STATEWIDE

BILL TO BE INTRODUCED TO AWARD MOTLEY CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL

Senators Schumer and Clinton introduced a bill on February 1 to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the first black woman elected to the New York State Senate in 1964, Judge Constance Baker Motley. “She was a focused, motivated, and very effective advocate and spokeswoman for civil rights and social justice,” Mr. Schumer said. After earning a law degree from Columbia University, Motley worked with Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She also served as the only woman on the legal team that won the landmark desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. A champion for civil rights and social justice, she went on to argue 10 major civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, winning all but one. One of the victories was James Meredith’s case to gain admission to the University of Mississippi. “A giant of the legal profession, she will be remembered not only for her lasting contributions to American jurisprudence but to our society as a whole,” Mrs. Clinton said. President Johnson appointed Motley in 1966 to the Southern District of New York. She rose to the position of chief judge in 1982, and earned senior status four years later. Motley passed away in September 2005 at 84 years old.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

JUDGE: EX-EPA CHIEF SENT PEOPLE BACK TO LOWER MANHATTAN TOO SOON

A judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman yesterday for reassuring Manhattan residents soon after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that the environment was safe to return to homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING TEENAGE MOM AND BABY

Police are looking for a missing teen and her young infant, police said yesterday. Nina Spiro, who is 14 years old, was last seen at her Forest Parkway home in Queens on January 29 around 4 a.m.The teen was not getting along with her family, which probably led to her running away with her 3-week-old daughter, Madison, police said. The girl has contacted her family to tell them that she and the baby are safe, but she has not told them of her whereabouts.

– Special to the Sun

TWO BABIES DIE IN UNRELATED INCIDENTS

In two separate incidents, two babies died yesterday, police said. Nine-month-old Liyah Atkinson died after becoming submerged in a bathtub late Wednesday night in Harlem. Her mother, Netty Hampton, 25, told police she left her daughter in a safety seat in the bathtub for a few minutes while she tended to the girl’s twin brother in another room. When she returned, she found the girl submerged in water, police said. A spokeswoman for the Administration for Children’s Services said the agency did not have a history with the family. In another incident, 5-month-old Na-irb Whitaker was taken to Harlem Hospital by his parents after the boy’s father woke up around 6 a.m. and found his son unconscious, police said.The baby had been sleeping in bed between his parents. No criminality is suspected in either case, although both deaths will be investigated by the Medical Examiner’s office, which has investigated a rash of child fatalities in recent weeks. In the case of a 4-year-old Bronx boy who died earlier this week, the Medical Examiners’s office ruled his death a homicide yesterday, a spokeswoman said. Quachaun Brown’s mother and her boyfriend have been charged in his murder.

– Special to the Sun

IN THE COURTS

MAN WHO SHOT POLICEMEN CONVICTED OF MURDER

A Brooklyn man who shot two policemen was convicted of first-degree murder yesterday. A jury found Marlon Legere guilty of two counts of murder in the September 2004 deaths of Detectives Robert Parker, 43, and Patrick Rafferty, 39. The detectives were responding to a 911 call at Legere’s mother’s home when Legere wrestled Detective Parker’s gun away from him and fatally shot both officers. Despite their wounds, the detectives reportedly managed to call 911 and shoot Legere in the legs as he was trying to escape. Following the conviction, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commended the jury’s decision, calling it a “ray of brightness through the clouds.” According to a spokesman from the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, Legere faces a sentence of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced on February 22.

– Special to the Sun