National Roundup

Mississippi
Bus driver gets 30 years for sexually abusing second-grader
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A former Mississippi school bus driver has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing an 8-year-old passenger.

Sergio Sandoval, 69, was sentenced Wednesday on charges including sexual battery and touching a child for lustful purposes, according to news outlets.

The former Ocean Springs driver was accused of molesting a second-grader when she rode his bus in 2014. The girl testified she was molested for 23 straight days by Sandoval, who would then send her back to her seat with candy, according to The Sun Herald.

He would drive the bus filled with elementary students with one hand and touch her with the other, she said. Sandoval named her a bus monitor and allowed her to break the policy that required her to remain seated when the bus was moving, something witness accounts support.

The allowances made her feel special, she said. But one day he gave her an outstanding achievement award that she felt she didn’t deserve, so she told her father what happened.

District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath told the court this was one of the most brazen crimes he’s ever seen.

“When he got on that bus every day, that was his playground,” District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said.

This was Sandoval’s second trial in the case. His first trial in 2017 ended in a mistrial after he fainted and was hospitalized. He underwent mental evaluation and tried to fake a mental illness, according to doctor testimony.

His lawyer, Jim Davis, argued that Sandoval doesn’t remember his eight years as a district bus driver, attributing the amnesia to trauma from being in a Chilean internment camp in the 1970s.
Though the veracity of the camp claim is unclear, a doctor testified that such a trauma likely wouldn’t affect Sandoval’s memories from his time as a Mississippi bus driver.

He was later determined to be fit for a retrial.

Sandoval maintained his innocence but declined to testify in his defense, per conversations with his wife. Sandoval’s wife and two daughters asked the court for mercy, citing his lack of criminal record.

The pleas didn’t stir Judge Kathy King Jackson, who said Sandoval had brought all this on himself.

Arizona
Court to hear cellphone evidence case involving probationer
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court has agreed to consider a case involving privacy rights and a warrantless search of the cellphone of a man who was on felony probation.

The court agreed Tuesday to review a state Court of Appeals ruling last March in favor of allowing prosecutors to present evidence that a probation surveillance officer obtained from the man’s phone.

A Pima County Superior Court judge previously hadn’t allowed the evidence to be considered in proceedings related to an indictment accusing Bryan Lietzau of sexual conduct with a minor.

The Court of Appeals ruling overturned the trial judge, ruling that Lietzau had “significantly diminished privacy rights as a probationer” and had accepted search conditions when he agreed to probation on an aggravated harassment conviction.

New York
Judge to rule by year end on ICE arrests at courts
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge says he’ll rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in New York courthouses.

Judge Jed Rakoff set the deadline for himself after expressing skepticism toward the federal government’s assertions that its policies regarding courthouse arrests can’t be reviewed by a federal judge. Rakoff said he found the claim “unusual and extraordinary.”

Wednesday’s hearing concerned a lawsuit brought earlier this year by New York’s attorney general, the Brooklyn district attorney and several immigrant advocates’ groups.

The plaintiffs contend ICE arrests in courthouses have skyrocketed since President Donald Trump took office.

A lawyer for ICE urged Rakoff to dismiss the lawsuit.

Rakoff said he has not yet decided the legal issues but finds them fascinating.

Utah
Woman fights charge after kids see her topless
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah woman charged with a crime after her stepchildren saw her topless in her own home is fighting the case that could force her to register as a sex offender, citing a court ruling that overturned a topless ban in Colorado.

Attorneys for Tilli Buchanan argue that the law is unfair because it treats men and women differently for baring their chests. They are asking a judge to overturn her misdemeanor lewdness charges and declare that part of the law unconstitutional.

Prosecutors counter that nudity is commonly understood to include women’s breasts in American society and that courts have upheld laws based on morality.

Judge Kara Pettit heard the case Tuesday but said it was “too important of an issue” to decide immediately. She plans to rule in the coming months.

Buchanan said she and her husband had taken off their shirts to keep their clothes from getting dusty while they worked in their garage in late 2017 or early 2018.

When the children, ages 9 through 13, walked in, she “explained she considers herself a feminist and wanted to make a point that everybody should be fine with walking around their house or elsewhere with skin showing,” her lawyers said in court documents.

Buchanan was charged with three counts of misdemeanor lewdness involving a child in February. It came after child welfare officials began an investigation involving the kids that wasn’t tied to Buchanan and the children’s mother reported the incident to authorities because she was “alarmed.”

Buchanan’s husband was not charged.

“It was in the privacy of my own home. My husband was right next to me in the same exact manner that I was, and he’s not being prosecuted,” she said after the court hearing.

If convicted, Buchanan could be required to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

A global movement advocating for the rights of women to go topless, called the Free the Nipple campaign, has seen mixed success fighting similar ordinances in other parts of the country.

Supporters celebrated in February when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling blocking a Fort Collins, Colorado, law against women going topless in public.

The justices sided with activists who argued that the ban treated women and men differently under law. The court has jurisdiction over federal cases from several states, including Utah, but authorities have said the ruling doesn’t immediately invalidate other local laws.