The Tenth Circuit said Tuesday that federal law governing railroad operations preempts an Oklahoma statute that penalizes railroads if their trains block grade crossings for more than 10 minutes, handing BNSF Railway Co. a win in its constitutional challenge to the Sooner State law.
Updated: 4:50 PM CST Dec 18, 2020 KOCO Staff McLoud resident Christopher Steven Ledbetter has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for illegally possessing a fully automatic machine gun, prosecutors announced Friday.Ledbetter, 29, was sentenced to 57 months, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma. In March, according to the release, the FBI learned that Ledbetter might have had the machine gun. Agents reviewed “publicly available materials on the internet” that showed Ledbetter shooting what appeared to be a fully automatic weapon and threatening law enforcement.On June 4, the FBI encountered Ledbetter in Oklahoma City, according to the release. In his vehicle, they discovered a fully automatic “AK-47 style carbine machinegun.” Agents searched his home in McLoud and found two homemade grenades, two homemade Molotov cocktails, as well as stolen firearms. Ledbetter was arrested and confe
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Court Strikes Down Oklahoma Crossing Law
By Eric Berger
A U.S. federal district court has struck down an Oklahoma state law prohibiting railroads from stopping a train on a grade crossing for more than ten minutes, stating the state had exceeded its regulatory authority in violation of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act.
The decision was issued by U.S. District Judge Charles B. Goodwin on November 30, who previously granted a BNSF Railway request for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the law on Oct. 30, 2019.
Passed in 2019, the law carried a $1,000 fine. Exceptions to the 10-minute limit included stops for accidents, derailment, a mechanical failure, a bridge washout or a storm