By KATE BRUMBACK

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia prosecutors defending the 2000 murder conviction of a onetime Black Panther leader known as H. Rap Brown say new DNA evidence still points strongly to his guilt in the shooting of two sheriff’s deputies. However, they also accuse the case’s original lead prosecutor, now a Fulton County judge who has handled several high-profile political cases, of “grave and clear” misconduct.

The striking Wednesday filing by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office acknowledges serious wrongdoing by the former prosecutor and an FBI agent involved in the original investigation. But it argues that modern DNA testing, combined with ballistic evidence and trial testimony, leaves little doubt that Brown — by then known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin — was responsible for the attack that killed one deputy and wounded another outside of Al-Amin’s Atlanta home.

The former prosecutor, Robert McBurney, is a superior court judge and has been involved in some of the most politically charged cases in the country. Prosecutors described his conduct in Al-Amin’s trial as “the most egregious” issue in the case.

FILE – Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seen at the Georgia State Capitol on Dec. 17, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

Despite standing by the conviction, Willis’ office said it does “not object to a hearing to evaluate the case in its entirety,” potentially keeping alive a public reexamination of a prosecution that has long divided civil rights advocates and law enforcement.

Al-Amin died in prison in November, but his family wants a hearing to clear his name, their attorney Mawuli Davis said, adding, “His legacy is still at the center of this.”

The lead prosecutor

McBurney oversaw the special grand jury Willis used in her investigation that eventually resulted in the indictment of Trump and others over allegations that they illegally tried to overturn the president’s narrow 2020 election loss in Georgia. Notably, though, McBurney barred Willis from seeking charges against then-state Sen. Burt Jones because she had hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent in the lieutenant governor’s race, which McBurney ruled created an “actual and untenable” conflict of interest.

FILE – Chief Judge Robert McBurney, of the Superior Court of Fulton County, sits in his courtroom, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

McBurney also declared Georgia’s restrictive abortion law unconstitutional — a finding the state Supreme Court has vacated in a case that is ongoing.

“A trifecta of issues”

“This case had a trifecta of issues which undermined the process and the public’s confidence in justice,” the filing says.

During closing arguments at trial, McBurney displayed a chart titled “Questions for the defendant” and asked questions meant to focus the jury’s attention on the fact that Al-Amin didn’t testify. Al-Amin also had court permission to remain seated during the trial for religious reasons, including not standing when the jury entered. McBurney implored the jury, “Don’t stand for him.”

Federal courts have ruled that McBurney violated Al-Amin’s constitutional rights, but that it’s unlikely his actions substantially affected the verdict.

This week’s filing says McBurney “crossed the line from aggressive advocacy into misconduct that undermined the core principles of justice,” accusing him of misrepresenting evidence and withholding critical information from the defense, among other things.

“These were not minor oversights; they reflected a troubling pattern of behavior that prioritized winning over truth, and conviction over justice,” the filing says.

McBurney did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment.

FBI Special Agent James Campbell approached Al-Amin while he was on the ground in handcuffs, kicked and spit on him, and said, “This is what we do to cop killers,” the filing says. A reprimand of Campbell “did not clear SA Campbell’s stain on the investigation,” it says.

Lawyers for Al-Amin have also maintained that Campbell planted the guns used to shoot the deputies at the site where Al-Amin was arrested.

The Associated Press was unable to find contact information for Campbell to seek comment.

Campbell had been transferred to Atlanta after shooting an unarmed Muslim man in the back of the head, the filing says. That man’s supporters accused Campbell of planting a gun found at the scene.

The judge did not allow the jury to hear about the prior shooting after the defense presented newspaper articles about it, wanting to use that shooting to demonstrate bias and motive to plant guns. If defense attorneys had presented recently interviewed witnesses rather than relying on articles, the judge likely would have allowed the jury to consider that information, the new filing argues.

New DNA evidence

Al-Amin’s lawyers argued that nothing connected Al-Amin to the guns used to shoot the deputies. Willis’ office used DNA testing that wasn’t available at the time of the trial to test the guns and related items.

The tests excluded Al-Amin from the DNA found on both guns. But Al-Amin’s DNA was identified on a leather belt wrapped around one of the guns, the filing says. That evidence is a strong indication of his guilt, especially when paired with prior ballistics evidence and testimony, the filing says.

The shooting

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As a radical activist in the 1960s, Al-Amin once said violence was “as American as cherry pie” and that Black people would use violence, if needed, to fight oppression.

He converted to Islam during a prison stint and moved to Atlanta in the 1970s, becoming the leader of one of the nation’s largest black Muslim groups, the National Ummah.

On March 16, 2000, Fulton County sheriff’s deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to Atlanta’s West End neighborhood, where Al-Amin lived, was an imam and owned a grocery store, to serve a warrant for failure to appear in court on charges of driving a stolen car and impersonating a police officer during a traffic stop the previous year.

English testified at trial that Al-Amin fired a high-powered assault rifle when the deputies tried to arrest him. Then, prosecutors said, he used a handgun to fire three shots into Kinchen’s groin as the wounded officer lay in the street.

He was arrested four days later in White Hall, Alabama, a small town where he had helped develop a Muslim community.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge has ordered a takeover of health care operations in Arizona’s prisons and will appoint an official to run the system after years of complaints about poor medical and mental health care.

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The decision on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver came after her 2022 verdict that concluded Arizona had violated prisoners’ rights by providing inadequate care that led to suffering and preventable deaths.

Silver wrote that the state hasn’t gotten a semblance of compliance with court-ordered changes and the Constitution after nearly 14 years of litigation, saying “this approach has not only failed completely, but, if continued, would be nothing short of judicial indulgence of deeply entrenched unconstitutional conduct.”

The judge said prisoners still remain exposed to “an intolerable grave and immediate threat of continuing harm and suffering because the systemic deficiencies pervade the administration of health care.”

The Associated Press left a message for the corrections department after the order was issued. The state and attorneys representing prisoners have 60 days to submit a list of candidates to run health and mental health care operations in prisons.

“This decision means that an independent authority will be able to implement the systemic changes necessary to ensure that medical and mental health care meets constitutional standards,” said David Fathi, one of the lawyers representing the prisoners. “This is a life-saving intervention, and it brings hope that the preventable suffering and deaths that have haunted Arizona’s prison system for over a decade can finally end.”

Lawyers for prisoners say Arizona has made few improvements since the verdict and asked the judge for the more drastic remedy of creating such a “receivership,” arguing system remains broken and prisoners who need care are still in danger.

For over a decade, state government has been dogged by criticism that its health care system for the 25,000 inmates in Arizona’s state-run prisons was run shoddily and callously.

The state had vowed to overhaul medical and mental health services for prisoners in a 2014 settlement, but was soon accused of failing to keep many of those promises. That led to $2.5 million in contempt of court fines against the state and, eventually, the revocation of the agreement by Silver, who explained that corrections officials had shown little interest in making the changes.

The judge then ruled against the state at a 2022 trial, issuing an injunction requiring corrections authorities to fix the constitutional violations.

While attorneys for prisoners say the state lacks the leadership to comply within a reasonable amount of time, the corrections department said it has transformed the prison health care system over the last two years, such as expanding access to treatments, increasing staff and opening medical housing units.

Corrections officials say the opposing side refuses to acknowledge their progress and “focus on the reputation and circumstances of the past rather than recognizing or even supporting the good work of the present.” Lawyers for the department say the agency’s leadership has been acting in good faith with the court’s orders.

In September 2019, lawyers representing the prisoners made a similar request for a takeover, but Silver shied away from it, saying she would revive that possibility if the state acts in bad faith or fails to comply with the court-ordered changes. Past receiverships have been ordered for prisons in other states. In California in 2005, a federal judge seized control of the prison medical system after finding that an average of one inmate a week was dying of medical neglect or malpractice.

The Arizona lawsuit does not cover the nearly 10,000 people incarcerated in private prisons for state convictions.

By MARCIA DUNN

NASA’s new boss blasted Boeing and the space agency Thursday for Starliner’s botched flight that left two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station.

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Administrator Jared Isaacman said poor leadership and decision-making at Boeing led to Starliner’s troubles. He also blamed NASA managers for failing to intervene and get Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back more quickly.

The two test pilots, now retired from NASA, spent more than nine months at the station before catching a lift back with SpaceX last March.

Isaacman said Starliner’s problems must be better understood and fixed before any more astronauts strap in.

In a sweeping and emphatic move, Isaacman upgraded the seriousness of Starliner’s troubled astronaut debut, declaring it a “Type A mishap,” something that could endanger a crew. Both the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters also involved cultural and leadership missteps. It is a mistake that Starliner was not designated a serious mishap right from the start, Isaacman said, citing internal pressure to keep Boeing on board and flights on track.

“This is just about doing the right thing,” he said. “This is about getting the record straight.”

Thruster failures and other problems almost prevented Wilmore and Williams from reaching the space station following liftoff in 2024. The thruster analyses continue by Boeing.

“We almost did have a really terrible day,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, referring to a potential loss of life.

NASA issued its 312-page Starliner report while conducting a second fueling test of its moon rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Hydrogen fuel leaks spoiled the first dress rehearsal earlier this month and stalled astronauts’ first flight to the moon since 1972.

Boeing said the findings will help the company move forward in ensuring crew safety, and stressed that the Starliner program would continue. Time is running out as NASA proceeds toward decommissioning the space station in 2030, although Isaacman, a self-financed space traveler, foresees “endless demand” for multiple pathways to orbit once private outposts are booming.

There is no timeline for when Boeing can launch Starliner on a supply run, essentially another test flight to prove its safety before astronaut flights. The grounding leaves SpaceX as the only U.S. taxi service for astronauts.

“Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team,” Boeing said in a statement.

Even before the troubled astronaut flight, Boeing was struggling with Starliner issues. The first test flight in 2019, without anyone on board, ended up in the wrong orbit and forced a repeat mission, which had its own difficulties.

NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, in the wake of the space shuttles’ retirement, to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab. Their contracts are worth billions. SpaceX just delivered its 13th crew to the space station for NASA since 2020.

Kshatriya said the space agency must do better moving forward.

“We have to own our part of this,” he said. As for Wilmore and Williams, “We failed them.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO (AP) — Memorial services honoring the life of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. will be expanded beyond Chicago with events in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, the late civil rights leader’s organization announced Thursday.

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Jackson, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate, died earlier this week at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and talk.

Jackson will still lie in repose next week at the Chicago headquarters of his Rainbow PUSH Coalition with a public celebration of life and homegoing services to follow, though dates for Chicago events have been changed. Formal services were added, scheduled from March 1 to March 4 in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, where Jackson was born and raised.

Rainbow PUSH did not offer further details.

Jackson’s adult children gathered outside the family home in Chicago on Wednesday, saying the funeral services would be large gatherings where everyone would be welcomed. They also vowed to continue his decades of advocacy.

“Although his body is absent from us, his spirit suffuses and infuses us, and it charges us to continue with the work,” said Santita Jackson, his eldest child.

In Chicago, a public celebration of life will be held at House of Hope, a 10,000-seat church, on March 6, followed by private homegoing services the next day at Rainbow PUSH, which will be livestreamed.

Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protégé of King, joining the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers. Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was killed.