State laws varied on gun, abortion laws

FILE – In this Jan. 19, 2013 file photo Norman Prather of Clanton, Ala., rallies against gun control during a demonstration at the State Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Exactly how you can exercise your constitutional rights depends on where you live. That’s the result of an increasing number of state laws on abortion and guns. Alabama Republicans this year have passed new regulations of abortion clinics and loosened limits on where citizens can carry guns. In liberal states such as New York and California, Democratic lawmakers have the opposite priorities. They’re shoring up access to abortion and tightening rules on guns. On both issues, critics of the limitations say the majority is threatening protected rights. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says women in America can terminate a pregnancy and that every citizen has an individual right to own a firearm, but those rulings have done little to settle political arguments over abortion and guns.

The result is an uneven medley of state laws, which means that just how you can exercise those constitutional rights depends on where you live, and the differences often turn on whether a state is run by Democrats or Republicans.

Governors and state lawmakers continue sharpening the disparities with new abortion statutes and a range of gun laws, several of which followed the mass killing last year at a Connecticut elementary school.

Republican-controlled states typically make it harder to procure an abortion but easier to buy weapons and carry them where you please. Live in a state where Democrats run things? You're less likely to have a waiting period before ending a pregnancy but more likely to have one before buying agun, and you may not to be able to buy certain semi-automatic weapons at all.

Many Democratic lawmakers reacted to the December massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school with calls for tighter gun restrictions. Many Republican legislators worked to relax gun-carrying laws and put more weapons into schools, from hiring guards to arming teachers and principals.

Constitutional law expert Randy Barnett, at Georgetown University Law Center, said the landscape demonstrates that politics is at play before and after the Supreme Court weighs in. "It's not a matter of sophisticated constitutional law," Barnett said, but of "hot-button wedge issues for one side of the spectrum or the other.'"

The lesson also extends to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and wrangling over same-sex marriage laws.

The Supreme Court ratified the main parts of the health care law, but Republicans at the state level have frustrated its implementation. On marriage, the court as early as Monday could release decisions in two cases. Most legal analysts expect declarations that allow state-by-state debates to continue, rather than an absolute ruling that mandates same-sex marriage equality everywhere.

Different practical outcomes around the country result from justices recognizing citizens' constitutional rights to abortion and gun ownership, while also seeing room for "reasonable regulation," Barnett said. "That gives a huge opening to political movements attempting to push the boundaries of what can be called 'reasonable.'"

Out of 27 legislatures that Republicans control outright, at least 23 have passed measures in the past two years that NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading abortion-rights group, calls "anti-choice." Assigning each state an overall letter grade for their access laws, NARAL rated 22 of the GOP-run states as failing. Only Montana rated an A. Among the 18 states controlled by Democrats, 11 scored an A, and the only one to rate lower than a C was Rhode Island, which received a D plus.

On firearms, Democratic statehouses haven't gone as far with restrictive legislation as Republicans have on abortion. But the tightest limits — and the newest — still come almost entirely in more liberal states.

Fewer than a dozen states limit the sale of semi-automatic weapons; 17 states and Washington, D.C., require background checks or records for gun sales beyond federal requirements; and 11 states have waiting periods for certain purchases. In those groups, the GOP runs just Florida and Pennsylvania, though Democrats controlled both when most of the relevant laws passed.

In Alabama this year, Republican supermajorities addressed both guns and abortion.

Gov. Robert Bentley signed a law in April mandating that the four abortion clinics in his state meet all regulations applied to ambulatory care facilities and requiring clinic physicians to secure staff privileges at local hospitals. Alabama patterned parts of the law after a 2012 Mississippi act that a federal judge has put on hold pending a constitutional challenge from Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of women's health services, including abortion.

Alabama Republicans emphasized the abortion law's title: "The Women's Health and Safety Act." But they also didn't hide their opposition to abortion rights and eagerness to take whatever Supreme Court precedent allows. "I am strongly pro-life," said Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey. "We can't ban abortion — that's a federal issue that's been confirmed by the Supreme Court — but at the state level, we can regulate and control unsafe health practices."

Nikema Williams, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist who doubles as an officer in the Georgia Democratic Party, counters: "This is absolutely meant to restrict women's constitutional rights."

Planned Parenthood makes the same argument in its Mississippi court challenge. Hospitals in Jackson denied Planned Parenthood physicians admitting privileges. That, the suit argues, would effectively close the clinic, leaving Mississippi residents without an in-state option for a procedure the Supreme Court declared legal.

Alabama also has joined about a dozen other GOP states since 2010 in shortening the window during which a woman can terminate her pregnancy. Most of the new bans take effect at 20 weeks. Arkansas opted for 12 weeks, while North Dakota Republicans said six. Federal judges have blocked both of those laws pending constitutional challenges. Court precedent generally holds that states can outlaw abortion of a fetus with a reasonable chance to survive outside the womb, now a standard of about 24 weeks.

Many Republican states since 2010 have barred either their state employee insurance plans, private insurers within their borders, or both, from covering elective abortions. Of that group, 17 GOP-run states will prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges that will open as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul.

A few weeks after enacting new abortion rules, Alabama's Bentley signed sweeping changes that loosen gun rules: Sheriffs lose most of their discretion over granting concealed weapons permits; drivers can carry loaded pistols in their cars; businesses can no longer ban employees from keeping guns in their cars on work property.

In California, meanwhile, Democrats did the reverse. They've expanded a pilot program that allows nurse practitioners and other non-physician medical professionals to administer certain abortions, while Gov. Jerry Brown signed more than a half-dozen new laws restricting gun use.

The gun laws expand California's list of banned semi-automatic weapons, require background checks before ammunition purchases, limit the number of rounds in a single magazine, and boost a program to seize guns from felons and citizens whom authorities declare mentally ill.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a potential national candidate for the Democrats in 2016 and beyond, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed laws this spring to widen existing semi-automatic weapons bans.

Those actions follow several years of states, particularly in GOP territory, removing hurdles to obtaining concealed-weapons permits and scrapping prohibitions on carrying in public places.

As with abortion, proponents of the limitations insist their position conforms to Supreme Court guidelines.

"The Second Amendment gets thrown around by people who are pushing for weaker gun laws," said San Francisco attorney Ben Van Houten of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "Common-sense regulation," he said, "is compatible with what the court said."

Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason in Alabama answered, "We have to take action to ensure our rights."

Barnett, the law professor, argued that the proliferation of limits — to say nothing of the stark divisions across the country — eventually demands that the Supreme Court step in again. Yet, addressing a group of Chiacgo law students this spring, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested jurists should leave some questions unsettled.

"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change," she said, "and let change develop through the political process."

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Ohio Prosecutor Posing as Woman Fired for Allegedly Facebooking Witnesses

A Cleveland-area prosecutor has been fired after he admitted pretending to be a defendant's ex-girlfriend on Facebook in order to convince alibi witnesses for the defense to change their testimony in a murder case, officials said.

Aaron Brockler, 35, was the lead prosecutor in the aggravated murder trial of Damon Dunn, 29, who is accused of shooting a man to death at a Cleveland car wash in May of 2012.

In preparation for the trial, defense attorneys provided Brockler with the names of two female witnesses who Dunn said could testify that he was on the other side of the city at the time of the shooting, officials said.

Brockler then set out to discredit the witnesses, allegedly creating a fake Facebook profile and "friending" the two women, claiming he was the defendant's ex-girlfriend. He then allegedly initiated a series of chats with the witnesses on the social network site in which he tried to get them to change their stories.

"What he was trying to do was to irritate the women to shake them and get them to change their story and not provide the alibi witness," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor spokesman Joe Frolik said.

The alleged ruse -- which Frolik said Brockler admitted to the prosecutor's office -- was discovered when prosecutor's office officials, after the two witnesses complained they were being harassed on Facebook, traced chat activity with the witnesses on the social network site to Brockler's office computer.

"By creating false evidence, lying to witnesses as well as to another prosecutor, Aaron Brockler has damaged the prosecution's chances in a murder case where a totally innocent man was killed at his work," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said in an email statement.

"Aaron Brockler disgraced this office and was fired on the spot for his dishonesty. This case was given to the [Ohio] Attorney General and the defense and Judge were notified of the deception as soon as another Assistant County Prosecutor discovered it."

The office of the Ohio Attorney General will assign a lawyer to prosecute the murder case, and a pre-trial hearing is scheduled for June 18.

Brockler's actions have undermined the credibility of the prosecution and are now a distraction, prosecutor spokesman Frolik told ABC news.

"It gives the defense a hammer to hit you with," he said.

ABC News has been unable to reach Brockler, who has not been charged with any crime.

But he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that his actions weren't that of a "rogue" prosecutor, and that he was motivated to attempt to try to break the alibi because of a personal relationship he had developed with the victim's mother.

"I felt her pain over losing her son," Brockler told the Plain Dealer. "I made a promise to her that he wasn't going to walk out the front door of the courthouse. This was a horrible killer and I didn't want him to get out and go kill someone else's son.

"Unless I could break this guy's alibi a murderer might be walking on the street. There was such a small window of opportunity. I had to act fast."

Brockler told the Plain Dealer the two witnesses changed their stories during the Facebook discourse he had with them. "This is bogus, I'm not going to lie for him [Dunn]," he said one woman told him.

He told the newspaper the other woman also changed her story and said she wasn't, in fact, with Dunn at the time of the shooting.

Brockler might be considering some kind of legal action in connection with his dismissal, prosecutor spokesman Frolik said, and "the ball is in his court."

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1,000 Singaporeans rally against new website rules

1,000 Singaporeans stage protest in park against government's new licensing law for news sites

Associated Press -

SINGAPORE (AP) -- About 1,000 Singaporeans rallied Saturday to protest a new government policy that requires some news websites to obtain licenses and possibly remove offensive content.

The policy that took effect this month has triggered criticism that authorities in this Southeast Asian city-state are trying to enforce online media censorship. Newspapers and television have long been tightly supervised in Singapore, and officials maintain the website policy is not meant to muzzle freedom of expression.

Websites that report regularly on Singaporean news and attract at least 50,000 visitors a month are now required to obtain annual licenses. They must remove any content considered objectionable by the government within 24 hours of notification.

A crowd that gathered at the Speakers' Corner free speech area of a Singapore park listened to bloggers and other speakers denounce the regulation. One man held a poster that read, "Internet censorship: Worst idea ever," while many booed when the names of government officials were spoken.

"This is definitely an attempt at censorship and it's quite plain to see that this regulation is not in the interests of anyone but the government," said blogger Ravi Philemon.

The rally's chief organizer, Howard Lee, said the demonstrators hope to draw attention to a petition that has more than 4,000 signatures demanding the withdrawal of the policy.

The rule affects 10 websites so far, including Yahoo! News in Singapore. To receive a license, a website has to post a "performance bond" of 50,000 Singapore dollars ($39,400).

Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim has defended the policy, assuring the online community that personal blogs and many news commentary websites will not be affected. The websites that need to obtain licenses will "have to conform to certain minimum standards as far as we are concerned, and we think it's not as onerous as what's been made up by some people online," Yaacob said earlier this week.

Yahoo's Singapore arm has said it is abiding by the new requirement. Its country manager, Alan Soon, added in a statement that it was important that "regulations and guidelines remain meaningful and do not become a tool that restricts freedom of expression and genuine debate."

Singapore's Media Development Authority has said it will impose financial penalties or suspend the licenses of websites that violate the conditions.

About 150 operators of Singaporean blogs and other websites participated in a 24-hour display of dissent earlier this week by replacing their pages with black screens featuring the slogan "(hash)FreeMyInternet."

Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday the new requirement "casts a chill over the city-state's robust and free-wheeling online communities, and will clearly limit Singaporeans' access to independent media."

"Singapore is placing its status as a world-class financial center at clear risk by extending its record of draconian media censorship to the digital world," said Cynthia Wong, a senior Internet researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Santa Monica Shootings 'Premeditated,' Shooter 'Ready for Battle,' Police Say

A man who allegedly killed four people in a shooting spree in Santa Monica, Calif., before being gunned down in a shootout with police in the Santa Monica College library planned out the attack, police said today.

Police said the suspect was wearing a protective vest and carrying so much weaponry he was, in the words of one official, "ready for battle."

"I would presume anytime someone puts on a vest of some sort and has a bag of loaded magazines as an extra receiver, has a handgun and has a semi automatic rifle, carjacks folks, goes to a college, kills more people and has to be neutralized at hands of police -- I would stay that's premeditated," Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said.

Police officials said they had unofficially identified the suspect, but they did not release name because they were working on notifying his next of kin.

They did confirm that the alleged shooter would have turned 24 years old today and that he, along with another family member, had a connection to Santa Monica College.

Santa Monica Police Department spokesman Sgt. Richard Lewis described the suspect as being "heavily armed" and "ready for battle." Lewis said at least 70 rounds were fired in the Santa Monica Library alone.

The suspected shooter was carrying approximately 1,300 rounds of ammunition, in addition to a revolver and a rifle similar to an AR-15 semi-automatic in a duffel bag, Seabrooks said.

Police had responded to an earlier incident involving the suspect in 2006, Seabrooks said, but she could not release anything more about that incident because he was a minor at the time.

On Friday, authorities first responded to a report of shots fired at 11:52 a.m. PT and found a house on fire. Two dead bodies were found inside the home, fire officials said. Authorities said the dead bodies were related to the shooter, but they did not specify how.

Firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the fire in the front room before finding the bodies, which were toward the rear of the house. Authorities told reporters they were still investigating what caused the fire.

A few minutes after noon, Santa Monica authorities started getting calls that a city bus was being hit with gunfire. The suspected gunman had reportedly carjacked a woman at gunpoint and forced her to drive him to Santa Monica College's campus, spraying bullets at nearby vehicles on the route.

Two people riding a city bus sustained minor injuries from the gunfire.

READ: Santa Monica Shootings: 4 Victims and Suspect Killed: Police Joe Orcutt told ABC News he came face to face with the shooter.

"When I saw the gun pointing at me, I ducked and heard the bullet whiz by," he said.

According to police, the suspect fired on two people in a Ford Explorer in the campus faculty parking lot. That vehicle later crashed into a block wall.

The driver was killed and the passenger was in critical condition, authorities said. The man killed was confirmed to be 68-year-old Carlos Navarro Franco, a Santa Monica College employee.

The woman, who was forced to drive the shooter to the Santa Monica College campus, was unharmed.

Once on campus, the suspected shooter, who was dressed in all black, opened fire at bystanders, fatally shooting one woman and before he went inside a library on campus, police said. Authorities did not identify the woman who was killed by name, but said she was appeared to be white and in her 50's.

Once in the library, the shooter initially tried to shoot students in a "safe room," according to Seabrooks. But the students were able to barricade the door.

"He continued to shoot at them," Seabrooks said. "The officers came in and directly engaged the suspect, and he was shot and killed on the scene."

Three officers engaged the suspect according to authorities, two from the Santa Monica Police Department and one from Santa Monica College.

While authorities first stated the shootings left as many as six people dead, they later downgraded to five deaths, which included four victims and the shooter himself.

Lewis suggested the initial overcount may have been caused by overlapping witness reports of the same fatalities.

In addition to the dead, at least five people were injured, police said.

They included one critically injured person whose life was in jeopardy, a person hospitalized in serious but stable condition and three people sent to hospitals with less serious injuries, Lewis said.

The college campus went on lockdown following the shootings as police attempted to secure the scene. Students would be allowed to return for their vehicles Saturday and other belongings Sunday. The campus was expected to reopen Monday morning at 7a.m.

In 911 calls, the shooter was described as armed with several weapons.

Elsewhere on the campus, a person of interest was taken into custody, then released when his claim not to be involved checked out. According to Lewis, the man found a duffle bag belonging to the suspected shooter that had magazines, a handgun and part of a rile in side. Police temporarily detained him soon after that.

Santa Monica College student Sam Luster was preparing for a presentation in the school's library when he heard gunfire.

"We didn't know what was happening until all the students at the entrance of the library started running down towards the bottom of the library," Luster told ABC News Los Angeles station KABC.

Luster took cover under a desk before moving towards an exit. He said he heard multiple gunshots near the exit.

ABC News' Christina Ng, Michael James, Jack Date and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Crane Operator Surrenders in Philadelphia Building Collapse

A crane operator turned himself in today to face manslaughter and other charges in the collapse of a Philadelphia building that killed six people, police said.

Sean Benschop, 42, of Philadelphia, is going to be charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter, 13 counts of recklessly endangering another person, one count of risking a catastrophe, Philadelphia Police Department Officer Jillian Russell said.

Marijuana was found in Benschop's system after the collapse, according to police sources.

The operator also admitted to taking codeine and other prescription drugs before the accident, and he was outfitted with a soft cast up to his elbow while working the heavy machinery, police sources told ABC News station WPVI. A source later confirmed the details to ABC News.

Benschop declined to answer questions when a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer contacted him by cell phone Friday.

Citing court records, The Inquirer reported Benschop has been arrested 10 times for a range of offenses, including drug charges, theft, firearms and assault.

In addition to those killed, 14 more were injured when the vacant building collapsed on a Salvation Army Thrift Store Wednesday morning.

Rescue workers used buckets and their bare hands to move bricks and rubble to free a 61-year-old woman late Wednesday night, but that was the sole piece of good news to come from the pile of rubble where a four-story building used to stand in Philadelphia's Center City.

The 30-hour search-and-rescue operation for additional victims ended Thursday. At that time, Mayor Michael Nutter told ABC News that officials were confident there were no more people buried.

Those killed were identified as Kimberly Finnegan, Borbor Davis, Anne Bryan, Juanita Harmin, Mary Simpson and Roseline Conteh.

The building was being torn down as part of a community redevelopment project. The thrift store was open throughout the demolition.

Two of those killed were Salvation Army employees.

"We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life of the six individuals who perished in the wake of yesterday's building collapse," the organization said in a statement. "The passing of these individuals, including two of our employees, will be felt across our entire organization and throughout the community."

Philadelphia officials were facing tough questions over whether the accident could have been prevented.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and the city's commissioner of licenses and inspections, Carlton Williams, have conceded that complaints about the working conditions at the demolition site were not followed up on.

City officials said that a routine inspection had found no violations at the property before demolition began. Williams said that inspectors had visited an adjoining property in May after complaints were lodged, but they found no violations and did not return to the Market Street site before Wednesday.

"No subsequent inspection occurred to indicate there was any unsafe conditions," Williams said. "We did not follow up and we are definitely looking into that."

Nutter promised a "wide-ranging investigation" into how and why the building collapsed.

In the wake of the collapse, Nutter has announced that every active demolition site in Philadelphiawas being inspected for safety. He also announced a series of new rules for demolishing buildings within his city, including requiring a prohibition on using demolition machinery on a building if it is next to an occupied structure and mandatory drug tests and background checks for those operating heavy equipment on demolition sites.

At least 20 people were caught in falling debris when the building collapsed Wednesday around 10:45 a.m. An outer wall of the building that was being demolished fell outward and onto the two-story thrift store, according to city officials.

ABC News' Colleen Curry contributed to this report.

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