The nation in brief: Voter ID law quashed by N.C. judges

Voter ID law quashed by N.C. judges

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina judges struck down the state's latest photo voter identification law Friday, agreeing with minority voters that Republicans rammed through rules tainted by racial bias to remain in power.

Two of the three trial judges declared the December 2018 law is unconstitutional, even though it was designed to implement a photo voter ID mandate added to the North Carolina Constitution in a referendum just weeks earlier. They said the law intentionally discriminates against Black voters, violating their equal protections.

The law "was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters," Superior Court Judges Michael O'Foghludha and Vince Rozier wrote in their 100-page majority opinion.

"Other, less restrictive voter ID laws would have sufficed to achieve the legitimate nonracial purposes of implementing the constitutional amendment requiring voter ID, deterring fraud, or enhancing voter confidence," the ruling says.

The majority decision, which followed a three-week trial in April, is likely headed to a state appeals court, which previously blocked the law's enforcement while the case was heard. The law remains unenforceable with this ruling.

With a similar lawsuit in federal court set to go to trial in January and another state court lawsuit on appeal, it's unlikely that a voter ID mandate for in-person and absentee balloting will be in effect for the 2022 elections.

Cybersecurity lawyer pleads innocent

WASHINGTON -- A prominent cybersecurity lawyer pleaded innocent Friday to making a false statement to the FBI in a charge stemming from a probe of the U.S. government's investigation into Russian election interference.

Michael Sussmann appeared in D.C. federal court before Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui on Friday. He is just the second person to be prosecuted by special counsel John Durham in two and a half years of work.

The indictment accuses Sussmann of lying to the FBI when he was questioned about a September 2016 conversation he had with the FBI's general counsel in which he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about potentially suspicious contacts between Russia-based Alfa Bank and a Trump Organization server.

The FBI looked into the matter but found no connections. Sussmann is a former federal prosecutor who specializes in cybersecurity. He resigned from the firm Perkins Coie this week.

Sussmann's lawyers, Sean Berkowitz and Michael Bosworth, said their client is a highly respected national security lawyer, and they were confident he would prevail at trial and "vindicate his good name."

School shooter set to get life in prison

DENVER -- A former high school student convicted of first-degree murder and other charges in a 2019 shooting attack at a suburban Denver high school that killed one student and injured eight is set to be sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.

Devon Erickson was convicted in June of all 46 charges against him, including murder in the death of Kendrick Castillo, an 18-year-old senior hailed as a hero for trying to stop the attack on a classroom at STEM School Highlands Ranch near Denver.

Prosecutors said Erickson, now 20, partnered with fellow student Alec McKinney in the May 7, 2019, shooting. Since Erickson was 18 and an adult at the time of the shooting, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

McKinney, who was 16 and a juvenile, was sentenced to life last year but could become eligible for parole after about 20 years in prison under a program for juvenile offenders.

The sentencing hearing allows victims and their families to tell the court about what they've suffered.

Erickson and McKinney targeted a classroom of students who were sitting in the dark watching a movie at the end of their senior year. The two entered through separate doors to maximize the number of students they could kill, prosecutors said.

Officers cleared after man shot 58 times

MEMPHIS -- Five Tennessee officers who fatally shot a man 58 times after he wounded a sheriff's deputy did not break the law, a prosecutor said.

Members of the Shelby County sheriff's office Fugitive Apprehension Team went to a trailer park in Memphis in September 2019 to look for Willie Hudson Jr., who had a felony arrest warrant for attempted first-degree murder, Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said Thursday.

Hudson, 33, was found hiding behind a bookcase in a trailer and refused orders to come out, authorities said.

Hudson began shooting as officers pulled back the bookcase, authorities said. One officer was critically wounded before the officers returned fire, authorities said. In two rounds of shooting, officers shot Hudson 58 times, officials said.

Weirich said the number of shots doesn't affect whether the shooting was legally justified. She said the officers were there to make a lawful arrest during an "unexpected, life-or-death gunfight in close quarters."

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