North Dakota
Clerkships to address rural lawyer shortage
DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — A partnership of the North Dakota state courts, the bar association and the University of North Dakota law school is looking to address a shortage of lawyers in rural counties with clerkships for law students.
The program funds stipends for three clerkships this summer. Judge Gail Hagerty, who wrote the proposal for the courts and Legislature, said the single attorney in a county may feel like retiring but is unable to do so because it would leave a void in the community.
“We decided we want to try to figure out a way to make law students, young people who are beginning their practice, aware of all the benefits of working in rural communities,” Hagerty told the Dickinson Press.
Slope County in southwestern North Dakota is one of four counties with no attorneys, and Billings and Dunn counties have one each, according to December 2013 data compiled by Laurie Guenther of the State Board of Law Examiners.
Six other counties each have one.
Tony Weiler, executive director of the North Dakota State Bar Association, said when an attorney in an underserved county leaves, there are really no successors.
“In the past, there used to be an attorney or two coming up behind them and now when they retire you might not have an attorney for miles and miles and miles,” Weller said.
The American Bar Association has taken up the rural courts issue on a national level. The ABA’s House of Delegates passed a resolution in 2012 urging states to support efforts to address the decline in rural lawyers and “access to justice issues for residents in rural America.”
If the North Dakota program is successful, it could be adopted by state’s attorney offices or private practitioners, Hagerty has said.
Weiler said the issue has been elevated lately with the trend of people leaving small towns for bigger communities.
“People are not out in South Heart, they’re in Dickinson,” he said. “They’re not in Flasher, they’re up in Bismarck.”
Pennsylvania
Couple jailed in Christmas Eve barbecue spat
WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania couple remains jailed after police say they fought with each other on Christmas Eve after the woman forgot to bring home barbecue sauce from the store.
State police from Belle Vernon say 42-year-old Tracy Lee Giffin bit her boyfriend, 56-year-old William Edward Balas, on the hand and nose and that he struck her in the eye during the fight. Troopers say both were injured by the time they arrived at the couple’s Denbo home about 11 p.m. Tuesday.
The couple was arraigned early Christmas morning on charges of simple assault and harassment.
Online court records show they’re scheduled for a preliminary hearing Jan. 7. Those records don’t list defense attorneys for the couple, who both remained in the Washington County Jail on Thursday.
Kansas
State courts dealing with budget shortfall
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas court employees could face 10 days of furlough as the judicial branch tries to handle an $8.25 million budget shortfall, according to a committee report.
The mandatory unpaid leave would cut $2.5 million from the deficit, according to a committee appointed by the Kansas Supreme Court in October to look for ways to deal with the shortfall. The committee forwarded its recommendations to Chief Justice Lawton Nuss on Dec. 13.
The panel said much of the balance would come from delayed judicial appointments, reduced training hours, eliminating about 20 court service officer positions and leaving more than 100 court positions unfilled in fiscal year 2015, The Wichita Eagle reported. The committee also recommended leaving 120 non-judicial positions unfilled to save $3.75 million.
“It will have a devastating impact,” said Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Karen Arnold-Burger, who chaired the committee. “If they do it in one fell swoop, it closes the courthouses for two weeks.”
Since 2009, the committee said, the judicial branch has maintained about 80 unfilled positions, which has saved about $2.5 million annually. Adding 40 more unfilled positions would increase the annual savings by $1.25 million. The positions include court reporters, court clerks, administrative assistants and court service officers.
Sedgwick County Chief Judge James Fleetwood said if the 2014 Legislature doesn’t find more court funds, the shortfall could lead to delays in obtaining everything from marriage licenses to protection from abuse orders.
“I would anticipate that it could take four or five months just to get the dockets back in shape,” he said.
North Carolina
Inmate wins lawsuit against administrator
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A former inmate at the Craggy Correctional Center has won a federal sexual abuse lawsuit against a former prison supervisor.
The Asheville Citizen-Times reported that a federal jury in Winston-Salem ruled that the male inmate’s constitutional rights were violated by 57-year-old Edith Pope, the assistant superintendent at the prison in Buncombe County.
The jury awarded the inmate just $1 in compensation.
Pope had pleaded guilty to sexual battery by a custodian in 2006 was sentenced to about two years in prison.
The inmate’s lawyer, D.J. O’Brien, says the verdict shows Pope forced his client to have a nonconsensual sexual relationship with her.
The inmate had been convicted in 1990 in Polk County of second-degree murder, arson and burglary and was sentenced to life in prison.
Indiana
State high court rules in evidence testimony case
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that criminal defendants aren’t entitled to question in court every person who handled evidence used against them.
Scott Speers was convicted of burglary and sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing guns from a Martinsville gun shop. The 36-year-old argued on appeal that his right of confrontation was violated because the state failed to present for cross-examination a lab technician who transferred blood evidence from broken glass onto a swab for DNA testing.
The Times of Munster reports Speers maintained that the blood transfer was a “crucial step” in the evidence-gathering process.
But the state Supreme Court unanimously rejected that claim. Justice Robert Rucker wrote that it’s up to prosecutors to decide which steps in the evidence chain require testimony.
