finch’s appeals, said his lawyers learned Tuesday that the charges had been dismissed.

Finch was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Richard Holloman, who was shot inside his country store on Feb. 13, 1976 in an attempted robbery.

Finch originally was sentenced to die but the state Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled North Carolina’s death penalty law unconstitutional.

In January, an appeals court ruled that evidence cast doubt on Finch’s murder conviction. A flawed police lineup was one reason that the conviction was overturned. The eyewitness who identified Finch said the killer was wearing a jacket. A detective had Finch wear a coat in the police lineup — and Finch was the only one wearing a coat in that lineup.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January that it was unlikely that jurors would have convicted Finch had they known about the flaws in the lineup and questions about key witness testimony. The three-judge panel returned the case to federal district court for a fresh look at innocence claims that the lower court previously dismissed because of technical reasons including timeliness.

The unanimous opinion said Finch succeeded in “demonstrating that the totality of the evidence, both old and new, would likely fail to convince any reasonable juror of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

On May 23, U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle ordered that Finch be freed. He was released later that same day, leaving the prison in a wheelchair. He was greeted by family and lawyers who took him home to Wilson.

Throughout, Finch had maintained his innocence.

Nevada
Teen headed to trial in fatal school shooting
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada teen charged as an adult with murder rejected a plea deal and is headed to trial in the shooting death of an 18-year-old student during an after-school fight in North Las Vegas.

Attorneys for Sakai Kayin French didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to messages after French turned down an offer to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a weapon in the September 2018 killing of Dalvin Brown.

French was 16 when he was arrested. He’s jailed pending trial Feb. 2 on murder and weapon charges. He could face life in prison if he’s convicted.

The shooting happened near the baseball field at Canyon Springs High School.

French attended rival Chey­enne High School.

Prosecutor Michael Schwart­zer says multiple students witnessed the shooting, which came in a confrontation after an earlier fight involving friends of French and Brown.

Mississippi
Pleas for ­leniency at DWI sentencing
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (AP) — All is forgiven. That’s what an injured passenger and mother of a man killed in a drunken-driving crash said to a sentencing judge in Mississippi.

The Sun Herald reports that Judge Dale Harkey listened to pleas of leniency at a sentencing hearing Tuesday for 21-year-old Seth Lee McGee.

McGee was 18 when he lost control of his car, injuring Calvin Butler and killing Graham Kyle Lance. A toxicology test determined McGee was legally impaired.

Lance’s mother and Butler agreed that McGee shouldn’t go to prison. Lance, Butler and McGee were all friends once.

Harkey sentenced McGee to five years of house arrest. McGee also will have a restricted license for 10 years.