Mexican migrant dies in U.S. custody
HOUSTON -- A 42-year-old Mexican man died in a South Texas hospital while being held pending his deportation, immigration authorities said Monday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified the man as Ramiro Hernandez Ibarra and said he died Saturday after being hospitalized Thursday. The agency said Hernandez's preliminary cause of death was complications related to septic shock but did not provide further details.
The agency said that Hernandez had repeatedly crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and voluntarily returned to Mexico eight times and was most recently taken into custody in December after he was arrested in a domestic violence case and held at the Hidalgo County jail.
Hernandez is the 10th person to die in immigration custody since Oct. 1, the start of the governmental fiscal year. Eight people died in the previous fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
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Amid the coronavirus pandemic, immigration advocates have criticized the medical care Immigration and Customs Enforcement provides to people it detains and called on the agency to release some of its more than 37,000 detainees. About 47% of those people are being held on noncriminal violations of immigration law, according to the agency's most recent statistics.
As of last week, the agency had not confirmed any cases of covid-19 in its facilities. The agency has placed sick detainees under observation and others in quarantine at several of its jails.
Ruling: States can bar insanity defense
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can prevent criminal defendants from pleading insanity without violating their constitutional rights. The decision could prompt states across the country to toughen standards for defendants who wish to plead innocent by reason of insanity.
The justices' 6-3 decision came in a case from Kansas, where James Kraig Kahler was sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife, two teenage daughters and his wife's grandmother.
Kahler wanted to mount an insanity defense, but Kansas is one of four states that eliminated a defendant's ability to plead innocent by reason of insanity. Idaho, Montana and Utah are the others. Alaska also limits the insanity defense.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, said that "Kansas takes account of mental health at both trial and sentencing. It has just not adopted the particular insanity defense Kahler would like. That choice is for Kansas to make -- and, if it wishes, to remake and remake again as the future unfolds."
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that Kansas "has eliminated the core of a defense that has existed for centuries: that the defendant, due to mental illness, lacked the mental capacity necessary for his conduct to be considered morally blameworthy."
Virus fears prompt N.J. to free inmates
New Jersey will release as many as 1,000 people from its jails in what is believed to be the nation's broadest effort to address the risks of the highly contagious coronavirus spreading among the incarcerated.
The state's chief justice, Stuart Rabner, signed an order late Sunday authorizing the release of offenders serving certain types of sentences in county jails as the number of coronavirus cases in detention centers nationwide continues to mount.
The order applies to inmates jailed for probation violations as well as to those convicted in municipal courts or sentenced for low-level crimes in Superior Court. The release of inmates will begin today.
No other state is thought to have taken such sweeping action to reduce its jail population in response to the coronavirus, but other cities, including New York, Cleveland and Tulsa, have moved to release sick or vulnerable detainees. All released inmates are encouraged to remain quarantined for 14 days.
Missourian faces extradition to Bosnia
ST. LOUIS -- A U.S. magistrate judge has approved the extradition of a St. Louis County man to Bosnia, where he faces a war-crime charge in the rape of a female prisoner.
However, Adem Kostjerevac won't be immediately extradited under the order issued by Magistrate Judge Patricia Cohen on Friday. While the judge found that federal prosecutors provided "sufficient competent evidence" to allow extradition, the final decision is up to the secretary of state.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has accused Kostjerevac of raping a pregnant Serbian prisoner in 1992. Kostjerevac was a military policeman at the time. He was indicted there in 2015 and a prosecutor sought an order to arrest him in April 2017.
At a hearing last year, Kostjerevac's lawyer challenged a witness identification of Kostjerevac and argued in court filings that he had been charged too long after the alleged crime. Kostjerevac came to the U.S. about 17 years ago with his wife.
Kostjerevac denied the allegations during an interview with FBI agents at his St. Louis County home in 2014. He said he sent her food and prevented others from killing her.
A Section on 03/24/2020