Alcohol intoxication

Two 21-year-olds, LSU student Leah Fonte and her fiancé Shane Hirstius, were struck and killed early Sunday while walking along Nicholson Drive near the Tigerland bar district in Baton Rouge. Police arrested Mia Dawson, 20, on charges including drunk driving, hit and run, and two counts of vehicular homicide. The deaths, along with a separate fatal pedestrian crash the same weekend, prompted Gov. Jeff Landry, LSU President Wade Rousse, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards, and state transportation officials to pledge coordinated action. A road-improvement project already underway includes a new shared-use path, added lighting, and safer crossings, with officials now discussing interim measures to protect pedestrians before construction finishes.

Three men U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace named as "predators" in a 2025 House floor speech — financier John Douglas Osborne, her ex-fiancé Brendan Patrick Bryant, and former soccer club owner Eric Bernard Bowman — were arrested Oct. 14 in connection with the alleged 2018 sexual assault of an intoxicated woman on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. Osborne faces assault and criminal sexual conduct charges; Bryant is charged with voyeurism; Bowman is accused of voyeurism, obstructing justice and naming a sexual assault victim.

A fourth man Mace publicly branded a predator, Brian Musgrave, will not be charged. Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote to the State Law Enforcement Division that "not a scintilla of evidence" supports Mace's allegations against him, warning her credibility would be undermined if called as a trial witness. Two other prosecutors who reviewed the probe similarly called her claims baseless. A federal judge dismissed Musgrave's defamation suit against Mace in August 2025, citing congressional immunity under the Westfall Act. Musgrave's attorney says Mace has never apologized.

The Ohio Supreme Court has unanimously reinstated Robin McClain's rape conviction, reversing an 8th District Court of Appeals ruling that found insufficient evidence he knew his victim was "substantially impaired" during a 2010 assault. The case stemmed from a March 2010 incident in which a woman at a West Park bar lost most of her memory after sipping a drink and woke up injured in a parking lot. The case went cold until 2020, when Cuyahoga County's GOLD cold-case DNA unit used forensic genealogy to identify McClain, later confirmed through DNA from a discarded cigarette butt. A jury convicted McClain of substantial-impairment rape in 2023, and he was sentenced to six years in prison.

The appeals court had vacated the conviction in March 2025, citing unclear legal standards for impairment and ineffective defense counsel. The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling the victim's testimony alone was sufficient for a jury to find impairment. Prosecutors called the decision a win for sexual assault survivors. McClain remains incarcerated, with release scheduled for November 2030.