Monsoon rescues are free, despite ‘stupid-motorist law,’ Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says
Monsoon season sparks rumors about the enforcement a ‘stupid motorist law’ where drivers can be charged the cost of being rescued from storm floods. MCSO deputies want residents to know that they won’t make people pay.
Court: Inmate can sue state for being forced to work religious holiday
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court ruled that a "devout Christian" Arizona inmate can sue prison officials who make him work on a religious holiday, forcing him "to choose between my God's laws and (prison) rules," in violation of his First Amendment rights.
May 18, 2018 Newscast | Cronkite News
Cronkite News government and justice reporters bring reports about public policy, law enforcement, the courts and the state legislature.
May 10, 2018 Newscast | Cronkite News
Cronkite News government and justice reporters bring reports about public policy, law enforcement, the courts and the state legislature.
After decades, tribal courts, police slowly regaining lost authority
WASHINGTON - Decades after Congress and the courts sharply limited Native Americans of the ability to enforce their laws, lawmakers have only recently started to restore that authority to tribal courts and cops.
May 3, 2018 Newscast | Cronkite News
Government and justice stories on an active shooter training and more
Arizona ranks high for hit-and-run deaths, AAA report shows
WASHINGTON - Arizona had the fifth-highest fatal hit-and-run rate among states in 2016, a year that saw the most hit-and-runs fatalities nationwide, according to the AAA, which said that pedestrians and cyclists are the two most likely victims of hit-and-run accidents.
Feds no longer collect school shooting data, advocates left to scramble
WASHINGTON - As students walk out of classes to protest gun violence, the federal agency that had collected data on school shootings quietly stopped gathering it last year, leaving advocates scrambling to make sense of varied and sometimes conflicting private records.
State getting convictions as it slowly works through rape kit backlog
WASHINGTON - Since 2016, Arizona has methodically worked its way through a backlog of 6,424 rape kits that had been sitting in evidence rooms for years, testing more than half by this spring resulting in eight hits on suspects in previously unsolved crimes.
Immigration court backlog likely to grow in face of cuts, experts say
WASHINGTON - More than 684,000 cases are waiting to be heard in immigration courts across the country - 10,422 of them in Arizona - a number that is only expected to grow if the administration cuts an immigrant legal assistance program and adds case quotas for judges, advocates said.
Court OKs special prosecutor to fight Arpaio’s push to clear his record
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court approved the hiring of a special prosecutor to challenge former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's claim that his contempt of court conviction should be vacated after his presidential pardon, after the Justice Department said it sided with Arpaio.
Supreme Court voids law allowing deportation in ‘crimes of violence’
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday voided a federal law allowing deportation of immigrants who commit "crimes of violence" as unconstitutionally vague, a decision hailed by Arizona immigration lawyers as a "promising step forward."
