National Roundup

Maryland
Courthouse to be named after late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings

BALTIMORE (AP) — The city of Baltimore will formally name a courthouse after the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings in the first half of 2020.

Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young on Friday unveiled the renderings of the bronze plaques that will be affixed to the building’s exterior. One includes an image and biography of the congressman, and the other reads “Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse.”

The powerful Democratic congressman and civil rights champion died Oct. 17 at age 68 of complications from longstanding health issues. He had represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District, which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore, since 1996.

Cummings graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law and practiced in Baltimore.

Cummings’ career spanned decades in Maryland politics. He rose through the ranks of the Maryland House of Delegates before winning his congressional seat in a special election to replace Kweisi Mfume, who left to lead the NAACP. He was re-elected in 2018 with 76% percent of the vote.

Rockeymoore Cummings, Mfume and several others are now vying for the congressional seat.

Young spokesman James Bentley said the plaques will be installed in the spring or early summer after the city receives approval from the U.S. Department of Interior because the courthouse is a federal building.

Architect Steve Ziger, whose firm designed the signs, said the building was designed as a post office and opened in 1932. It became a courthouse in the 1970s and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Mississippi
Coroner: Inmate found hanging in prison cell
PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) — An inmate at a Mississippi prison that was a focus of recent deadly unrest was found hanging in his cell by two corrections officers over the weekend and pronounced dead, a coroner said Sunday.

Coroner Heather Burton said she was called Sunday to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman where inmate Gabriel Carmen was found hanging in his cell Saturday evening. She said corrections officials reported the inmate had been irate and throwing feces before his death.

The statement by the Sunflower County coroner said the inmate was last seen by corrections officers during a security check at 6:20 p.m. Saturday. It said officers noted Carmen was throwing feces against a wall in the hall at Unit 29, a cellblock at the heart of recent unrest in state prisons that claimed several lives.

According to the statement, a person cleaning the hall then alerted two corrections officers at 6:40 p.m. Saturday that the inmate was hanging and the officials immediately ran to check on Carmen.

“They attempted to enter the cell, but the cell lock was jammed from the inside with a pipe the offender had removed from the toilet,” the statement said. “Maintenance had to respond to assist in opening the cell door” to let medical staff in.

Carmen was pronounced dead at 7:21 p.m. Saturday by a doctor and his body was removed from the unit by medical staff before the remains were taken to the state medical examiner’s office for a planned autopsy.

The coroner said the cause and manner of death are pending autopsy results.

Burton’s statement noted complaints from relatives of inmates that the state hasn’t done enough to explain why and how their loved ones died in recent disturbances.

The coroner said she spoke to the inmate’s parents, offering condolences and seeking to answer their questions.

Between Dec. 29 and Jan. 3, five inmates were killed and an undisclosed number of others were injured in violence inside the prisons.

More than two dozen inmates sued the state recently, saying understaffed state prisons are “plagued by violence” and inmates are forced to live in decrepit and dangerous conditions. All of the plaintiffs have been inmates at Parchman.

State prison officials for several years have been asking lawmakers for tens of millions of dollars to renovate Parchman’s Unit 29, citing decrepit conditions. After the unrest, Mississippi signed an emergency contract to move 375 of those inmates to a private prison nearby.


Nebraska
Death penalty hearing set for man in Lincoln woman’s slaying
WILBER, Neb. (AP) — A June hearing has been scheduled for a three-judge panel to consider whether a man’s crime qualifies for the death penalty or whether he should be sentenced to life in a Nebraska prison.

Aubrey Trail and his girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, were both charged in the slaying of Sydney Loofe. Loofe’s body parts were found in 14 pieces in ditches along a state highway weeks after her disappearance in 2017. Boswell also is charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting trial in March. It’s been moved to Lexington.

Trail’s hearing is scheduled to begin June 23 in Wilber. Trail opted for a panel of three judges to consider evidence to decide whether prosecutors can prove an aggravating factor necessary for capital punishment.

The Nebraska attorney general’s office has said Loofe’s slaying “manifested exceptional depravity by ordinary standards of morality and intelligence.”

 Trail’s attorney, Joe Murray, has filed a motion to remove one of the judges, Julie Smith, from the panel. Murray’s motion said Smith had drafted the state’s execution protocol while working for the Nebraska Correctional Services Department before she became a judge. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for next week.

Florida
Mother-daughter psychics get prison for fraud
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A mother and daughter who claimed to be Florida psychics and used eggs containing snake embryos to convince customers they were cursed are going to prison for fraud.

The SunSentinel reports that a federal judge on Friday sentenced Annie Marie Vwanawick, 74, to 42 months behind bars and 44-year-old April Miller to just over two years. The case involved two victims, one who was bilked out of $1.4 million and another defrauded of $10,000.

Court records show the pair claimed to be “white squaw Cherokee Indian” spiritual healers and that the snake embryos were part of their practice. One victim, identified in court only as “Mrs. O.,” said she was told she had to give the women money for “cleansing” during a divorce and then again needed to pay and turn over jewelry after her husband died because he had become a “demon.”

Defense attorneys had asked for leniency, in part citing the pair’s Gypsy heritage, but the judge imposed longer sentences than they sought because of past evidence of fraud.