Driver pleads guilty in deadly bus stop crash

A driver who plowed into a Riverside bus stop, killing a woman and a 7-year-old girl, has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. The Press-Enterprise reports 46-year-old Joe Williams was ordered Thursday to serve six months in custody of the Sheriff's Department, but his sentence could include a work-release program in lieu of jail time. Williams was indicted after prosecutors told a grand jury that he had a history of blackouts seizures and should not have been driving. Authorities say Williams, a parking enforcement agent, blacked out at a red light on Dec. 28. When motorists behind him honked their horns, Williams accelerated, veered up onto the shoulder of the road and crashed into a bus bench. Twenty-eight-year-old Melissa Bernal and 7-year-old Aniya Mitchell were killed.

Coast Guardsman guilty in sexual misconduct case

Coast Guard officials in New Orleans say a petty officer has been convicted and sentenced on charges involving sexual assault and possession of child pornography. Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher C. Bush's court martial was held in Norfolk, Va. A Coast Guard news release said the 28-year-old Bush was convicted Friday on four violations of a Uniform Code of Military Justice article dealing with rape and sexual assault and one involving child pornography. The crimes involved a junior Coast Guard woman and a civilian woman. They happened between January 2010 and May 2013 while Bush was stationed at a unit in New Orleans. The Coast Guard said it was not releasing the name of the unit to protect the privacy of the victims.

3 California men plead guilty in alleged pot grow

Three Northern California men are each facing up to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that they damaged federal conservation land while allegedly growing marijuana. Prosecutors say Chou Vang, Vang Pao Yang and Pao Vang, all of Eureka, each entered their pleas in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday to one count of willful injury to federal property. The men were accused of clearing away trees and vegetation, using fertilizers, and failing to properly dispose of trash while growing pot in the summer of 2012 in the King Range National Conservation Area along California's Lost Coast. The area provides habitat for four federally-listed threatened species, including Chinook and Coho salmon. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors say they dropped marijuana cultivation charges. The men are scheduled to be sentenced in July.

High court sides with parent who fled with child

The Supreme Court has made it harder for a parent in a custody dispute to seek the immediate return of a child under an international treaty to deter child abduction. The justices ruled unanimously Wednesday that a one-year clock begins ticking when a child is taken out of its country of residence, even if the parent left behind cannot determine where the child is living. In the one-year period, the Hague Convention on child abduction gives judges little option but to return the child to its home country. After a year, judges have more discretion and must take account of evidence that the child is settled in its new home.

SC Supreme Court to rule on public autopsy reports

South Carolina's Supreme Court will begin grappling with that question Wednesday, when it hears a lawsuit by a Sumter County newspaper against the county's coroner. The Item newspaper wants the high court to toss out a lower court's ruling that said autopsies do not have to be made public because they do not fall under the state's Freedom of Information Act. The coroner says autopsies should be considered medical records that are exempt from public view. The newspaper says autopsy reports are investigative tools, not medical records. Open records advocates say the Sumter County case is an example of government officials making it harder to get public documents. It's a debate that is far from settled nationally. About 15 states across the U.S. allow the public release of an autopsy report. About a half-dozen other states allow the release of reports not being used as part of a criminal investigation. The rest severely restrict what's released or don't give any information from the reports, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Keeping autopsy records secret closes off an important tool to make sure police agencies do the right thing when they investigate deaths, especially people shot and killed by officials or who die in custody, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "There is any number of cases over the years where journalist watchdogs have been able to shed light on suspicious circumstances only by having access on those records," LoMonte said. "And those records don't just show culpability, they can clear someone, too."

California appeals court upholds plastic bag ban

A California appeals court has upheld San Francisco's ban on single-use plastic bags that can serve as a precedent for other cases. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the 1st District Court of Appeal issued its ruling last month and published it Friday as precedent binding on lower courts. The ordinance was passed in February 2012 and prohibits plastic bags that can be used only once and requires stores to charge 10 cents for recyclable plastic or paper bags. A lawsuit by Save the Plastic Bag Coalition said plastic bags took more energy to produce than plastic and take up more space in landfills. Similar measures have been adopted in about 50 cities and counties in California and have survived legal challenges. The state Supreme Court upheld a plastic-bag ban in 2011.

Hearing: Which court should hear coastal lawsuit?

A legal tug-of-war continues in a state levee board's lawsuit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies over the erosion of wetlands. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East wants U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown to send the case back to Orleans Parish Civil District Court, where the board filed it in July. Attorneys for Chevron USA Inc. got the lawsuit moved to federal court in August, arguing that federal laws govern many of its claims. Since then, lawyers have filed hundreds of pages of arguments and exhibits just on the question of which court should hear the case. Brown scheduled arguments Wednesday. The lawsuit says oil and gas canal and pipeline work has contributed to the erosion of wetlands that protect New Orleans when hurricanes move ashore. Corrosive saltwater from a network of oil and gas access and pipeline canals has killed plants that anchored the wetlands, letting waves sweep away hundreds of thousands of coastal land, it says. Gov. Bobby Jindal has blasted the lawsuit as a windfall for trial lawyers and his coastal protection chief, Garret Graves, said the suit would undermine Louisiana's work with the industry to rebuild wetlands. An association of state levee districts voted to oppose the suit. Since then, however, two coastal parishes heavily dependent on the industry have filed lawsuits of their own raising similar issues. Earlier this month, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association sued the state's attorney general, accusing him of illegally approving the Southeast Louisiana board's contract with lawyers who filed its lawsuit. The association contends that Buddy Caldwell had no authority to approve the contract and that the suit will have "a chilling effect on the exploration, production, development and transportation" of Louisiana's oil and gas.