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HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston police officer is responsible for the 2019 deaths of a couple during a raid of their home because his lies on a search warrant wrongly portrayed them as dangerous drug dealers, a prosecutor told jurors on Monday.

An attorney for the former officer, Gerald Goines, admitted her client lied to get the search warrant but said his actions do not merit a murder conviction, and placed the blame for the deaths on the couple.

Goines is charged with two counts of murder in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife Rhogena Nicholas. Goines has pleaded not guilty.

The couple, along with their dog, were killed after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock” warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering. Goines secured the warrant from a judge.

During opening statements in the trial, prosecutor Keaton Forcht told jurors that Goines, 59, had lied to get the warrant by falsely claiming that an informant had bought heroin at the couple’s home from a man with a gun. Goines would later change his story to claim he had bought the drugs himself but authorities say that was also a lie.

Forcht said authorities were first directed to investigate Tuttle and Nicholas after a neighbor falsely claimed on 911 calls that her daughter was being given heroin by the couple at their home. The neighbor was later convicted in federal court for those false claims.

“It’s based on lie after lie after lie,” said Forcht, with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities found no evidence that Goines, with the narcotics unit, had investigated the neighbor’s claims, sent an informant to buy drugs or had himself gone to the home, Forcht said.

Goines created an environment “clearly dangerous to human life” by claiming the “no-knock” warrant was needed because officers would be in serious danger from the couple, Forcht said. Investigators later said they only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house.

Forcht said officers immediately fired their guns upon entering the home. Nicholas, who had cancer, had been sitting on her couch watching television while her husband was asleep in a bedroom, he said.

“But for the actions of Gerald Goines, those two homeowners would still be alive,” Forcht said.

The prosecution’s first witness, Sarah Sanchez, a neighbor and friend, portrayed the couple as people who mainly kept to themselves, had various health problems, lived on a fixed income and loved their dogs.

Goines’ lawyer, Nicole DeBorde, admitted to jurors that her client had lied to obtain the search warrant but, she said, prosecutors had overcharged him for his actions.

“He didn’t murder anybody. He is not legally responsible for murder,” DeBorde said. “This is the case of the wrong charges being filed. There are other consequences for him.”

DeBorde said Nicholas and Tuttle were responsible for their own deaths. Tuttle fired at officers who had identified themselves after coming in, wounding four of them, she said. A fifth officer was also injured during the raid.

“Nicholas’ choices to not respond to instructions by police and to try and grab the gun of a fallen officer is the cause of her death,” DeBorde said.

During afternoon testimony, Goines’ lawyers suggested that the couple were aware that it was police officers who had entered their home because they identified themselves as such and wore tactical gear that bore the word “police.”

Forcht said Tuttle might not have been focused on or been able to read the shirt of the person who had entered his home and fatally shot his wife and dog.

DeBorde has accused prosecutors of generating excess publicity in the case, preventing Goines from getting a fair trial.

If convicted, Goines faces up to life in prison.

Testimony in the trial was to resume Tuesday.

Michael Wynne, a Houston-based criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor not connected to the case, said Goines will have too many hurdles to overcome during his trial.

“Mr. Goines has the best counsel you could possibly get,” Wynne said. “But I think they got an uphill battle here.”

The probe into the drug raid also uncovered allegations of systemic corruption.

A dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad that carried out the raid, including Goines, were later indicted on other charges following a corruption probe. A judge in June dismissed charges against some of them.

Since the raid, prosecutors have reviewed thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines, who also faces federal charges.

One of the other cases tied to Goines that remains under scrutiny is his 2004 drug arrest in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for his drug conviction stemming from his arrest by Goines.

TEXAS (AP) – Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in this fall’s election for president and other top offices. While that’s nothing new, the potential for noncitizens to register or vote has been receiving a lot of attention lately.

Citing an influx of immigrants in recent years at the U.S.-Mexico border, Republicans have raised concerns about the possibility that noncitizens will be voting — something that has rarely occurred in the past. In Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson is seeking to link an extension of federal government spending authority to a proposal requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship when registering people to vote.

In various states, GOP officials have launched reviews of voter rolls, issued executive orders and placed constitutional amendments on state ballots as part of an emphasis on thwarting noncitizen voting. Some Democrats contend the measures could create hurdles for legal voters, are unnecessary and lead people to believe the problem of noncitizens voting is bigger than it really is.
What does the law say?

A 1996 U.S. law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported.

When people register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible, a process that could identify immigrants living in the country illegally.

No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting for state offices such as governor or attorney general. But some municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, do allow voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for school board and city council.
What is Congress doing?

Congress needs to approve a stopgap spending bill before the Sept. 30 end of the budget year to avoid a government shutdown. At the urging of some Republicans, Johnson is seeking to combine a six-month extension of government spending with a measure requiring proof of citizenship, such as birth certificate or passport, to register to vote.

Johnson said Congress has a responsibility to “ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”

The plan is similar to a bill Republicans pushed earlier this year known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. That legislation passed the Republican-led House in July largely along partisan lines but has not come to a vote in the Democratic-led Senate.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday that he opposes the latest Republican attempt to require proof of citizenship for voter registration. He said the stopgap spending bill should be free of “partisan policy changes.”

The Biden administration also has opposed the Republican efforts while asserting that existing laws against noncitizen voting are working.
What does the data say?

Data from states indicates that voting by noncitizens is rare, But Republican officials have highlighted voter registration reviews that turned up potential noncitizens.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said last month that more than 6,500 potential noncitizens have been removed from Texas voter rolls since 2021, including 1,930 with “a voter history” who have been referred for investigation by the attorney general’s office. Texas has almost 18 million registered voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in August that he referred for potential prosecution 138 apparent noncitizens found to have voted in a recent election and 459 more who registered but did not vote. Those figures were higher than reviews from previous years but a small fraction of the more than 8 million registered voters in Ohio.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, recently announced that 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government are being switched to inactive status on the state’s voter registration rolls. They will be required to provide proof of citizenship and fill out a form to vote this fall. Alabama has more than 3 million registered voters.

In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 potential noncitizens tried to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, though election officials flagged them and none was registered. Georgia registered millions of other voters during that time.

Some election administration experts have said the voter roll reviews show that current tools to flag noncitizen voters are working.
What do the courts say?

Arizona provides a case study for the long-running attempts by Republicans to prohibit noncitizen voting.

Under a 2004 voter-approved initiative, Arizona required a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport or other similar document to approve a federal voter registration application. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship for people to vote in federal elections.

The state responded by creating two classes of voters. For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when they register or have it on file with the state. But because that cannot be required in presidential and congressional elections, tens of thousands of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

An August order by a divided U.S. Supreme Court will allow voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” to be rejected by Arizona counties while litigation over the law continues. People will be able to register to vote in presidential and congressional elections using a different federal form that requires people to swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, without requiring proof.
What’s on the ballot?

Republican-led legislatures in eight states have proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots declaring that only citizens can vote.

Proposals in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin would replace existing constitutional provisions stating that “every” citizen or “all” citizens can vote with new wording saying “only” citizens can vote. Supporters contend the current wording does not necessarily bar noncitizens from voting.

In Idaho and Kentucky, the proposed amendments would explicitly state: “No person who is not a citizen of the United States” can vote. Similar wording won approval from Louisiana voters two years ago.

Voters in North Dakota, Colorado, Alabama, Florida and Ohio passed amendments between 2018 and 2022 restricting voting to “only” citizens.
What else are states doing?

Although noncitizen voting already is prohibited in the state constitution, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana is continuing to draw attention to the issue. He recently signed an executive order requiring state agencies that provide voter registration forms to include a written disclaimer that noncitizens are prohibited from voting.

In Georgia, Raffensperger is requiring every polling place to post a sign in English and Spanish warning noncitizens that it is illegal to vote.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, citing “significant growth of the noncitizen population” in the state, set up a special email account to report suspected violations of election laws.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have filed a pair of similar lawsuits in recent weeks that challenge the state’s process for verifying whether a registered voter is a citizen. The lawsuits seek court orders requiring the elections commission to perform checks to ensure there are no registered voters who are noncitizens.

North Carolina Republicans have sued the state election board, alleging it is not enforcing a new law aimed at removing people from voter rolls who seek jury duty exclusions because they are not citizens.

Tennessee’s top election office sent letters in June asking for proof of citizenship from more than 14,000 registered voters, though those who failed to respond won’t be barred from voting. The list was based on data from the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which has information about whether residents were U.S. citizens when they first interacted with that department.

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports immigrants in Dallas contributed nearly a billion dollars in state and local taxes and had billions left in consumer spending power, according to a report released recently by the American Immigration Council in partnership with the city of Dallas. Economic Impact Report: New Americans in Dallas highlights immigrants’ role in the city of Dallas’ workforce as taxpayers, consumers, entrepreneurs and more. In 2022, immigrant households earned $10.7 billion in income, of which $1.6 billion went to federal taxes and $900.6 million to state and local taxes, according to the report. This left households with $8.2 billion in spending power. “This report sheds new light on the important role that immigrants play in the local economy,” said Nan Wu, the American Immigration Council’s research director.

“When people think about their daily lives, they are not aware of all the different ways that immigrants contribute to their local communities,” Wu said. The report, published in April, says that immigrants make up 23.2% of Dallas’s population, and approximately one-third of households had at least one immigrant resident. Immigrants represent 28.4% of Dallas’ employed labor force, and in industries such as construction, they represent 63% of the workforce, according to the report. They also represent 26.4% of STEM workers. Ricardo Martínez, originally from Durango, Mexico, arrived in Dallas in 1998 and began working in the construction industry. He was one of the nearly 10,000 workers who helped build Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers’ home. “I started out picking up trash at construction sites, and little by little, I moved up the ranks,” he said in a 2020 interview, when he was a crew supervisor at Globe Life Field.

FORT WORTH – After Denton residents took the unprecedented step of banning hydraulic fracturing in the North Texas city a decade ago, the powerful oil and gas industry and allies in the state Legislature wasted little time in striking back, according to the Fort Worth Report. House Bill 40 went into effect the next year, not only overturning Denton’s fracking ban but blocking all Texas cities and counties from asserting regulatory authority over oil and gas drilling. As it turned out, the retaliatory strike by the Texas Legislature was hardly a one-off. Players on both sides of the issue now look back on House Bill 40 as the starting point of a yearslong legislative assault, embraced by Gov. Greg Abbott, that has transferred a succession of local powers into the hands of state government. The most sweeping power realignment emerged from last year’s Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, designed to bar cities and counties from passing ordinances that challenge state authority in a broad range of policy categories, including business and commerce, finance, labor and agriculture.

Architects of House Bill 2127 say the measure was needed to replace a patchwork of often conflicting local laws with a predictable regulatory framework developed and governed by the state. Dubbed by opponents as “The Death Star” because of its broad impact on local governments, House Bill 2127 was declared unconstitutional by Austin State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble days before it took effect on Sept. 1, 2023. The ruling is being appealed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and is likely to be ultimately decided by the Texas Supreme Court. In earlier years, the Republican-led Legislature also overrode local governments in preempting ordinances that included banning puppy mills, curtailing plastic bags and establishing local policies regarding sick leave and evictions. Abbott also signed a 2017 law transferring regulatory authority over ride-sharing companies to the state from local governments after companies like Uber and Lyft protested local requirements such as fingerprinting drivers.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that as a tropical disturbance continued to develop in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, CenterPoint Energy representatives said they were monitoring weather forecasts and preparing for potential severe weather along the Texas coast and in the Houston area. The idea is to avoid widespread power outages such as those following Hurricane Beryl this summer. The tropical wave, which could eventually become Tropical Storm Francine, had been in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche as of Sunday afternoon, the same time experts suggested the disturbance had a 90% chance of developing into a tropical depression or storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.

CenterPoint is taking several steps to prepare for possible severe weather, including prepping crews and equipment, securing work sites and securing additional resources from mutual assistance companies, the company said in a news release. Additionally, the company is reminding customers to follow natural gas and electric safety guidelines as well as prepare themselves and their homes for severe weather by assembling a storm preparedness kit, which includes supplies like flashlights, water, nonperishable food items, flashlights and a first aid kit. Individuals who require electricity for life-sustaining equipment are encouraged to make separate arrangements to ensure they have power, according to the news release. “We have a plan to address this potential storm, and we are executing our plan,” said Darin Carroll, senior vice president of electric business, in the news release. “Although the exact path and intensity of this potential storm are still unclear, we want to assure our customers that we are preparing for impact. We encourage everyone across the Greater Houston area and the larger Gulf Coast region to get their plans in place now for their families, loved ones, homes and businesses.”

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle says With oil prices at their lowest level of the year, OPEC+ is again struggling with when to begin increasing crude production, announcing Thursday it was delaying plans to begin unwinding previous supply cuts by two months. Complicating the decision-making process is the degree to which OPEC+ members such as United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kazakhstan are now reliant on investment from foreign oil companies like Texas-based Exxon Mobil and Chevron, along with European majors BP and Total. Foreign investment in Middle East oil production has increased more than 50% to $62 billion over the past five years, increasing pressure on member states in OPEC+ to increase production, according to analysis by S&P Global.

“The aim of foreign investors is not to spend billions of dollars on new oil wells and then shut them in,” said Jim Burkhard, a vice president at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “If OPEC members want to continue to attract foreign investment, their investors need need to see some type of return. It’s part of the equation. You can’t untangle that.” OPEC, the Austria-based energy organization, has been setting production quotas for member nations in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South America since the 1960s, raising and lowering global oil supplies in a bid to control commodity prices. For member states, many of whom depend on oil revenues for a large portion of their national budgets, it’s a matter of balancing of short-term financial needs with maintaining high prices for their crude. And between economic unease around the globe, along with increased production from the United States, Canada and non-OPEC members in Latin America, OPEC has been holding back production in recent years to try and raise prices.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports Gov. Greg Abbott is directing the Texas Division of Emergency Management to prepare for additional state emergency response resources ahead of potential impacts from tropical activity in the Gulf of Mexico. This comes as CenterPoint Energy representatives announced they were monitoring and preparing for severe weather as a way to avoid widespread power outages such as those following Hurricane Beryl this summer. According to the National Weather Service, a storm system moving through the Gulf of Mexico has a 90% chance of tropical development, with increasing likelihood of development into a tropical storm or hurricane, as written in the release. According to Houston Chronicle’s meteorologist Justin Ballard, heavy rain could be expected in the Houston area, with the potential for localized flooding.

“Texas stands ready to provide all available resources needed to support Texans as a severe storm system begins to move along the Gulf Coast that will bring potential flash flooding threats and heavy rain,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement, noting the state’s division of emergency management would be deployed Monday morning. “Texans are urged to take the necessary precautions for potential tropical weather, including remaining weather aware, monitoring road conditions and having an emergency plan to ensure safety of themselves and their loved ones.” The Texas Division of Emergency Management has issued an activation notice to the Texas Emergency Management Council agencies, increasing readiness level of the Texas State Operations Center to a 24-hour escalated response operations, a news release stated. Additional resources include search and rescue boat teams, helicopters with hoist capabilities, medical support teams, saw crews, support for agriculture and livestock needs, and teams to monitor road conditions and outages. These resources come from several agencies including the state’s department of public safety, transportation, health services; Texas National Guard, Texas A&M, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Public Utility Commission of Texas, Railroad Commission of Texas and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.