National Roundup

Pennsylvania
U.S. appeals court weighs law on supervised injection sites
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal appeals court became the latest panel to wrestle with the nation’s opioid epidemic as judges reviewed a long-debated plan Monday to open a medically supervised injection site in Philadelphia.

U.S. Attorney William McSwain, an appointee of President Donald Trump, opposes the idea and hopes to overturn the approval of a federal judge who heard the case last year.

Safehouse, a nonprofit group, had announced plans to open a site in South Philadelphia in February, but the opening was thwarted by neighborhood opposition and shutdowns linked to the coronavirus pandemic. McSwain meanwhile pursued the appeal.

He argued in court again Monday that the proposal violates a 1980s-era drug law known as the “crackhouse statute,” which makes it illegal to own or operate a property for the purpose of making, using or distributing drugs. Safehouse founders say their mission is anything but that.

“There will be cynical people out there who will try to proclaim that (our) purpose was to promote drug use,” Safehouse lawyer Ilana Eisenstein told the three-judge panel. “Safehouse’s purpose is ... to provide life-saving care for people suffering from addiction.”

By comparison, she said, an emergency room does not exist to promote heart attacks, but to treat them.

The three-judge panel did not indicate when it would rule, but the case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court unless the Justice Department under President-elect Joe Biden decides not to challenge the case.

Under the Safehouse plan, people could bring drugs to the clinic-like setting, use them in a partitioned bay and get medical help if they overdose. They would also have access to counseling, treatment and other health services.

Supporters include Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Safehouse board member touched by the overdose death of a family friend. More than 1,100 people died of overdose deaths last year, according to city data.

McSwain noted that other programs in the city already offer needle exchanges and counseling services. The Safehouse program goes a step too far, in his view, in allowing people to consume drugs onsite.

“Safehouse is inviting scores of people to come into one place … to inject themselves with heroin or fentanyl or whatever,” he said. “That, in our view, is illegal.”

Similar facilities have long operated in Canada and Europe and have been considered by several U.S. cities, including New York and Seattle. Smaller, unofficial sites have also popped up in some places across the U.S.


Virginia
Man in prison for murder charged in 1989 cold case killing
STAFFORD, Va. (AP) — A man imprisoned for killing a former girlfriend and federal worker in Washington a decade ago pleaded guilty Monday to slaying his estranged wife who disappeared from her Virginia home in 1989, authorities said.

Jose Angel Rodriguez-Cruz, 55, entered his plea to second-degree murder in Stafford Circuit Court, prosecutors said at a news conference.

Jose Rodriguez-Cruz was charged in October 2019 with killing Marta Haydee Rodriguez, then 28, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Stafford County said at the time. She was last seen in Arlington County 30 years ago.

Rodriguez’s remains were found along a highway median in Stafford County in 1991, but they were not positively identified until DNA testing was used in 2018, news outlets reported, citing evidence presented by Stafford prosecutors.

Jose Rodriguez-Cruz said at the time that Rodriguez had left the country, and her remains weren’t identified for years because the sister of Jose Rodriguez-Cruz’s second wife had assumed her identity, authorities said. Police said they made the discovery in 2017.

By the time Rodriguez-Cruz was indicted, he was already serving a 12-year prison sentence for killing another woman, Pamela Butler, at her home in Washington in 2009, and also dumping her body in Stafford. The 47-year-old Environmental Protection Agency employee disappeared “under mysterious circumstances,” authorities have said.

Butler’s brother, Derrick Butler, encouraged Stafford authorities to pursue charges in the Rodriguez killing and is credited with being a key factor in the new charges.

“I’m very thankful that this has taken place,” news outlets quoted Derrick Butler as saying Monday.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen added that “a lot of agencies came together to bring justice to Marta Rodriguez, even if it is 30 years later.”

Under Rodriguez–Cruz’s plea agreement, a first-degree murder charge was reduced and a charge of concealing a dead body was dropped. He could face an additional 40 years in prison at a Feb. 4 sentencing, news outlets reported.

Colorado
Man pleads not guilty in 1984 slayings
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man has pleaded not guilty after he was accused of bludgeoning four people to death with a hammer in 1984 in two separate attacks.

Alexander Ewing, 60, entered his plea Monday in Arapahoe County after DNA evidence connected him to the crime scenes, The Denver Post reported.

Prosecutors said he will not face the death penalty but instead faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years for each of the first-degree murder counts he is charged with. Ewing is being represented by the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on cases.

Prosecutors have accused Ewing of killing Patricia Louise Smith, 50, in Lakewood on Jan. 10, 1984 and then killing Bruce and Debra Bennett and their 7-year-old daughter six days later in Aurora. The couple’s 3-year-old daughter survived the attack, authorities said.

The slayings have remained unsolved for over three decades. The suspect was named the “Hammer Killer.”

Ewing was arrested in August 1984 and sentenced to 40 years in prison for two attempted murders in Nevada. But he was not connected to the Colorado killings until 2018 ,when his DNA was matched. He was in prison when he was charged.

First Judicial District Attorney Peter Weir said in August that he would not seek the death penalty against Ewing in Smith’s killing, arguing it was “not a lawful sentencing option” because of a lack of aggravating factors necessary to warrant a death sentence.

A date for trial in Jefferson County has not yet been set.

18th Judicial District Chief Judge Michelle Amico ruled Friday that Ewing could not face the death penalty in connection to charges related to the slaying of the Bennett family, arguing the death penalty statute violated the state’s constitution.

A trial date in Arapahoe County was scheduled for April.