Court: No money for pre-trial custody for wrongly convicted
DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan Court of Appeals says a law compensating people who were wrongly convicted doesn’t cover time spent in pre-trial custody.
Davontae Sanford is seeking money for 198 days spent in a juvenile facility before he was convicted and sentenced for murder in 1988. His convictions were overturned after more than eight years in prison, and he was paid $408,000.
But the appeals court says state law makes no reference to compensating people for being locked up without bond before trial. The time can be substantial. For Sanford, 198 days would be worth an additional $27,000.
The appeals court says the “plain language of the statute is unambiguous.”
Under state law, someone who is wrongly convicted can get $50,000 for every year in prison.
Michigan faces lawsuit over scabies at prison for women
YPSILANTI (AP) — A federal lawsuit says inmates at Michigan’s only prison for women suffered severe itching and permanent scarring because officials took more than a year to diagnose and properly treat a scabies outbreak.
The Detroit Free Press reports the lawsuit on behalf of prisoner Rebecca Smith was filed Thursday.
Smith’s lawyer says he has letters from more than 200 inmates at Huron Valley prison near Ypsilanti who suffered during the outbreak of parasitic mites that burrow under the skin and lay eggs.
Corrections officials have said over the past year they were working to deal with the rashes and determine the source.
Jury awards millions for cancer diagnosis error
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Polk County jury has awarded $12.25 million to a man who learned after prostate cancer surgery that a mistake had been made with his tissue samples: He didn’t have cancer.
The jury said Iowa Clinic and its pathologist should pay 67-year-old Rickie Huitt and his wife the damages. The lawsuit they filed said Huitt’s tissue sample slides had been mixed up with those of a man who did have prostate cancer. The subsequent misdiagnosis led to removal of Huitt’s prostate gland in an April 2017 surgery that left him impotent and incontinent.
The Des Moines Register reports that the clinic acknowledged the error but fought the $15 million in damages the Huitts sought in their lawsuit. A lawyer for the clinic and the pathologist recommended that jurors award the Huitts $750,000.
Deputies respond to home invasion, find robot vacuum cleaner
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Deputies in Portland responded to a possible home invasion, but the intruder they found wasn't alive or a person.
It was a robotic vacuum cleaner.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports a house sitter in Cedar Hills called 911, saying someone was inside the bathroom.
The Washington County Sheriff's Office says deputies entered the home and ordered the burglar out, but nothing happened.
Deputies then opened the bathroom door with guns drawn and discovered the automatic vacuum cleaner.
Sgt. Danny DiPietro says this encounter was his first “Roomba burglar” in 13 years on the job.
He says the office is still “having a good laugh about it.”
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