Suits target New Orleans virus rules, some affect Mardi Gras

More than 100 people have joined a lawsuit against New Orleans’ mayor and health director over COVID-19 restrictions that recently were extended to parade and other participants on Mardi Gras and during the season leading up to it. The lawsuit against Mayor LaToya Cantrell and health director Jennifer Avegno targets mask and vaccination mandates, news outlets reported. It was filed Monday in state court by Alexandria attorney Jimmy Faircloth, who has lost federal court challenges to restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocates noted. “Traditionally, we do not comment on active or pending litigation,” City Hall spokesman Beau Tidwell said during a news conference Tuesday. “However, in this case I think it’s worth noting that the guidelines that we put in place saved lives, full stop. The vaccine mandate and the mask requirements are going to remain in place throughout Mardi Gras.” Fat Tuesday will be March 1 this year. The 2020 festival was later recognized as a super spreader that turned New Orleans into an early pandemic hot spot. Last season, parades were canceled and bars were shuttered in the city. This year, masks are required in bars, restaurants and other public spaces. And children as young as 5 must show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test for the virus to get into indoor public areas. The new lawsuit accuses Cantrell and Avegno, who often have gone beyond state restrictions, of taking “authoritarian actions under the pretext of an emergency without end,” the newspaper reported. The plaintiffs, mostly from New Orleans and neighboring Jefferson Parish, want Judge Robin Giarrusso to halt the requirements while the lawsuit is in court.

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At Bullard & Powell, we believe that every criminal case, just like the person being charged, is unique. To that end, we do not view our cases as simply files to be worked, but view them from the perspective of our clients. We work closely with our clients to ensure the best possible result, with the highest level of service. We view it as our responsibility to ease the stressful burden that comes with being accused of a crime. We believe in personal, honest, one-on-one relationships with our clients. We only know one way to practice criminal defense… and that is to treat every client as if they were our own family. Each client can expect that any advice that is given and the service that is provided, would be the same advice and service that we would provide to our own family. We believe in aggressive advocacy, coupled with creativity. From the moment of your initial consultation, you can expect that we will be working your case towards the best resolution. Our clients see and hear every piece of evidence collected in defending their cases so they are fully informed of the facts, accusations, and defenses. We are San Bernardino DUI lawyers.

Court blocks Alabama city from approving processing plant

A judge has blocked the city of Gadsden from approving the construction of a plant where scores of truckloads of dead chickens would be delivered daily for a processing operation that opponents say would be a smelly, dangerous nuisance. Etowah County Circuit Judge George Day sided with critics of the plant on Monday and issued an injunction to stop the development project by Colorado-based Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. near the city airport, The Gadsden Times reported. A trial scheduled for July would decide whether the ban remains in place or work can move ahead on the rendering plant, which has been the subject of vocal community opposition since the plans became public last year. Located near homes, schools and at least one church, the plant would receive 120 truckloads of dead chickens and chicken parts around the clock each day for processing into animal feed, the judge wrote. Aside from traffic and the potential foul smell, the operation could pose a hazard to airport operations, critics contend. Day wrote that he was aware of the need to bring new jobs into the northeast Alabama community following the shutdown of a Goodyear tire plant, but the economic interest has to be balanced against the rights of people in the area.

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Appellate court arguments set for Charleston church shooter

Attorneys for the man sentenced to federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation are set to formally argue that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned. Oral arguments have been set for May 25 before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Dylann Roof, according to federal court records. In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. Authorities have said Roof opened fire during the closing prayer of a 2015 Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, raining down dozens of bullets on those assembled. Serving as his own attorney in the sentencing phase of his trial, the self-avowed white supremacist neither fought for his life nor explained his actions, remorse, saying only that “anyone who hates anything in their mind has a good reason for it.” Roof’s 2017 appeal to the 4th Circuit came as no surprise, as transcripts of hearings to determine his trial competency revealed that Roof told his lawyers he’d seek appeals to drag his case out as long as he could. With the passage of time, Roof explained, he expected white supremacists to take over the U.S., pardon him for the killings and make him governor of South Carolina. Following his federal death penalty trial, Roof was given nine consecutive life sentences after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to state murder charges, leaving him to await execution in a federal prison and sparing his victims and their families the burden of a second trial. After that sentencing, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson ? who had also been pursuing the death penalty ? called the deal “an insurance policy for the federal conviction,” ensuring that Roof would spend the rest of his life in prison, should the federal sentence not stand. Wilson also said that she felt more confident a federal death sentence would be carried out under the newly minted Trump administration that it would have been under a Democratic one. At the time, there was anticipation that then-President Donald Trump might swiftly resume federal executions, following cessation of the practice under several several previous administrations. Trump’s decision to reinstate federal executions didn’t come until 2020, however, when his Justice Department ended a 17-year hiatus, going on to oversee a total of 13 federal executions. Due to his remaining appeals, Roof’s case was not eligible for execution at that time.

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High court won’t extend Wisconsin’s absentee ballot deadline

The Supreme Court is siding with Republicans to prevent Wisconsin from counting mailed ballots that are received after Election Day. In a 5-3 order, the justices on Monday refused to reinstate a lower court order that called for mailed ballots to be counted if they are received up to six days after the Nov. 3 election. A federal appeals court had already put that order on hold. The three liberal justices dissented from the order that the court issued just before the Senate started voting on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination. Chief Justice John Roberts last week joined the liberals to preserve a Pennsylvania state court order extending the absentee ballot deadline but voted the other way in the Wisconsin case, which has moved through federal courts. “Different bodies of law and different precedents govern these two situations and require, in these particular circumstances, that we allow the modification of election rules in Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin,” Roberts wrote. Democrats argued that the flood of absentee ballots and other challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic makes it necessary to extend the period in which ballots can be counted. Wisconsin is one of the nation’s hot spots for COVID-19, with hospitals treating a record high number of patients with the disease. Republicans opposed the extension, saying that voters have plenty of opportunities to cast their ballots by the close of polls on Election Day and that the rules should not be changed so close to the election. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler responded to the ruling by pledging Democrats would be “dialing up a huge voter education campaign” to prod roughly 360,000 people who hadn’t yet returned absentee ballots to hand-deliver them by 8 p.m. on Election Day, or to vote in person. State Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt praised the ruling. “Absentee voting in Wisconsin is extremely easy and hundreds of thousands of people have done it already — last-minute attempts to change election laws only cause more voter confusion and erode the integrity of our elections,” he said in a statement. The justices often say nothing, or very little, about the reasons for their votes in these emergency cases, but on Monday, four justices wrote opinions totaling 35 pages to lay out their competing rationales.