California
Man declared innocent of attempted murder after 33 years in prison
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man who spent 33 years in prison for attempted murder has been declared innocent and freed, the Los Angeles County district attorney announced Thursday.
Daniel Saldana, 55, was convicted in 1990 of opening fire on a car containing six teenagers who were leaving a high school football game in Baldwin Park, east of Los Angeles. Two students were wounded but survived.
The attackers mistook the teens for gang members, authorities said.
Saldana was 22 at the time of the shooting and worked full-time as a construction worker. He was one of three men charged with the attack. Convicted of six counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle, Saldana was sentenced to 45 years to life in state prison.
Saldana appeared with District Attorney George Gascón at a press conference announcing his exoneration Thursday. He said he was grateful to be freed.
“It’s a struggle, every day waking up knowing you’re innocent and here I am locked up in a cell, crying for help,” Saldana said, according to the Southern California News Group.
“I’m just so happy this day came,” he added.
Gascón’s office began investigating after learning in February that another convicted attacker told authorities during a 2017 parole hearing that Saldana “was not involved in the shooting in any way and he was not present during the incident,” the DA said.
A former deputy district attorney was present at the hearing “but apparently did nothing” and failed to share the exonerating information with Saldana or his attorney as required, Gascón said.
That caused Saldana to spend an additional six years in prison before the DA’s office reopened the case and declared him innocent, Gascón said.
The district attorney didn’t disclose other details of the case but he apologized to Saldana and his family.
“I know that this won’t bring you back the decades you endured in prison,” he said. “But I hope our apology brings some small comfort to you as you begin your new life.”
Gascón added: “Not only is this a tragedy to force people into prison for a crime they did not commit, but every time that an injustice of this magnitude takes place, the real people responsible are still out there to commit other crimes.”
Montana
Judge says fire retardant drops pollute streams but allows use
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A judge ruled Friday that the U.S. government can keep using chemical retardant to fight wildfires, despite finding that the practice pollutes streams in western states in violation of federal law.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Montana came after environmentalists sued the U.S. Forest Service dropping the red slurry material into waterways hundreds of times over the past decade.
Government officials say chemical fire retardant is sometimes crucial to slowing the advance of dangerous blazes. Wildfires across North America have grown bigger and more destructive over the past two decades.
More than 200 loads of retardant got into waterways over the past decade. Federal officials say those situations usually occurred by mistake and in less than 1% of the thousands of loads annually.
The Oregon-based group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics argued in its lawsuit filed last year that the Forest Service was disregarding the Clean Water Act by continuing to use retardant without taking adequate precautions to protect streams and rivers,
A coalition that includes Paradise, California — where a 2018 blaze killed 85 people and destroyed the town — had said a court ruling that stopped the use of retardant would have put lives, homes and forests at risk.
Experts say climate change, people moving into fire-prone areas, and overgrown forests are creating more catastrophic megafires that are harder to fight.
More than 100 million gallons (378 million liters) of fire retardant were used during the past decade, according to the Department of Agriculture. It’s made up of water and other ingredients including fertilizers or salts that can be harmful to fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic animals.
A government study found misapplied retardant could adversely affect dozens of imperiled species, including crawfish, spotted owls and fish such as shiners and suckers.
Health risks to firefighters or other people who come into contact with fire retardant are considered low, according to a 2021 risk assessment.
Forest Service officials said they are trying to come into compliance with the law by getting a pollution permit but that could take years.
As the 2023 fire season gets underway, California Forestry Association President Matt Dias said the prospect of not having fire retardant available to a federal agency that plays a key role on many blazes was “terrifying.”
Many areas of the Western U.S. experienced heavy snowfalls this past winter, and as a result fire dangers are lower than in recent years across much of the region.
Washington
Durham to testify before Congress next month about report on FBI
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former special counsel John Durham is scheduled to testify before a House committee next month about his recently completed report on the FBI’s investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Durham is due to appear on June 20 in a closed-door session with the House intelligence committee and will testify publicly the following day before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a person who discussed the dates on the condition of anonymity because they had not been publicly announced.
Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible government mistakes and misconduct in the investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
His report concluded that the FBI acted too hastily and without sufficient justification to launch a full investigation in 2016. But many of the errors that it identified were also flagged in an earlier 2019 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Durham’s four-year investigation produced just three criminal prosecutions — one that resulted in a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer and a sentence of probation, and two others that ended with acquittals before a jury.
After Durham’s report was released, Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote on Twitter that he had invited Durham to appear before his panel the following week. The committees have been in negotiations since then over the testimony, and finalized the dates Thursday evening, the person said.
Durham no longer works for the Justice Department.
