La. agrees to change laws to reduce prison population

Compiled from news services

ANGOLA,La. — When he was young and strong, Clyde Giddens fought with a man and stabbed him to death, leading to a life sentence for murder. Fifty-five years later, Mr. Giddens, 76, uses a wheelchair and a hospital bed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, after breaking a hip and suffering a stroke.

He hoped a proposal to release old and sick violent offenders in Louisiana would allow him to live with his niece in Shreveport, La.

But in a deal announced on Tuesday, Gov. John Bel Edwards, D, agreed to drop the proposal to offer early parole to geriatric prisoners in exchange for state district attorneys’ support for easing penalties for nonviolent offenders — changes that aim to reduce Louisiana’s prison population by 10 percent in a decade.

It’s a landmark agreement for Louisiana, which locks up residents at a rate twice the national average, making it the country’s biggest jailer per capita.

Officer’s firing sought

LAS VEGAS — Relatives of an unarmed man who died after a struggle with a police officer outside a Las Vegas casino want the officer fired and brought up on criminal charges for repeatedly using a stun gun and then placing the man in an unauthorized chokehold, an attorney for the family said Thursday.

Las Vegas police should also stop using stun guns and training officers to use a neck restraint intended to cut off the flow of blood to the brain, attorney Andre Lagomarsino said.

Tulsa’s racial disharmony

TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa community leaders say the acquittal of a white Oklahoma police officer who killed an unarmed black man ripped open a longfestering wound.

Black community leaders welcomed Mayor G.T. Bynum’s mention of racial disparities on the day after a jury of Tulsans found officer Betty Jo Shelby not guilty of manslaughter. In September, she fatally shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher in the middle of a city street after observing his disabled SUV.

“This verdict does not alter the course on which we are adamantly set,” said Mr. Bynum, who took office in December. “It does not change our recognition of the racial disparities that have afflicted Tulsa historically.”

But Mr. Bynum wasn’t specific enough with details of how he would heal Tulsa’s racial wounds, and words will ring hollow without measurable change, Mr. Crutcher’s family and supporters said.

The Shelby verdict is a setback, Mr. Crutcher’s family said, because it shows a larger failure of the legal system — and by extension society — to recognize the value of a black man’s life.

Their heartbreak echoed that of families across the U.S. following a spate of killings of black people that has fueled a national debate over race and policing.

Tribes drop appeal

BISMARCK,N.D. — American Indian tribes who are still fighting the Dakota Access oil pipeline in court have dropped an appeal of a federal judge’s decision that allowed final construction to proceed on the project that is just two weeks from operating commercially.

With oil already in the line, Cheyenne River Sioux attorneys in late April submitted a motion to voluntarily dismiss their claim in the appeals court, and the motion was granted Monday.

Also in the nation ...

Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian, who was involved in a train derailment that killed eight passengers, turned himself in to police. ... Georgia carried out its first execution this year, putting to death J.W. Ledford, who was convicted of killing his 73year-old neighbor 25 years ago.