National Roundup

Missouri
8th Circuit affirms dismissal of Satanic Temple suit
ST. LOUIS, MO (BridgeTower Media Newswires) — A federal appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s informed consent law and backed by The Satanic Temple.

On June 9, a unanimous three-judge panel sided with Gov. Mike Parson and other state officials in a suit brought by a woman identified in court records as Judy Doe.

Doe, who identifies as an adherent to the tenets of The Satanic Temple, was pregnant when she sued state officials in 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, according to the opinion, written by Judge David R. Stras.

She alleged the state’s requirement that she review certain information before having an abortion violated the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Henry Edward Autrey of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. She appealed.

Doe argued that the state’s requirement to certify in writing she that she had a chance to view an ultrasound at least 24 hours ahead of an abortion and that she received an informed-consent booklet lacked a rational basis.

The court disagreed.

“[Planned Parenthood v.] Casey itself recognized that informed-consent laws like this one serve ‘the legitimate purpose of reducing the risk that a woman may elect an abortion, only to discover later, with devastating psychological consequences, that her decision was not fully informed.’”

Judges Duane Benton and L. Steven Grasz agreed.

The case is Doe v. Parson et al., 19-1578.

Kansas
State Supreme Court upholds 2 identity theft convictions
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld two state identity theft convictions following a decision by the nation’s highest court that made it easier for states to prosecute immigrants who use fake Social Security numbers to secure employment.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March that nothing in federal immigration law prevents states from going after immigrants who use phony documents and numbers.

The cases arose out of Johnson County, Kansas, a largely suburban area outside Kansas City, Missouri, where the district attorney has aggressively pursued immigrants under state identity theft and false-information statutes.

In brief rulings Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court acknowledged that it shouldn’t have reviewed the convictions of Donaldo Morales and Ramiro Garcia. It vacated its earlier decision that overturned the convictions by concluding that the federal government has exclusive authority to determine whether an immigrant may work in the United States.

Kansas appealed that determination, and the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state.

This time, the Kansas high court affirmed their convictions.

“Once the Supreme Court of the United States had made its ruling, at that point we could predict what the Kansas Supreme Court was going to do,” said defense attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford. “I am not sure anyone was really surprised what they did in light of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

She said they are considering their legal options.

Morales, who has been living in the United States since 1989, was found guilty of state charges for identity theft and putting false information on employment forms related to his work at a restaurant.

After Garcia got a speeding ticket on his way to his restaurant job, a local detective and a federal agent checked his employment paperwork. His attorneys told the court that the federal government didn’t charge Garcia because he was cooperating with an investigation into a previous employer suspected of directing employees to change Social Security numbers. The local district attorney nonetheless charged him with identity theft, and pursued the state case even after Garcia obtained lawful immigration status.

Virginia
Sheriff apologizes to black pastor after arrest
WOODSTOCK, Va. (AP) — A sheriff in Virginia has apologized to a black pastor in Virginia who described being arrested after calling 911 on a group of white people who threatened to kill him after trying to dump a refrigerator on his property.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter made the apology to Leon K. McCray Sr. of Woodstock Friday, announcing hate crime and assault charges against the five people involved and saying a weapons charge against the pastor would be dropped.

McCray described the events leading to his arrest in a sermon  to parishioners at Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International.

He said he was visiting an apartment he owns in Edinburg on June 1 when he noticed a man and a woman dragging a refrigerator from another property into his dumpster, and they became irate when he asked them to leave.

McCray said they threatened him and returned with three more people, attacking him physically, saying “they don’t give a darn” about “my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff,” and telling him they would “kill” him.

McCray said they backed up when he drew his legal concealed weapon to “save” his life, giving him enough time to call 911. Arriving deputies then took his gun while talking with the five, who continued threatening and yelling racist epithets at him.

They wouldn’t let him tell his side, he said; instead, he was “handcuffed in front of the mob,” for brandishing the handgun, and was driven away in handcuffs while the group stood with other deputies, waving at him as he went down the road.

McCray said the deputies rushed to judgment, “disarming a black male brandishing a gun against five white individuals” despite his “second Amendment right to defend myself against five attackers that tried to take my life.” The arrest “would not be tolerated if I was white,” he added.

“This was indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life,” McCray said. “I’m a pastor, a decorated 24-year Air Force master sergeant veteran, no criminal record.”

Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held without bond.

Sheriff Carter sat down with McCray two days after the incident. He said four of the five were already charged with assault or trespassing, but after hearing from the pastor, he initiated a review that led to additional charges against all five, and urged a prosecutor to drop the weapons charge against McCray.

Two sheriff’s office supervisors have been placed on unpaid administrative leave while the investigation continues, Carter said.