Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Tag: Courts

For murdering his mother, Greeley man gets life in prison without parole
No Comments
Approved, kdvr.com, Local

For murdering his mother, Greeley man gets life in prison without parole

By Brooke Williams | KDVR-TV Fox 31 News A man from Greeley was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for shooting and killing his mother over two years ago. Andrew Sweatt, 28, was convicted of first-degree murder by a Weld County jury on Wednesday after an eight-day trial. According to a press release from the 19th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Sweatt shot his mother 10 times on Dec. 8, 2022. The mother, Angela Eyestone, was found unresponsive when police arrived and was pronounced dead at a hospital. READ THE FULL STORY AT FOX 31 NEWS
Read More
King Soopers claims Colorado union used illegal negotiating tactics, leading to strike, in new lawsuit
No Comments
Approved, CBS Colorado, Local

King Soopers claims Colorado union used illegal negotiating tactics, leading to strike, in new lawsuit

By Jack Lowenstein | CBS Colorado King Soopers/City Market filed a federal lawsuit in Colorado against United Food and Commercial Workers Local Union No. 7 (UFCW Local 7) on Friday. This comes amid the beginning of the two-week worker strike across the state.  According to the lawsuit, this action is being taken due to damages King Soopers says it's suffering, "as a result of [the] Defendant's continuing pattern of threatening, coercive, and restraining actions, taken for unlawful purposes in violation of the National Labor Relations Act and actionable in federal court under Section 303(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act." In response to the new lawsuit the workers union released a statement that said in part, "UFCW Local 7 learned that earlier this afternoon King Soopers fi...
Read More
Forest Service defends Montana logging project in grizzly territory before Ninth Circuit
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

Forest Service defends Montana logging project in grizzly territory before Ninth Circuit

By Monique Merrill | Courthouse News The approval and subsequent court-ordered obstruction of the U.S. Forest Service’s “Black Ram Project” in Montana’s Kootenai National Forest is up for a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to sort out as the court heard from multiple sides on Thursday. The Center for Biological Diversity, Yaak Valley Forest Council and WildEarth Guardians sued the federal government days after it approved the Black Ram Project in the Three Rivers Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana in June 2022.  The project would “clearcut forest, destroy and fragment habitat, displace wildlife, alter hydrology and adversely affect the area’s tiny grizzly population,” the groups argue, rather than promote resilient vegetation,...
Read More
Trump admin sues Illinois, Chicago, Cook County over immigrant protection laws on Supremacy Clause grounds
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

Trump admin sues Illinois, Chicago, Cook County over immigrant protection laws on Supremacy Clause grounds

By Dave Byrnes  | Courthouse News The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois, Chicago and Cook County on Thursday morning, claiming local laws designed to protect immigrants violate the constitution. The lawsuit declares a "national crisis" of illegal immigration and asserts a need to enforce federal immigration laws. "This action seeks to put an end to one state’s efforts to impede the federal government from doing that," the government writes in the suit. The government specifically claims Illinois' Way Forward Act and TRUST Acts, Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance and Cook County's Ordinance 11-O-73 all violate the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal law takes precedent over state law. READ THE FULL STORY A...
Read More
Man convicted in Aurora operation that produced ‘millions’ of fentanyl pills
No Comments
Approved, kdvr.com, Local

Man convicted in Aurora operation that produced ‘millions’ of fentanyl pills

By Jacob Factor | KDVR-TV Fox 31 News A Denver jury has convicted a man responsible for producing “millions of individual fentanyl pills” during 2024 in a drug manufacturing operation based in Aurora, the Denver District Attorney announced Wednesday morning. Tashon Roberts, 33, was convicted on four charges related to the manufacture, possession and distribution of fentanyl as well as three counts of child abuse – exposure to the manufacturing of a controlled substance and one count of tampering with physical evidence. The jury also convicted Roberts on three “Special Drug Offender” sentence enhancement charges. READ THE FULL STORY AT KDVR-TV FOX 31 NEWS
Read More
Google, arguing it is not a monopoly, asks Ninth Circuit for app store antitrust reversal
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

Google, arguing it is not a monopoly, asks Ninth Circuit for app store antitrust reversal

By Michael Gennaro  | Courthouse News Google asked a federal appeals court Monday to throw out a federal judge’s ruling stemming from the 2023 antitrust trial where a jury found that Google’s Play Store and billing services on Android platforms constituted an illegal monopoly. The tech giant argues that it competes with Apple — and that the trial judge stopped it from hammering that point home. In October 2024, U.S. District Judge James Donato ordered Google to open up Google Play and carry third-party app stores, and allow those third-party developers to have access to Google Play’s catalog of apps, among other remedies, in order to increase competition on the Android platform. Epic Games sued Google in 2020 after Google removed Epic’s hit game Fortnite from the Google Play Store...
Read More
In California, secession question could be headed to ballot, but some wonder whether state can leave union
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

In California, secession question could be headed to ballot, but some wonder whether state can leave union

By Alan Riquelmy  | Courthouse News Service It’s a long way to 546,651 signatures, but Marcus Ruiz Evans feels good that this time he can do it. Evans, with the Calexit movement, has until July 22 to get those signatures — a requirement for his proposed ballot question to reach voters in the November 2028 election. The question: “Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country?” READ THE FULL STORY AT COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Read More
Fifth Circuit declares age restrictions on adult handgun purchases unconstitutional
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

Fifth Circuit declares age restrictions on adult handgun purchases unconstitutional

By Christina van Waasbergen  | Courthouse News Service A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Thursday that a decades-old federal law banning handgun purchases by 18 to 20-year-olds violates the Second Amendment. The ruling is an about-face from a prior ruling where the appeals court initially found the law constitutional in 2012. The three-judge panel attributed the switch up to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which held that gun restrictions must be consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in the U.S. "Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among 'the people' whose right to keep and bear arms is protected. The fed...
Read More
Elementary student argues being required to remove ‘Come and Take It’ hat was 1st Amendment violation
No Comments
Approved, Courthouse News Service, National

Elementary student argues being required to remove ‘Come and Take It’ hat was 1st Amendment violation

By Kevin Koeninger | Courthouse News Service Students do not abandon their First Amendment rights when they enter the classroom — and a hat depicting an assault rifle is not threatening or inappropriate, a Michigan father argued Thursday at the Sixth Circuit, seeking to overturn a lower court loss in the lawsuit he filed on behalf of his daughter. Adam Stroub's daughter C.S. was in third grade in February 2022 when her school had "hat day" and encouraged students to wear their favorite hats. She decided on a hat she had given to her father: a black baseball cap with a star above an assault rifle and the phrase "come and take it" in block letters. Administrators at Kerr Elementary School in Durand, Michigan, forced her to take it off. READ THE FULL STORY AT COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVI...
Read More
Top Aurora police crime analyst faces nine counts of official misconduct: ‘I shouldn’t have done it’
No Comments
Approved, CBS Colorado, Local

Top Aurora police crime analyst faces nine counts of official misconduct: ‘I shouldn’t have done it’

By Brian Maass | CBS Colorado The Aurora Police Department's top crime analyst, Frank Fredericks, 60, was charged this week with nine counts of official misconduct. In a phone call Wednesday evening, Fredericks admitted he used department computers for non-law enforcement purposes. "I ran a query on my husband to obtain a VIN on a vehicle that is in his name. Is it wrong, yes," said Fredericks. "I shouldn't have done it." Court records show the nine charges were filed Monday and stem from incidents between March 22, 2023, and April 29, 2024. Fredericks resigned from the Aurora Police Department June 17, 2024, after about 18 months on the job. He said he resigned due to a difference of opinion with APD command staff over an internal reorganization. READ THE FULL STORY AT CBS ...
Read More