National Roundup

Massachusetts
Court: Police, judge booking photos are public records
BOSTON (AP) — Booking photographs of judges and law enforcement officers who get arrested as well as the police reports connected with their cases are public records, even if the officials are never arraigned in court, the highest court in Massachusetts has ruled.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously Thursday that The Boston Globe was entitled to booking photos and reports on police officers arrested on drunken driving charges and the booking photo and report on the arrest of a judge.

Releasing the information is an essential part of assuring public confidence in the judiciary and law enforcement, Chief Justice Ralph Gants wrote in the ruling.

“Such matters implicate not only the integrity of the public officials who allegedly engaged in criminal conduct but also the integrity of our criminal justice system,’’ he wrote.

The Globe filed the lawsuit that led to Thursday’s ruling in 2015 after police departments refused to release police reports and booking photographs of police officers accused of drunken driving and a report for a judge accused of stealing a $4,000 watch. A clerk magistrate later refused to issue the criminal charges against the judge.

Utah
Judge overturns death row inmate’s murder conviction
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal judge overturned the conviction of a death row inmate, saying he received ineffective counsel during his trial.

U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled Tuesday that Von Lester Taylor was not adequately represented in his 1991 trial that led to a death sentence, The Deseret News reports.

Taylor’s guilty plea was unconstitutional and must be invalidated, the ruling said.

Taylor, 54, and Edward Deli broke into a cabin in Oakley in December 1990. Minutes later the owners arrived and were shot multiple times, authorities said.

Kay Tiede and her mother, Beth Potts, were killed, while her husband, Rolf Tiede, survived despite being shot in the head and doused with gasoline.

Taylor accepted a deal in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder in exchange for the dismissal of eight lesser charges, but the possibility of the death penalty was not removed.

The judge’s ruling says Elliott Levine, Taylor’s attorney, “provided him with deficient representation falling well below the prevailing professional norms.”

Campbell wrote that Levine did not properly investigate the case, assuming Taylor’s guilt was a foregone conclusion.

Levine’s bar certification in the state is currently suspended, according to the Utah State Bar’s website.

The court found bullets fired by Deli’s gun caused the deaths of Tiede and Potts, even though Taylor also shot them, records said.

“He did not visit the scene. He did not hire an investigator. And critically, he did not consult, much less hire, experts,” Campbell’s ruling said. “If Mr. Levine had fulfilled his duty to investigate by, for example, hiring a ballistics expert and a forensics expert, he would have uncovered evidence that contradicted the state’s evidence.”

The Utah Attorney General’s Office said it plans to appeal the ruling.

New York
Madoff seeks to make ‘dying, plea’ for release
NEW YORK (AP) — Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff wants to make a “dying, personal plea” by telephone to a judge to request early release from his 150-year prison sentence, his lawyer said Thursday.

Attorney Brandon Sample told Judge Denny Chin that Madoff, 81, and confined to a wheelchair, should be allowed to contest claims by prosecutors that he has failed to show remorse for his decades-long scheme to cheat thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.

Prosecutors filed papers last month in Manhattan federal court opposing the request by Madoff for compassionate release. They noted that 500 victims opposed early release for a man suffering from kidney disease. Only 20 letters were written by victims in support of release, prosecutors said.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed that Madoff has less than 18 months to live but has denied early release on the grounds that it would minimize the severity of his crime.

Chin, who still presides over the Madoff case even though he is now a federal appeals court judge, sentenced Madoff in 2009 after the once highly respected financier admitted  to squandering $17.5 billion entrusted to him by investors worldwide. A trustee has recovered nearly $14 billion for investors.

Sample said the judge would benefit from “hearing directly from Mr. Madoff about his acceptance of responsibility.”

“Allowing Mr. Madoff to give what is, in effect, a final dying, personal plea is imminently reasonable,” Sample wrote. “Mr. Madoff’s live, personal statement could also help the Court in reaching its weighty decision on whether to grant Mr. Madoff compassionate release.”

Madoff has been serving his sentence at the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Drew Skinner said in a one-paragraph letter to Chin Thursday that he took no position on Madoff’s request to address the judge.

But he said any acceptance of responsibility by Madoff would be “self-serving and of limited, if any, evidentiary value.”

New Mexico
State Supreme Court upholds woman’s murder conviction
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Supreme Court has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a Raton woman in the fatal 2016 shooting of her boyfriend.

The state’s highest court unanimously decided Thursday there was sufficient evidence to support Crystal Vigil’s conviction.

The court also rejected Vigil’s arguments that she failed to receive a fair trial.

She says the judge prevented the cross-examination of a witness about text messaging statements concerning the murder and declined to make an instruction to the jury that the defense initially requested but later withdrew.

Vigil was sentenced to life in prison for killing Zachariah Holderby in the house they shared in Raton.

Authorities say the couple were in the process of separating and the shooting occurred on a day in which they drank and used methamphetamine before arguing.

Vigil must serve 30 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.