CINCINNATI

Appeals court: autoworker was a guard in Nazi camps

A federal appeals court Friday upheld a judge’s decision to strip retired autoworker John Demjanjuk of U.S. citizenship, saying the government had proven he was a Nazi death-camp guard.

The Justice Department said afterward it would begin what could be a years-long process to force the Ukranian-born Demjanjuk, 84, to leave the United States.

The unanimous ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government had provided “clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence” of Demjanjuk’s guard service.

Though it years ago abandoned a claim that he was the notorious Ivan the Terrible at Poland’s Treblinka death camp, the Justice Department maintained that Demjanjuk had persecuted civilians during World War II at five Nazi concentration camps, including Trawniki, Sobibor and Flossenburg.

Demjanjuk, 84, has said he was the victim of mistaken identity.

Alabama

Court rejects ouster appeal of ‘Commandments’ justice

A stand-in Supreme Court on Friday unanimously rejected Roy Moore’s bid, 7-0, to be reinstated as Alabama’s chief justice, the latest legal chapter in the saga surrounding his fight to keep a Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse rotunda.

“Chief Justice Moore cites no authority that provides an exception to the rule of law that one must obey a court order or that would allow disobedience to a court order on the basis of one’s religious beliefs,” the court wrote.

The justices also denied Moore’s request to lessen his punishment.

Moore was expelled from office for refusing to obey a federal court order to move his 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.

Seven retired judges were selected to serve on the replacement Supreme Court that heard Moore’s appeal.

California

Electronic voting scrapped

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley on Friday withdrew his approval of electronic voting machines throughout the state — a step that could force many voters to return to paper ballots in November.

Shelley’s decision, which experts called the most significant setback yet in the United States’ shift to computerized voting, allows 10 of 14 California counties that use electronic voting to reapply for certification if they meet 23 new security conditions.

The remaining four counties, San Diego, San Joaquin, Solano and Kern, are banned from using their touch-screen systems in November. Shelley also called on Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer to investigate the company that made the equipment in those counties, Diebold Election Systems, for allegedly lying to state officials.

Across California, registrars of voters said they were surprised by Shelley’s action.