National Roundup

Florida
Drugmaker Mallinckrodt reaches $1.6B opioid settlement
The generic drugmaker Mallinckrodt has a tentative $1.6 billion deal to settle lawsuits over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis, it announced Tuesday.

The company said that it had an agreement with a key committee of lawyers representing thousands of local governments suing various drug industry players over opioids — and that the deal has the support of the attorneys general of 47 states and territories.

The company, based in Staines-Upon-Thames, England, was one of the highest-volume opioid producers in the U.S. at the height of the nation’s prescription drug crisis, shipping millions of doses to Florida, an epicenter of the black market opioid trade.

Under its agreement, Mal­linckrodt is filing for bankruptcy. The plan calls for it to make payments for eight years after the company emerges from the protections. That route is similar to one that OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is attempting to settle opioid claims against it.

Mallinckrodt’s announcement comes weeks before a trial on the toll of opioids is scheduled to start in Central Islip, New York. The looming trial has been a factor in a ramped-up push for other drugmakers and distributors to settle, as well.

Virginia
3 sentenced in dismemberment of slain teenager
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Three people convicted of covering up the slaying of a Virginia teenager whose body was dismembered and burned were sentenced to prison on Monday.

Megan Metzger was 19 years old in 2018 when she was shot in the face during a gathering in Spotsylvania County, Virginia State Police agents have said. Members of the group were using methamphetamine together when David W. Newton, 22, accused Metzger of being a police informant and fatally shot her, according to court testimony from police and the defendants.

Juan Benavidez III, 20, and Keelyn R. Codynah, 25, were accused of then covering up the slaying by mutilating the body and disposing of parts by burning and burying them in different locations, prosecutors alleged. Robert Keating, 27, owned the home and was accused of trading the murder weapon for drugs, among other actions taken to cover up the killing.

Newton was convicted of first-degree murder last month and is serving a 40-year sentence, the newspaper reported.

On Monday, Spotsylvania Circuit Judge William Glover ordered Benavidez to serve 13 years, Codynah to serve 16 years and Keating to serve 21 years for crimes including defiling a dead body and being an accessory after the fact to murder, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reported.

Ohio
Court hears case of man arrested for handling gun while intoxicated
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Having a few too many at home shouldn’t make handling one’s own firearm illegal, according to an Ohio man challenging his arrest on a charge of possessing a weapon while intoxicated.

The Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments in his case Tuesday, with a decision not expected for several weeks.

Attorneys for defendant Fred Weber say the 2018 arrest was unconstitutional because he was in his own home and the weapon was unloaded. Weber was arrested in southwestern Ohio by sheriff’s deputies after Weber’s wife placed a 4 a.m. 911 call saying her husband had a gun and was drunk.

Inside Weber’s house, deputies saw Weber holding an unloaded shotgun in his hand with the barrel pointed down, according to court records. Weber told officers he was drunk, and officers described him as “highly intoxicated,” the records show.

Weber’s attorneys argue that Weber never should have been charged or convicted under current law, since there was no evidence the shotgun was being carried with an intent to use it.

Furthermore, the law itself is flawed because it means nearly anyone with a gun at home who also consumes alcohol is breaking the law, Weber’s attorneys argued in a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court last year.

“Whether one is drunk or sober should have nothing to do with the right to possess a firearm in the hearth and home,” said attorney Gary Rosenhoffer in an Aug. 20, 2019, filing. As a result, the law is a violation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, Rosenhoffer argued.

Prosecutors disagree with Weber’s argument and say the law was constitutional as applied to his situation.

By handling his weapon while he was drunk, Weber scared his wife enough that she felt compelled to call police, Nick Horton, a Clermont County assistant prosecutor, said in a Sept. 18 filing.

Weber, “by holding his firearm while intoxicated, was not exercising his right to bear arms in a virtuous manner,” the prosecutor said.

The fact the gun wasn’t loaded doesn’t change anything about the threat to safety posed by Weber, the prosecutor’s filing said.

The city of Columbus and two gun control groups, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, asked the Supreme Court to reject Weber’s argument.
Current law “does not threaten law-abiding individuals’ ability to use firearms responsibly in self-defense; it merely ensures that people who are intoxicated forgo using firearms until they become sober,” Yvette McGee Brown, an attorney representing the gun control groups, said in a Sept. 19 court filing.

McGee Brown is a former Ohio Supreme Court justice who served in 2011 and 2012.

Iowa
$10M judgment to stand against man acquitted in mom’s death
KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A judge has again ruled that a $10 million civil trial verdict holding a man responsible for his mother’s death will stand although the man was acquitted after a criminal trial on a murder charge.

Marion County Judge Martha Mertz released her decision Monday in the case against Jason Carter, who wanted the civil trial verdict set aside. Mertz also refused Carter’s request that she excuse herself from the case.

The civil verdict ordered him to pay the money to his mother’s estate. His father, Bill Carter, had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his son, saying Jason fatally shot 68-year-old Shirley Carter in June 2015 to gain access to his parents’ assets. Jason Carter denied the allegation.

In March a jury found Jason Carter not guilty of the murder charge.

Jason Carter has alleged that investigators didn’t thoroughly check out other leads while pursuing him as a suspect. He also said he had an alibi that should have disqualified him from being a suspect.
The judge said in her earlier ruling that the result of the criminal trial does not make the civil jury’s finding invalid.