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Supreme Court to hear La. coastal lawsuit $745M verdict hangs in the balance
Murder trial opens for alleged serial killer Sharpe’s attorney raises insanity defense
BY ALEX LUBBEN Staff writer
BY MATT BRUCE Staff writer
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Jan. 12 in a highstakes legal dispute that could have wider implications on dozens of lawsuits pitting Louisiana coastal parishes against oil companies over historic damage to the state’s wetlands. At stake is a $745 million verdict, handed down in April by a jury in Plaquemines Parish. But the ruling could ultimately affect a range of cases involving billions in damages. The Supreme Court agreed in June to hear the case, but the date for arguments was only recently announced. The case, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, is one of dozens of lawsuits accusing major oil companies of violating coastal use laws and destroying wetlands. The issue the Supreme Court is taking up, however, does not have to do with land loss or pollution, but rather where the case should be heard. The lawsuits were originally filed in state court. Chevron, Exxon and other major oil companies have long argued that they belong in federal court, a jurisdiction that is seen as friendlier to the companies. Chevron has argued that it was acting under federal contracts during World War II, when the oil and gas it extracted from Louisiana lands was used to produce aviation fuel for warplanes, and so the lawsuits belong in federal court. Lower courts have repeatedly rejected that argument. The April trial was the first of 42 similar lawsuits, all led by Baton Rouge-based law firm Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, on behalf of coastal parishes. The lawsuits all claim that oil companies damaged wetlands and left behind pollution after drilling operations, in
STAFF FILE PHOTO By MATTHEW HINTON
A rusted oil pipeline in the Bayou Gentilly oil field has been abandoned, according to lawyers ä See COURT, page 6A representing Plaquemines Parish in their lawsuit against oil and gas companies.
As testimony began in the murder trial of an alleged serial killer Wednesday, prosecutors described the terror that Ryan Joseph Sharpe unleashed on rural parts of East Baton Rouge and East Feliciana parishes eight years ago. Authorities said he went on a threem o n t h k i l l i n g Sharpe spree that saw him shoot four strangers at random, killing three of the men, over the span of 14 weeks between July and October 2017. Assistant District Attorney Dana Cummings opened the trial by comparing Sharpe’s trail of blood to the deeds of another notorious serial killer. “This was a big deal in that area,” she told jurors. “For those of you who remember Derrick Todd Lee here, this felt like their Derrick Todd Lee. People being shot in their front yards while they’re doing yard work, exercising or fixing their truck.” Sharpe is being tried for the killing of former BREC Commissioner Carroll Breeden Sr. Breeden was shot in the chest as he sprayed weed killer in the front yard of his multiacre property along Port Hudson-Pride Road on the evening of Sept. 19, 2017. Cummings said family members heard two gunshots and came outside to find Breeden, 66, lying dead near the road in front of his house. The unprovoked act of violence prompted a series of questions that remained unanswered until a multiagency task force tied Sharpe
ä See TRIAL, page 6A
Case against former FBI director Comey faces new hurdle Justice Department’s handling of grand jury process under scrutiny BY ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
acknowledged a possible lapse in how the case was presented to a federal grand jury for indictment. Associated Press The concession risked further ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The prosecution imperiling a politically charged of former FBI Director James prosecution already subject to Comey hit another hurdle Wednes- multiple challenges and demands day as the Justice Department for its dismissal. It came during a
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hearing in which Comey’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff to throw out the case on grounds that the government was being vindictive and as a separate challenge to Lindsey Halligan, the hastily appointed and inexperienced prosecutor who secured
the indictment, is pending. The revelation that the full grand jury did not review a copy of the final indictment is the latest indication Comey of the Justice Department’s seemingly disjointed pursuit of a criminal case against
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one of President Donald Trump’s political enemies. Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017 while overseeing an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. The two have been publicly at odds ever since, with Trump deriding Comey as “a weak and untruthful
ä See COMEY, page 4A
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