Pennsylvania’s roadways must be made safer, and legislation that would address distracted driving by mandating usage of “hands-free-only” technology is drawing bipartisan support in Harrisburg. House Bill 37 prime sponsor Rep. Rosemary Brown (R-Monroe, Pike) said Pennsylvania needs to join the other states that already ban hand-held cell phone use while driving…

WEATHER FORECAST FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 1ST, 2019

TODAY – MOSTLY CLOUDY. A STRAY SHOWER OR
THUNDERSTORM POSSIBLE. HIGH – 83.

TONIGHT – CONSIDERABLE CLOUDINESS. OCCASIONAL
RAIN SHOWERS AFTER MIDNIGHT. LOW – 62.

THURSDAY – MIXED CLOUDS AND SUN WITH SCATTERED
THUNDERSTORMS. HIGH – 76.

Judge throws out ex-Penn State president’s conviction
By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge threw out former Penn State President Graham Spanier’s misdemeanor child-endangerment conviction on Tuesday, less than a day before he was due to turn himself in to begin serving a jail sentence.
The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gave state prosecutors three months to retry Spanier under the state’s 1995 child endangerment law, the version in place in 2001.
Joe Grace, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said the decision was under review. Spanier’s defense lawyer declined to comment.
Mehalchick agreed with Spanier that he was improperly charged under a 2007 law for actions that occurred in 2001, when he was responding to a complaint about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky showering with a boy on campus.
“Spanier submits that this retroactive application is unreasonable and far more extensive than anyone in 2001 would have been able to reasonably foresee,” Mehalchick wrote. “The court agrees.”
Spanier had been due to report to jail early Wednesday to begin serving a minimum sentence of two months.
Spanier, 70, was forced out as Penn State president shortly after Sandusky was arrested in 2011 on child molestation charges. A year later, Spanier was accused of a criminal cover-up, although many of those charges were dismissed by an appeals court. The jury acquitted him of what remained by the time of his trial, except for the single count of child endangerment. Lisa Powers, a university spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Spanier remains a tenured faculty member on paid administrative leave.
Spanier’s lawyers argued that the application of the law to acts that occurred years before the measure was passed violated the U.S. Constitution.
But the judge did not agree with their argument that the statute of limitations had been improperly applied.
Spanier was convicted for how he and two of his top aides decided to respond to a report from graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary that he had seen Sandusky abusing the boy late on a Friday night in a team shower.
Spanier has said the abuse of the boy, who has never been conclusively identified, was characterized to him as horseplay.
Spanier and two of his top lieutenants, former athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz, agreed to notify The Second Mile, the charity for at-risk youth where Sandusky met many of his victims, but not to call police.
Spanier gave his approval to his deputies in an email, warning that “the only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.”
Curley and Schultz were also charged criminally for their actions regarding Sandusky, but on the eve of trial they both pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment and testified for the prosecution. Both have since served similar jail sentences.
Spanier did not testify at his trial and told the judge at sentencing that he regretted not intervening more forcefully.
Sandusky is doing 30 to 60 years in state prison and recently won an order for a new sentence.

North Carolina campus shooting leaves 2 dead, 4 injured
OpBy TOM FOREMAN Jr. Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Two people were killed and four injured Tuesday in a shooting Tuesday on a North Carolina university campus, prompting a lockdown and chaotic scene in North Carolina’s largest city.
UNC Charlotte issued a campus lockdown late Tuesday afternoon, saying shots had been fired.
“Shots reported near kennedy. Run, Hide, Fight. Secure yourself immediately,” the university said in an alert, referring to the school’s Kennedy building on campus.
Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency said on Twitter that two people were found dead at the scene, two others have life-threatening injuries and two others have injuries that are not life-threatening. They said the numbers could change.
Aerial shots from local television news outlets showed police officers running toward a building, while another view showed students running on a campus sidewalk.
The university later reported that law enforcement officers were sweeping campus buildings.
It was not immediately clear whether the victims were students or whether a suspect was in custody. School officials couldn’t be reached for immediate comment Tuesday evening.
The campus was to host a concert at the school’s football stadium.
The university has more than 26,500 students and 3,000 faculty and staff.

Bill to alter selection of lieutenant governor passes Senate
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania may soon let gubernatorial candidates choose who will serve under them as lieutenant governor.
The Senate voted 46 to 2 Monday for a constitutional amendment that would end the current practice, in which the governor and lieutenant governor run separately for their party’s nominations.
The proposal would still need to pass the House this session and both chambers next session before going to voters for final approval.
The bill would let each candidate for governor pick their running mate no later than 90 days before the November election.
Lieutenant governor candidates would have to be approved by the parties.
The prime sponsor, Republican Sen. David Argall of Schuylkill County, says the goal is to avoid situations where the two officeholders act more like rivals than teammates.

House panel advances changes in Pennsylvania judge elections
By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A state House committee on Tuesday advanced Republican proposals to change how justices and judges are selected on Pennsylvania’s three appellate courts, imposing merit selection and regional districts.
The Judiciary Committee voted for two proposals that would amend the state constitution to select judges from different parts of the state, as opposed to the current system of statewide elections.
Both proposals passed on largely party-line votes, with majority Republicans in support, although some GOP supporters said they hoped the bills would be changed before a final vote.
“I would be shocked if there wasn’t a robust amendment process on the floor,” said Judiciary Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin.
Rep. Tim Briggs of Montgomery County, the ranking Democrat, pushed the committee to hold hearings on the constitutional amendments but was voted down.
One proposal would generate candidates for three legislatively drawn regions from an appointed commission. The governor would nominate from the commission’s list, subject to Senate confirmation. After four years on the bench, they would have to run for retention.
The bill requires the governor and General Assembly to choose commission members from both major parties and different counties, and to split membership between lawyers and nonlawyers. State workers, elected or appointed officials and political party officials would not be eligible.
The other proposal would elect Supreme, Superior and Commonwealth Court judges from districts the General Assembly would draw, guaranteeing geographic diversity. The judges and justices would have to live in their district for at least a year before they are elected or appointed.
The sponsor, Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, wants to divide the state by the current number of judges — seven for the Supreme Court, 15 for Superior Court and nine for Commonwealth Court. Diamond said his own research indicates 53 of 96 seats in statewide judicial races over 50 years have been won by candidates from Philadelphia and Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh.
Voters often participate in judicial elections with limited information about the candidates, perhaps limited to the name, party and county of residence listed on the ballot. Candidates from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, traditionally Democratic strongholds, tend to do well. All of Diamond’s co-sponsors are Republicans.
Democrats were unenthusiastic about regional judicial elections.
“A regional preference for judge is arbitrary at best, political at worst,” Rep. Michael Zabel, D-Delaware, said.
Diamond’s bill would leave it up to state lawmakers to draw up the district boundaries, although it specifies the districts should be close to identical in population and be composed and contiguous. The new district map would minimize the number of cities, counties, boroughs, townships and wards that are split.
Neither proposal would end elections for magisterial district judges and common pleas court judges.
A committee staffer told members it was unclear what will happen if the Legislature were to somehow pass both bills, which seek to amend the same part of the state constitution.

Police: Man took 4-year-old, bound her, stuffed her in trunk
By KRISTEN DE GROOT Associated Press
WAYNESBORO, Pa. (AP) — A 20-year-old man entered a home’s unlocked front door, snatched a 4-year-old girl from her bed and bound and stuffed her into a wooden trunk at his grandparents’ house, telling police he’d been scoping out children who he thought lived in “deplorable conditions,” according to a criminal complaint.
The child was reported missing at 3:30 a.m. Thursday and was found later that morning near the house where Thomas Dewald had been staying in Waynesboro, about 165 miles (265 kilometers) west of Philadelphia, near the Maryland line, Pennsylvania State Police said.
On Monday, a state trooper investigating the kidnapping spoke to Dewald’s grandmother, since her red brick house matched the child’s description. The woman told the officer she had entered her grandson’s room in previous days to see if he had made his bed, and thought she heard a baby crying near a wall air conditioning unit, the affidavit said. She said she couldn’t find the source of the crying, and Dewald had already left for work. The woman told police he’d been staying with her for about four or five weeks.
Troopers searched the home and found a wooden trunk under the air conditioning unit. Inside it was black tape covered in blonde hair, dirt and grass, the affidavit said.
Dewald returned home as the troopers wrapped up the investigation and police say in the affidavit that he admitted to taking the girl.
He told troopers he had been canvassing neighborhoods, looking for unsupervised children who seemed to live in “deplorable conditions” and in homes with no video surveillance nearby, the affidavit said. He went on to tell them he entered the 4-year-old’s home and after an hour inside decided to take her based on the condition of the house, according to the affidavit. Police allege he told them he considered taking the girl’s brother, but decided he was “too heavy” to carry down the stairs.
According to the affidavit, he told police he “might” have touched the girl inappropriately once in his room at his grandparents’ house. Police say he told officers he then taped the girl’s wrists, ankles and mouth and put her in a wooden chest, telling her he would be home from work around noon.
At about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, the girl somehow escaped the residence, police said.
According to the affidavit, Dewald told troopers he broke into another home on Sunday, intending to take one of the three children residing there, but decided their living conditions were acceptable. State police also say he was frightened by the family dog. He also put tape on the bottom of his shoes so he wouldn’t leave shoe prints, the affidavit said.
Dewald was arrested and faces multiple charges in both incidents, including kidnapping, criminal attempt kidnapping, burglary, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, criminal trespass and indecent assault.
No attorney is listed in online court documents. A phone listing for Dewald’s grandparents rang busy Tuesday. Dewald remains in Franklin County Jail.

Judge: Charlottesville Confederate statues are protected
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A Virginia judge has ruled that Charlottesville’s Confederate statues are war monuments protected by state law.
Judge Richard Moore’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed against Charlottesville City Council members who voted in 2017 to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Moore cited how statues of Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson depict the men in military uniforms and on horses associated with them during the Civil War. Virginia law makes it illegal for local municipalities to remove war monuments without permission from the state.
Moore acknowledged the controversy that has swirled around Confederate statues in recent years, and said his ruling is limited to the question of whether the Lee and Jackson statues in Charlottesville fall under the definition of war memorials in Virginia law.
“While some people obviously see Lee and Jackson as symbols of white supremacy, others see them as brilliant military tacticians or complex leaders in a difficult time … and do not think of white supremacy at all and certainly do not believe in, accept, or believe in such. In either event, the statues to them under the undisputed facts of this case still are monuments and memorials to them, as veterans of the Civil War,” Moore wrote.
Moore said his ruling doesn’t guarantee that the plaintiffs will win if the lawsuit goes to trial. He said he still needs to rule on several pending issues, including the city councilors’ motion that they have immunity from the lawsuit.
The Monument Fund filed the lawsuit in March 2017, alleging that the council violated state law when it voted to remove the Lee statue. The lawsuit was later amended to also include the Jackson statue.
Former City Councilor Bob Fenwick, a defendant in the lawsuit, told WCAV-TV he believes the council still has a good case to remove the statues.
“The important part is, does the council have legislative immunity, sort of like how a judge has judicial immunity so that the conclusions and the decisions that we make as councilors are final,” Fenwick said. “It was a lawful act that we did.”
Hundreds of white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville in August 2017 to protest the planned removal of the Lee statue. One woman was killed and dozens were injured with a self-avowed white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of people who showed up to demonstrate against the white nationalists.
James Alex Fields Jr., of Maumee, Ohio, was convicted of murder and other charges in state court. Fields pleaded guilty last month to federal hate crimes. He is awaiting sentencing.