National Roundup

Nebraska
Man acquitted of killing gets 20 years for witness tampering
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man acquitted earlier this year in the 2016 shooting death of an Omaha teenager has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for witness tampering in the case.

A Douglas County judge on Tuesday sentenced Otis Walker, 25, to the maximum sentence for witness tampering, saying Walker's efforts to keep a witness from testifying amounted to an "effort to sabotage and hijack the justice system," the Omaha World-Herald reported.

In March, Walker was acquitted of first-degree murder and gun charges in the drive-by shooting death of 16-year-old Markeise Dunn. It was his second trial, after the first ended in a mistrial in 2019 when jurors couldn't reach a verdict.

Prosecutors said that while Walker was in jail awaiting trial on the murder charge, he handed a note with the witness's address on it to an inmate who was leaving the jail that said, "She doesn't have to die. Just don't show up."

Prosecutors had also argued that it was Walker who pulled the trigger when a car pulled up beside Dunn, who was walking his girlfriend to a bus stop, and opened fire. But Walker's defense attorneys argued that police had failed to thoroughly test items in a car suspected of being used in the killing found two miles from the shooting scene and that detectives had been looking at another suspect as recently as last year.

Missouri
Judge awards homeless man $150K in panhandling case
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal judge says a Missouri county cannot enforce ordinances that target panhandlers and violate their free-speech rights, and has awarded $150,000 to a homeless man who was cited 31 times.

Robert Fernandez has also been arrested four times in St. Louis County for soliciting without a license.

"County police officers repeatedly arrested and detained (Fernandez) for engaging in protected First Amendment speech, pursuant to an unconstitutional ordinance defendant implemented and enforced," U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. wrote in his decision Tuesday.

The judge said the county cannot enforce an anti-vagrancy ordinance, one barring people from standing in a road to solicit, and another covering solicitor licensing, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Limbaugh noted that the county required a soliciting license only for those seeking "property or financial assistance" or selling or taking orders for certain items.

The judge wrote that the county had not supported its claims that the ordinances promoted safety for traffic and pedestrians.

Limbaugh said the ordinances were not applied to people who advocated for a political cause, solicited votes or were seeking petition signatures.

One of Fernandez's attorneys, Bevis Schock, said Limbaugh didn't stop the county from having ordinances that improve safety for pedestrians and drivers "but the way the county wrote this one (ordinance) was obviously an attempt to restrict speech by poor people."

"They said it was OK for a politician to stand on the side of the street and ask for money, but not Robert Fernandez. I don't think that helped their case," Schock said.

Limbaugh also awarded Fernandez's attorneys $138,515.

St. Louis County Counselor Beth Orwick told the Post-Dispatch that the county is reviewing the decision.


Indiana
Judge overturns conviction in police officer's 1980 killing
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — A judge has overturned a man's conviction in the 1980 fatal shooting of an off-duty Hammond police officer because prosecutors failed to disclose evidence to the man's attorneys that could have helped clear him.

Lake County Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez set aside 58-year-old James Hill Jr.'s murder conviction Tuesday after his attorney and a prosecutor filed a joint motion asking the judge to release Hill from prison on his own recognizance pending a resolution in the case.

Hill, of Gary, was convicted in August 2018 of murder in perpetration of a robbery in the November 1980 killing of 33-year-old Officer Lawrence Pucalik.

Prosecutors said Hill, then 17, waited in a getaway car while two accomplices entered a Hammond hotel, demanded money from a clerk and shot Pucalik, who was working as a security guard. Hill has denied involvement.

Hill's attorney, Scott King, and Lake County First Assistant Deputy Prosecutor Peter Villarreal listed several evidentiary issues in their motion, including newly discovered videotaped statements that weren't previously disclosed to the defense, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.

Their motion also cited DNA found on a towel in the alleged getaway car that eliminated Hill and two co-defendants as its source.

Both sides agreed that the evidence that wasn't disclosed was exculpatory or could have been used to test the credibility of witnesses, and that as a result, the state had been required to disclose it.

"Upon discovering that said evidence was not disclosed to Hill prior to trial, the prosecutor's office conducted a thorough investigation in an effort to determine why the evidence was not disclosed," the joint motion states. "The investigation revealed that the state's failure to turn over evidence was the result of oversight and not intentional."

Hill's attorneys do not have evidence to suggest that the failure to disclose the evidence was intentional, the filing states.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said Hill is entitled to a new trial and that his office plans to request a date for it during a June 9 status hearing.

Hill was originally sentenced to 47 years in prison in Pucalik's killing, but Vasquez reduced it to 40 years last June after the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld Hill's conviction in November 2019 but found that the judge didn't follow guidelines that were in place at the time of Pucalik's killing.

Hill's two co-defendants in the case are Pierre Catlett and Larry Mayes. Catlett's murder trial is set to begin Aug. 30, while Mayes was declared medically incompetent to stand trial in March 2014 and charges against him were subsequently dismissed.