SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois appellate court ruled Wednesday that a former deputy sheriff charged with the death of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman shot in her home after she called police for help, should be released from jail pending his first-degree murder trial.
The 4th District Appellate Court's unanimous decision found that a circuit court ruling in July that Sean Grayson should be detained was improper. It said prosecutors failed to supply sufficient evidence that there were no conditions the court could set that would that no combination of conditions would lessen the danger Grayson posed to the community.
In his opinion for the court, Justice Eugene Doherty found fault with prosecutors for basing their arguments against release on the way Grayson acted during the shooting.
“When the question before the court is whether defendant can be safely released prior to trial on appropriate conditions, it is inappropriate to dwell on whether he fell short of the high expectations society rightly has for its law enforcement officers,” Doherty wrote. “A defendant’s conduct may be reprehensible and deserving of punishment, but that is an inappropriate basis for imposing pretrial detention.”
The opinion ordered a court hearing for Grayson at which suitable conditions for his release be set.
Grayson's next court hearing is scheduled for Monday. A telephone message was left for his attorney.
The 30-year-old Sangamon County sheriff's deputy is charged with first-degree murder in the July 6 shooting of Massey, who had called 911 to report a suspected prowler. During a conversation in her living room, Grayson ordered a pot of water on the stove be removed.
Massey, who had dealt with mental health issues, joked with Grayson over the pan, then inexplicably told Grayson, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson yelled at her to drop the pot, and as she ducked, he fired three shots, striking her just below the left eye.
The case has drawn national attention as an example of police shooting Black people in their homes.
FILE - In this image taken from body camera video released by Illinois State Police, Sonya Massey, left, talks with former Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Grayson outside her home in Springfield, Ill., July 6, 2024. (Illinois State Police via AP, File)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. wildlife officials finalized a recovery plan for imperiled populations of Canada lynx on Wednesday and proposed new habitat protections in the southern Rocky Mountains for the forest-dwelling wildcats that are threatened by climate change.
The fate of the proposal is uncertain under President-elect Donald Trump: Officials during the Republican's first term sought unsuccessfully to strip lynx of protections that they've had since 2000 under the Endangered Species Act.
Almost 7,700 square miles (20,000 square miles) of forests and mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico are covered under the habitat proposal. That's different from a previous plan that left out the southern Rockies and concentrated instead on recovery efforts elsewhere, including Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Maine.
“This is a significant change and a good one,” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney for Western Environmental Law Center who has been involved in efforts to protect lynx through court actions. “They weren't really committing to conserve lynx in Colorado anymore, and now they are.”
Areas of protected habitat also are being added in Idaho and Montana. Protected areas in Wyoming would be sharply reduced under Wednesday's proposal.
Wildlife officials said they were removing locations where they consider lynx unlikely to thrive in the future, while adding new areas that the latest science suggests are more suitable to their long-term survival.
Lynx are elusive animals that live in cold boreal forests and prey primarily on snowshoe hares.
They originally received federal protections because the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management didn't have sufficient regulations in place to shield their populations from potential harm. Those protective rules are now in place, but climate change has emerged as a new, worsening threat.
Warmer temperatures are melting away the lynx's snowy habitat and could decrease the availability of snowshoe hares. Declines for lynx are expected across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials have considered.
Most areas suitable for lynx are in Canada and Alaska, where the animals are widespread and hunting and trapping of them is allowed.
Their numbers never were great in the contiguous U.S., which is at the southern fringe of the species range, but the hope is to maintain some population strongholds so they can persist in a warmer world.
The changes announced Wednesday follow a 2016 court ruling that faulted federal wildlife officials for not designating protections for lynx habitat in Colorado and some parts of Montana and Idaho.
There are more than 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., according to estimates from scientists. Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and officials are aiming for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period.
More than 200 lynx were reintroduced in Colorado beginning in 1999 and at the time their prospects were considered uncertain.
“There were concerns about whether it would stick," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lynx biologist Jim Zelenak. “But they do seem to be hanging on”
Now that area could become one of the future population strongholds, with the southern Rockies in Colorado and the region around Yellowstone National Park are most likely to have temperatures favorable to lynx for the longest time, he said.
Maine has the most lynx currently but is expected to be hit harder by climate change.
“We’ve got this overarching threat of climate warming, and so we want to do everything we can to minimize the effects that we can control," Zelenak said. “So we don’t want to put roads in the wrong places. We don’t want to permanently convert very much of the habitat at all in the hopes that we can keep these populations viable coming into a warming future.”
Habitat protections in Maine and Minnesota would remain unchanged under the proposal.
A final decision is expected late next year.
FILE - A Canada lynx heads into the Rio Grande National Forest after being released near Creede, Colo., April 19, 2005. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
