National Roundup

Texas
Dallas dismissed from lawsuit over police shooting
DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge has ruled the city of Dallas is not liable for an off-duty police officer fatally shooting a man in his own apartment last year.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn dismissed the city from civil lawsuit that the family of Botham Jean brought after the 26-year-old was killed by Amber Guyger.

The ruling leaves the 31-year-old former officer as the sole defendant in the suit, which argues she used excessive force and that better police training could have prevented Jean’s death. It makes a large financial settlement unlikely.

In her brief ruling, Lynn wrote that she was upholding a magistrate judge’s decision and dismissing the city because the suit failed “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Guyger was found guilty of murder for Jean’s death and sentenced to a  decade in prison in October. She testified at trial that she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own on the floor below and thought he was an intruder.

Jean, an accountant from the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, had been eating a bowl of ice cream when Guyger entered his home and shot him.

His death drew national attention for its unusual circumstances and as one of several prominent killings of black men by white police officers.

California
High court restores case by therapists on porn privacy
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Supreme Court revived a long-running debate Thursday when it reinstated a lawsuit over whether psychotherapists must tell authorities when patients report they are attracted to child pornography.

Lower courts had tossed out the lawsuit by three therapists who argued that California’s mandatory reporting law violates patient confidentiality and dissuades patients from revealing that they downloaded or electronically viewed child pornography.

The high court split 4-3 in favor of reinstating the case and sending it back to Superior Court, where the burden will fall to the offices of the state attorney general and Los Angeles County district attorney to show whether the mandatory reporting protects children.

The dissenting justices said the therapists were unlikely to win the lawsuit.

The majority was careful to note that the therapists had argued that the patients in the case do not present a serious risk of sexual contact with children. Those justices also concluded that patient privacy rights only apply to disclosures during voluntary psychotherapy sessions, not to actually possessing or viewing child porn, which remains illegal and reportable.

Nor do the rights apply if the therapist “believes the patient has committed hands-on sexual abuse or poses a threat of doing so,” the justices said.

At issue is a 2014 law that modernized California’s 40-year-old mandatory reporting requirement by including downloading, streaming and electronically accessing child porn.

Six other states have laws requiring mandatory reporting of psychotherapy patients who knowingly possess or view child pornography. Another 10 states allow exceptions to psychotherapist-patient privacy for child abuse or neglect.

The California high court majority noted, however, that none had interpreted their laws to include simple possession or viewing of child porn.

The proliferation of child pornography on the internet “is an urgent problem of national and international dimension,” the  justices acknowledged. They said the blame falls with people who produce it and those who “perpetuate the victimization with every viewing.”

All three of the therapists involved in the lawsuit are experienced at treating sex addiction. One founded what the lawsuit calls the nation’s largest outpatient treatment center for sexual compulsion or addiction.

Allowing patients to admit their problems “is an essential prerequisite for patients to seek and succeed in treatment,” the suit argues.

 Yet patients who are reported to police will either stop therapy because they face criminal prosecution and public outrage, or stop being candid with their therapists, the lawsuit states.

The attorney general and district attorney argued that patients’ privacy rights under the state constitution are outweighed by the law’s requirement that therapists report dangerous patients.


New York
DA orders probe of detective’s cases amid perjury allegation
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in Westchester County said Thursday they were reviewing all cases involving a retiring Yonkers police detective accused of falsifying a search warrant application.
The Westchester County district attorney, Anthony A. Scarpino, announced the review two weeks after a man he described as “wrongly accused” filed a federal lawsuit against Detective Sean Fogarty and several of his colleagues.
“If we determine that any conviction was the result of an illegal action by Det. Fogarty, we will immediately move to vacate the conviction,” Scarpino said in a news release.
A spokeswoman said prosecutors do not know how many cases Fogarty handled because their review just began.
Fogarty did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The Yonkers Police Department declined to comment.
Fogarty had been assigned to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force when he and other officers searched the Bronx home of tax preparer Calvin Powell in April 2018.
Powell lives with his family in the first-floor apartment of a building he owns; the lawsuit says he rents out the second and third floors.
According to the lawsuit, Fogarty and the other officers had the authority to search the first two floors of the building but also broke into the third floor, where they found “a large quantity” of cocaine, crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia inside a locked closet.
At the time of the search, Powell had been on probation after serving a 10-year federal sentence for selling cocaine.
The lawsuit says the officers “falsely claimed” they found the drugs in Powell’s possession.
Powell was jailed for more than four months before prosecutors dropped drug-related charges against him, the lawsuit says.
A criminal court judge ordered a review of the evidence after Powell’s attorney claimed photographs of the search proved the narcotics had been found on the third floor, the lawsuit says.
Prosecutors dismissed the charges in September 2018, the lawsuit says, after conceding the evidence had been found on the third floor of the apartment.
The lawsuit says Powell’s father died while he was in custody and that he was denied the opportunity to be with him during his finals days because of the false drug charges.
A DEA spokeswoman referred questions about Fogarty to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, which declined to comment.