LAWRENCE — Immigrant rights activists in Massachusetts are calling for the release of two local organizers detained by federal immigration authorities in New Hampshire.
Cosecha Massachusetts is hosting a vigil Monday night in front of Lawrence City Hall to support residents Nelson Lopez and Heiner Nolasco.
The advocacy group says the two men were detained May 13 after the car they were riding in was stopped for speeding and local New Hampshire police turned them over to federal authorities.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said he’d comment later.
Cosecha says Lopez and Nolasco are currently being held in Dover, New Hampshire.
The organization says the two men have been active in the campaign to pass legislation allowing Massachusetts residents to apply for a driver’s license, regardless of their immigration status.
BROCKTON — A man who spent three decades in prison for a killing he says he didn’t commit is heading back to trial.
The Enterprise reports that the murder retrial of Darrell Jones in the November 1985 killing of Guillermo Rodriguez in the parking lot of a Brockton sandwich shop is scheduled to start Monday.
Jones was originally convicted in 1986. After decades of appeals, he was released in 2017 after a judge ruled he didn’t get a fair trial.
Jones’ attorneys say their client did not shoot Rodriguez and was convicted because prosecutors broke rules about turning over evidence because of jurors’ racial bias.
The Plymouth district attorney’s office argued they had the evidence to retry Jones and a judge ruled in April that a second trial would go forward.
BOSTON — A nurse charged with diluting morphine dosages for an elderly hospice patient wants to change her plea.
The Eagle-Tribune reports that the attorney for 47-year-old Lauren Perrin, of Haverhill, requested a plea change hearing in federal court.
Authorities say Perrin diluted the morphine prescribed for an 88-year-old hospice patient in November 2017.
Prosecutors say the patient in Perrin’s care at Maplewood Care and Rehabilitation Center in Amesbury was diagnosed with dementia, frequent seizures, a leg fracture and shingles. She’s charged with diluting the morphine to 19% to 29% of its prescribed strength.
The patient received diluted morphine dosages until her death.
Perrin pleaded not guilty in federal court in March to tampering with morphine.
She faces up to 10 years in prison.
From Associated Press