FL Deputy Shot to Death: A Florida sheriff's deputy, who had come out of retirement to earn extra money for Disney World trips with his granddaughter, was shot and killed Tuesday while serving a domestic violence restraining order. Fox News reports that 64-year-old Bill Myers, a 25-year veteran who initially retired in 2013, was shot multiple times in the head and back by 33-year-old Joel Dixon Smith at an attorney's office, where Smith was supposed to turn over his weapons to the officer. Dixon fled the scene to a hotel where he barricaded himself inside a room, and was fatally shot by police when he burst through the door firing his weapon. No one else was hurt. Myers is the fourth deputy killed in Oklaloosa County since 2008.
Sex Offenders Have 1st Amendment Right to Photograph Children: The Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a state law prohibiting registered sex offenders from photographing children in public violates their right to free speech. Bruce Vielmetti of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the decision reversed the conviction of 44-year-old Christopher J. Oatman, a convicted sex offender who received a 12-year prison sentence in 2011 when his probation agent discovered non-pornographic photographs of children taken on his cell phone, none of which involved nudity or obscenity. The court's holding states that even sex offenders have free speech rights to take non-pornographic photographs of children in public places and "any law that restricts free speech on its content must be narrowly drawn to protect a compelling interest." The Court held that while protecting children is certainly such an interest, the law failed to accomplish that and, furthermore, children are not harmed by non-pornographic, non-obscene images taken in public places.
Suspects in Border
Agent's Murder Face Trial: Trial
begins Wednesday for two men charged in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The AP reports that Jesus Leonel Sanchez-Meza
and Ivan Soto-Barraza will be the first to face trial in the 2010 murder of
Brian Terry that exposed Fast and Furious, a botched sting operation in which
federal agents allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking
them. The operation soured when Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents lost track of 1,400 of the 2,000 guns
in the sting, two of which were found at the scene of Terry's murder. In December 2010, Sanchez-Meza and
Soto-Barranza were with a group of men planning on robbing marijuana smugglers
in the Arizona desert when they crossed paths with border agents and a gunfight
ensued, resulting in Terry's death. Two men
in the group, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes and Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez, have made plea deals and will face 30-year sentences, and two other suspects remain
fugitives. Sanchez-Meza and Soto-Barraza
face multiple charges including first- and second-degree murder, assault on a federal officer and
conspiracy to commit robbery.

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