This is your daily news rundown for Tuesday, September 17. In this edition:
Utah Supreme court to debate proposed Amendment D
The Utah Supreme Court will hear oral arguments later this month in the case of Utah’s proposed Amendment D, after attorneys for the Legislature appealed a lower court decision nullifying the proposal.
The proposal from the Legislature came in the wake of a July ruling from the high court, which found lawmakers overstepped their authority when they changed a 2018 ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission.
Critics of the proposal accused legislative leaders of writing a ballot question that was “misleading” and sued over the language, which they said was counter to the actual proposed amendment.
Third District Judge Dianna M. Gibson agreed, writing that the ballot question omitted critical information, including that it “entirely eliminates the voter’s fundamental constitutional right.”
She also said lawmakers failed to publish the text of the amendment in newspapers across the state at least two months before the election, which is required under the state constitution.
Attorneys for the state asked the Supreme Court to overturn that decision quickly, saying its outcome will impact the upcoming election. The court will hear arguments on Sept. 25.
Southern Utah couple accused of trafficking Mexican citizens for labor
A southern Utah couple with homes in the United States and Mexico is accused of illegally transporting Mexican citizens to the U.S. to work on their pine nut farm.
Fifty-three-year-old Jolene Stubbs and 61-year-old Dayer Melchor LeBaron were each charged Monday in 5th District Court with two counts each of human trafficking for labor, a second-degree felony. Stubbs received an additional charge of kidnapping, also a second-degree felony, for allegedly taking a teen girl across state lines without the permission of the girl’s parents.
LeBaron’s booking affidavit states the owner of the pine nut processing and harvesting operation knew Stubbs had hired a 15-year-old in Mexico and brought her and her family over the border.
Stubbs and LeBaron are also accused of arranging for a man who had recently been deported from the United States to return to the U.S. to work for them in Utah and Nevada. Investigators say Stubbs hired a “coyote” to “accompany the male from Mexico into the United States” and gave him more than $3,000 in pesos for travel, “which she expected the Mexican male would pay back in labor picking pine nuts in the United States.”
LeBaron has run the pine nut business for 41 years.
Mother charged in kidnapping of young daughter
The biological mother of a young girl who has no custodial rights to her daughter and who police say conspired with others to kidnap her daughter is now facing several felony charges.
Thirty-one-year-old Lindsey Colleen Morrell was charged Monday in Utah’s 8th District Court with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated burglary among other charges. Morrell is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the kidnapping investigation.
Morrell is accused of calling several law enforcement agencies in Uintah County reporting a missing child in an apparent attempt to find out where her daughter and ex-husband are living, according to the affidavit.
Because her ex-husband works at the Uintah County Jail, Morrell is being held in the Utah County Jail.
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Publish date : 2024-09-17 04:20:00
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