TUCSON, Ariz. — Government prosecutors in Tucson federal court are set to open a retrial today of a humanitarian aid worker who helped migrants in the Arizona desert. The original trial of Scott Warren on charges related to providing food, water and shelter to undocumented migrants ended in July with a deadlocked jury.

The 36-year-old Warren, a geography professor and volunteer with the aid group No More Deaths, was arrested in January 2018 by Border Patrol officers in Ajo , near the U.S.-Mexico border. According to Paige Corich-Kleim, media coordinator with No More Deaths, the group plans to continue its protests against the government.

"Throughout the trial we're going to be continuing our work, so we've kept putting water out and providing humanitarian aid throughout this whole trial,” Corich-Kleim said. “We'll also every morning just have people gathered outside the court for support and then we're going to be packing the courtroom."

Prosecutors are seeking to convict Warren on two counts of human smuggling, a felony that could bring a 10-year prison term. Four other aid volunteers were convicted on misdemeanor charges last year for leaving food and water in a refuge near the border.

The Tucson medical examiner's office said more than 3,000 migrants have died in the southern Arizona desert over the past 20 years. Corich-Kleim said hundreds more may have been saved by providing food and water near the border.

"The arrest came a couple hours after we released a report and a video of Border Patrol agents destroying humanitarian aid supplies,” she said. “The arrest is pretty retaliatory, kind of, against the organization for speaking out."

She expressed optimism that Warren would not be convicted this time around either.

"During the initial trial, it was two counts of harboring and also conspiracy to transport and harbor, and they dropped the conspiracy charges,” Corich-Kleim said. “I think throughout the trial it became pretty clear that they didn't really have much of a case to back up those charges. But I think the same can be said for the harboring charges."

Warren's case has drawn both national and international attention, with a group of United Nations human rights experts unsuccessfully calling on the U.S. government to drop the charges. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.


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A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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