Rhode Island
Law school to honor 1st black female lawyer
BRISTOL, R.I. (AP) — A law school in Rhode Island says it’s dedicating a classroom to the state’s first black female lawyer.
Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol says it will honor Dorothy Russell Crockett Bartleson, who was admitted to the bar in 1932 as the state’s seventh female lawyer, Tuesday. She was 21 years old at the time.
The school says research indicates she was the only black woman admitted to the state bar until the 1970s.
RWU Law Dean Michael Yelnosky says dedicating the classroom helps all Rhode Island lawyers learn more about the history of the profession in the state.
Crockett Bartleson died in 1955. Her daughter, Dianne Bartleson of Surprise, Arizona, will cut the ribbon for the classroom.
First Circuit Judge Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson will deliver an address.
Tennessee
Mom pleads guilty to attempting to poison children
FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee woman has pleaded guilty to attempting to poison her children with a mixture of NyQuil and antidepressants.
News outlets report Nelsondra Watson pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted adulteration of food or liquid and was sentenced to five years of probation.
A Franklin police report says Watson allegedly tried to kill her two adult children and a minor child by mixing together NyQuil and the antidepressant Lexapro. It says she planned to kill herself after the children died but they woke up.
Watson’s children wrote letters to the court stating their mother’s actions weren’t intentional but were a side effect of her depression medication.
Court records show Watson had previous mental health issues. She has to continue her mental health treatment as part of her probation.
California
Court won’t block death penalty trials despite moratorium
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block death penalty cases from proceeding during Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions.
The justices rejected defense attorneys’ arguments that jurors can’t realistically gauge the seriousness of imposing a death sentence if they think it’s never actually going to be carried out.
Newsom halted executions in March for as long as he remains governor, but the death penalty remains on the books and courts have been proceeding on the assumption that executions may one day resume.
Attorneys for two men separately facing trials in multiple slayings say it’s unfair to ask jurors to consider what for now would be hypothetical sentences.
“In light of this paradigm shift, a California jury in a capital case cannot be expected to provide a fair and reasoned penalty phase determination free from speculation,” defense attorney Robert Sanger wrote on behalf of his client, Cleamon Demone Johnson.
He is awaiting trial on five counts of capital murder and one of attempted murder. An appeals court said they were “six casualties of the gang wars between the Bloods and the Crips in the early 1990s.”
California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006. Still, Los Angeles County prosecutors contend that barring jurors from considering death sentences would be “tantamount to judicial abolition of the death penalty in violation of the wishes of California voters.”
Voters have repeatedly, if narrowly, supported executions and in 2016 approved a ballot measure to speed them up. Lawmakers backed by the governor are considering putting another measure on the November 2020 ballot to repeal the death penalty.
In July, the justices temporarily halted the case against Jade Douglas Harris. He could face a death sentence if convicted of charges that he killed three people and wounded a 13-year-old boy while stealing a car in 2012.
In a related development Wednesday, attorneys representing condemned inmates asked a U.S. judge to enter a final judgment in their favor in their legal challenge to California’s plan to use lethal injections to carry out executions.
The lawyers are seeking the judgment because Newsom withdrew the state’s plan to use a single injection of powerful barbiturates and ordered the state’s death chamber to be symbolically dismantled.
The attorneys asked the judge to order state officials to give them six months’ notice if the state again tries to put inmates to death, so they can again consider a legal challenge.
California
Suspect, 91, in killing of woman wearing Fitbit dies
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in Northern California say a 91-year-old San Jose man arrested last year on suspicion of killing his 67-year-old stepdaughter after her Fitbit helped provide clues to police has died.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports Tony Aiello died Tuesday at a hospital in San Jose where he was taken due to “deteriorating health” from pre-existing conditions.
Aiello was arrested last year on suspicion of murdering Karen Navarra.
Authorities say Navarra’s Fitbit recorded a rapid rise in her heart rate before a sudden drop-off to nothing. Police said nearby cameras captured Aiello’s car at Navarra’s home at the same time her Fitbit showed her heartbeat rapidly falling.
An autopsy found “multiple deep and intrusive wounds” to her head and facial area, likely inflicted by a small hatchet or ax.
Illinois
Report: Chicago spent $213M on lawyers in police cases
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago has paid private attorneys $213 million to handle police or misconduct cases in the past 15 years, in addition to the $757 million paid to resolve the cases.
The Chicago Tribune reported those findings in a story published Thursday. It found that despite having a staff of attorneys who handle such cases, the city brings in private attorneys far more than other cities do.
Attorneys who have previously run the city’s law department defend the practice, saying it allows the city to bring on private attorneys with the expertise to handle complicated cases. But the current head of the law department, Mark Flessner, calls the practice “scandalous” and vows to rein in the costs by trying to hire more in-house attorneys.
