Hasta La Gadget!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling loosening the federal prohibition on convicted felons possessing guns in a case involving two Pennsylvania men convicted of non-violent crimes who challenged the ban.

The justices let stand a lower court’s 2016 ruling that suggested denying felons whose crimes were not serious the right to own guns violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to “keep and bear arms.” That ruling, which allows individuals to challenge the prohibition as applied to them, was a blow to gun control advocates, while the Trump administration called it a threat to public safety.

Liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have granted the appeal to hear the case.

The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling does not set a nationwide legal precedent.

The Pennsylvania men who challenged the ban, Julio Suarez of Gettysburg and Daniel Binderup of Manheim, both were convicted of non-violent misdemeanors, but the crimes carried maximum possible sentences of more than two years, falling within the definition of felony in the federal gun ban. Neither Suarez nor Binderup served jail time.

Binderup, who owns a plumbing business, pleaded guilty in 1998 of corrupting a minor after having a sexual affair with a 17-year-old female employee. Binderup was sentenced to three years of probation.

Suarez was convicted in Maryland in 1990 of carrying a gun without a permit. Suarez was given a suspended jail sentence and a year of probation.

Federal law generally prohibits firearm possession by individuals convicted of a crime punishable by a year or more in jail, the traditional definition of a felony. However, the law does not apply to offenses labeled as misdemeanors under state law that carry jail time of two years or less.

In 2013 and 2014, the men separately sued to escape the felon gun-possession prohibition. Emphasizing their non-violent offenses and light sentences, they argued the law violates their right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an 8-7 decision, held that people may challenge the ban depending on their particular criminal conviction, and found that it was unconstitutional as applied to the two men.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

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A Georgia woman says the law enforcement agency that admittedly screwed up the investigation into her twin sisters’ disappearance is once again causing her family undue heartache.

“We are being traumatized all over again,” Shanta Sturgis told HuffPost.

She said Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree, who in 2013 discovered his agency had mistakenly closed the investigation and lost the case file, has not followed through on a promise he made to her at the time.

“He’s not spoke with us one time since then,” she said. “I now think it was all talk ― that he did all that for publicity.”

Sturgis’ sisters, 16-year-old fraternal twins Dannette and Jeannette Millbrooks, disappeared without a trace on March 18, 1990, while walking home from a convenience store in Augusta. The twins had no prior history of running away and no record of behavioral problems.

Roundtree, in an August 2013 interview with HuffPost, acknowledged the case was mistakenly closed just 3 years after it was opened and said no one had looked into it for roughly 20 years.

“We think a terrible injustice has been done,” Roundtree said then.

Sturgis said she’d initially thought Roundtree was a godsend. She was 12 when her sisters disappeared and had been fighting since 2004 to get the sheriff’s office to look into it. She said she was ecstatic when Roundtree, who was newly appointed in 2013, agreed to do so.

“We finally had hope,” Sturgis said.

Sturgis said that now, along with not hearing from Roundtree, investigators at the sheriff’s office won’t return her calls.

Neither Roundtree or the criminal investigation department responded to a request for comment from HuffPost.

Sturgis is not the only one complaining about the sheriff’s office.

Brooke Hargrove, one of the producers of The Fall Line Podcasts, which is intended to raise awareness about the twins’ disappearance, said the group hasn’t been able to get the sheriff’s office to participate in the program.

She said an investigator agreed to meet with them after the podcast producers uncovered new leads, but on the condition that they not discuss the case.

We “were not allowed to ask any questions,” Hargrove told HuffPost. “We were told the family could attend, but only if they asked no questions.”

However, prior to the start of the meeting, authorities allegedly added another condition.

“The twins’ mother, Mary “Louise” Sturgis, was made to [sit] in the waiting room,” Hargrove said. “She has never met with the police at the station about her missing daughters in the 27 years since they disappeared.”

Roundtree in 2013 told HuffPost he’d interviewed the original investigator, who had retired, and ran a nationwide search for the twins, which came up negative.

Sturgis said she questions whether any of that was actually done.

“I’ve tried to talk to him several times and he just won’t respond,” she said.

Sturgis is now pinning her hopes on the possibility of the podcast garnering new leads in the case.

“The [podcasters] have uncovered a lot of things that should’ve been looked into,” she said. “One is that there was a serial killer back then killing and raping all these women in same area where we lived and we didn’t know nothing about that.”

Sturgis added, “The cops sure aren’t doing nothing, so maybe somebody who can help will hear our story and reach out.”

“I now think it was all talk – that he did all that for publicity.”
Shanta Sturgis

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes. Four episodes are currently available, with more to come.

At the time of their disappearance, Dannette was approximately 5 feet six inches, 130 pounds, and Jeannette was approximately 5 feet 4 inches, 125 pounds. They both attended ninth grade at Lucy Laney High School.

Anyone with any information about the disappearance of Dannette and Jeannette Millbrooks is asked to contact the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office at (706) 821-1080 or the office’s crimes investigators at (706) 821-1020.

David Lohr covers crime and missing persons. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow him on Twitter. 

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The Supreme Court has agreed to review President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

The high court allowed the ban to take effect in most instances, with the exception of individuals with a bona fide relationship to the United States.

Within two weeks of taking office, Trump issued an executive order restricting visits from seven Muslim-majority countries for three months and suspending America’s refugee resettlement program, arguing that federal officials needed to review the vetting process in the interest of national security.

The order fulfilled one of the new president’s most controversial campaign promises. But the chaotic weekend that ensued ― dozens of people detained at airports and protests nationwide ― also played an early role in defining the Trump administration as clumsy and disinterested in the details and process of policymaking. 

Trump signed the order without letting key officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, review it beforehand. Customs and Border Protection agents struggled to interpret whether the order applied to green card holders and to those who arrived carrying valid visas. Protests erupted at airports across the country. Apparently unfazed, Trump told reporters the day after signing the order that the travel restrictions were “working out very nicely,” adding that, “you see it at the airports, you see it all over.”

The confusion ended the night of Jan. 29, when a federal judge in Brooklyn issued an injunction to keep key parts of the executive order from going into effect while legal challenges moved forward. The next day, DHS Secretary Kelly formally exempted green card holders from the provisions of the executive order.

In the following months, several other federal judges issued similar rulings saying the order should be halted. Trump signed a second order in March ― this time removing Iraq from the original list of seven countries ― in an attempt to clean up the legal problems posed by his first order. 

But the result was largely the same. Appeals courts in the 9th and 4th U.S. Circuits have upheld injunctions keeping the travel restrictions from going into effect. The Department of Justice appealed both cases, bringing them all the way to the Supreme Court.

While the White House has almost unbridled authority to restrict who is allowed to enter the country, U.S. officials cannot discriminate against visitors for religious reasons. Trump’s bombastic words from the campaign trail came back to haunt him as the courts considered his orders.  

“The evidence in the record, viewed from the standpoint of the reasonable observer, creates a compelling case that [the executive order’s] primary purpose is religious,” the 10-3 ruling issued by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May reads. “Then-candidate Trump’s campaign statements reveal that on numerous occasions, he expressed anti-Muslim sentiment, as well as his intent, if elected, to ban Muslims from the United States.”

Trump remained such a staunch defender of his travel ban that he vowed to “fight this terrible ruling,” all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, after a Hawaii federal judge blocked parts of the second ban in March.

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