Court Digest

California
High court rejects Scott Peterson’s death penalty
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Supreme Court on Monday overturned the 2005 death sentence for Scott Peterson in the slaying of his pregnant wife, but said prosecutors may try again for the same sentence if they wish in the high-profile case.

It upheld his 2004 murder conviction in the killing of Laci Peterson, 27, who was eight months pregnant with their unborn son, Connor. Investigators said that on Christmas Eve 2002, Peterson dumped the bodies from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where they surfaced months later.

“Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case.,” the court said. “We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder.”

But the justices said the trial judge “made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase.”

It agreed with his argument that potential jurors were improperly dismissed from the jury pool after saying they personally disagreed with the death penalty but would be willing to follow the law and impose it.

“While a court may dismiss a prospective juror as unqualified to sit on a capital case if the juror’s views on capital punishment would substantially impair his or her ability to follow the law, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter,” the justices said in a unanimous decision.

Peterson, who is now 47, contended on appeal that he couldn’t get a fair trial because of the massive publicity that followed, although the proceedings were moved nearly 90 miles (145 kilometers) away from his Central Valley home of Modesto to San Mateo County, south of San Francisco.

Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager did not immediately say if she would again seek the death penalty.

Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and the second-degree murder of their unborn son.

Investigators chased nearly 10,000 tips and considered parolees and convicted sex offenders as possible suspects.

Peterson was eventually arrested after Amber Frey, a massage therapist living in Fresno, told police that they had begun dating a month before his wife’s death, but that he had told her his wife was dead.

He also had contended on appeal that the trial court erred in deciding whether jurors and the defense were properly allowed to test whether Peterson’s new boat would likely have capsized if he dumped the weighted bodies over the side.

New York
Steve Bannon court appearance next week will be electronic
NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon won’t have to come to a Manhattan courthouse next week for a hearing on charges that he defrauded donors to a fund promoted to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist can appear in her court along with three co-defendants on a video screen because of the health threat posed by the coronavirus.

Bannon, 66, has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he siphoned a million dollars from the $25 million fund to pay personal expenses and a salary for a co-defendant.

Prosecutors say thousands of investors contributed to the fund after they were promised that all of the money would be spent on the wall and no organizers would be compensated.

After Bannon’s arrest Thursday, a magistrate judge freed him on $5 million bail. As he left court, a smiling Bannon referenced the criminal case, saying the “entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall.”

Next Monday’s hearing will be the first before the judge who will preside over the case. It is likely that Bannon will be arraigned again and lawyers will discuss how the case will proceed.

The Hague
Lawyer tells UN judges Mladic may not be fit for key hearing
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A lawyer for Ratko Mladic told a U.N. court Tuesday that the former Bosnian Serb military chief may not be mentally fit to take part in an appeal hearing against his convictions for crimes including genocide committed throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian War and warned that pressing ahead could lead to a miscarriage of justice.

“I am unable to meaningfully gain instruction from Mr. Mladic, nor be assured that he is able to meaningfully participate and follow” the proceedings, lawyer Dragan Ivetic told the hearing that was held partially by video conference because of coronavirus measures.

He said the two-day hearing that started Tuesday shouldn’t proceed without an analysis of 77-year-old Mladic’s fitness to participate. At a hearing last month, Mladic’s legal team warned that the former general could be suffering from early stage dementia.

“It is a denial of due process to sentence or proceed criminally against someone who is incompetent to stand trial,” Ivetic said.

The hearing proceeded despite Ivetic’s objections. Mladic was in court and initially wore a face mask, before pushing it below his chin and then removing it altogether.

Lawyers for Mladic have repeatedly complained about his ill health, but in a written ruling before Tuesday’s hearing, judges said that the lawyers hadn’t “substantiated that Mladic is unable to communicate, consult with his counsel, and/or understand the essentials of proceedings.”

Mladic was convicted by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in 2017 and sentenced to life imprisonment for masterminding crimes by Bosnian Serb forces throughout the war that left 100,000 dead, an overwhelming majority of them Bosnian Muslim civilians. He is asking the U.N. appeals mechanism to overturn all his convictions and acquit him or order a retrial.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, are appealing against Mladic’s acquittal on a second count of genocide related to “ethnic cleansing” campaigns to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory claimed by Serbs in Bosnia.
Mladic evaded justice for nearly 16 years after his indictment in July 1995 until he was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and transferred to The Hague to stand trial.

His former political master, Radovan Karadzic, also was convicted of crimes including genocide for overseeing atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces during the war. His appeal was rejected almost in its entirety and judges raised his sentence from 40 years to life imprisonment.

Montana
High court sides with solar developers in lawsuit
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court on Monday sided with solar power developers and environmentalists who had accused regulators and the state’s largest utility of trying to kill renewable energy projects.

Justices in a 4-3 opinion upheld a lower court ruling from last year that said members of the Montana Public Service Commission knew their actions would hinder solar development when they suspended a federal law requiring companies to buy power from alternative energy sources.

The commission set rates for NothWestern Energy in 2017 that would-be solar developers said would hurt the economic feasibility of small solar projects by limiting the length of contracts, lowering rates and ignoring greenhouse gas emission reductions from solar.

Developers sued and argued the rates violated the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. They said stronger prices and longer contracts are needed to obtain financing.

After Manley ruled in their favor, the commission appealed and asked justices to reinstate the 2017 rates. But Chief Justice Mike McGrath said Manley had concluded correctly that the decision by the Public Service Commission, or PSC, was based on an “arbitrary and unlawful” analysis of electricity costs in the case.

“The PSC’s decision was clearly erroneous,” McGrath wrote for the majority.

Clean energy advocates said the ruling could open the way to more solar power development and noted that no large solar projects had been built in Montana since the 2017 decision.

“This will force NorthWestern Energy to treat renewables more fairly and ultimately will result in a more competitive market,”“ said Sachu Constantine with Vote Solar, a California-based advocacy group and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

NorthWestern spokesperson Jo Dee Black said the utility was reviewing the ruling. A Public Service Commission spokesman did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages seeking comment.

Alaska
State Supreme Court rules against land transfer to trust
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that the state should not have attempted to transfer an area of forest land to the Alaska Mental Health Trust for potential logging.

The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council filed a lawsuit in 2013 after learning the state planned to transfer the Kuiu Island parcel to the mental health trust, which commercially logs in the region, CoastAlaska reported  Monday.

A 1994 agreement directed the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to manage Kuiu Island’s No Name Bay area south of Juneau for wilderness conservation and habitat.

The court decision issued Friday agreed with the lawsuit’s central assertion that the state violated public notice requirements by attempting to transfer the area of about 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) without publicizing the action.

The justices returned the case to a lower court to determine the next steps with the land.

Meredith Trainor, executive director of the conservation council, said the ruling prevents the forest land around No Name Bay from being ceded to the mental health trust for potential clear cutting.

“Those lands provide important access to Kuiu Island for Southeast Alaskans who hunt, fish and recreate there,” Trainor said.

The area is also a key habitat for animals including deer, martens, otters, wolves, black bears, migratory waterfowl and salmon, she said.

The state Department of Natural Resources is considering the decision and cannot comment until after a review, spokesman Dan Saddler said in a statement.

New Mexico
ACLU sues over inmate treatment amid pandemic
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and a group of criminal defense lawyers claim in a lawsuit filed Monday that state officials aren’t doing enough to protect the health of inmates amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The complaint alleges that the government is refusing to enforce its own mandates for social distancing, heightened hygiene practices and quarantine measures. It cites violations of the state constitution, suggesting that prison conditions “have become so intolerable as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”

“The state’s failure to stop the spread of COVID-19 in prisons has already resulted in tragic loss of life and immense human suffering,” Paul Haidle, executive director at the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said in a statement. “People behind prison walls are living in fear and cannot afford to wait another day for conditions to improve.”

The lawsuit lists nine inmates as plaintiffs who are being held at state lockups for various reasons including alleged probation violations. Most of them are women and all but two people listed in the complaint are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.

The lawsuit seeks immediate relief aimed at protecting the constitutional rights of all inmates in state custody.

Corrections officials did not comment directly on the pending litigation but said there have been just over 500 confirmed cases among state inmates since the pandemic began, with 11,765 tests being done so far. Only 25 cases remain active, according to the department’s count.

Advocates were unsuccessful earlier this year when they brought a similar case before the New Mexico Supreme Court. They argued that the state put people at risk by not substantially reducing the prison population. The court denied the petition, ruling that the groups could not prove the state’s actions were deliberate or intentional.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in early April had already issued an executive order directing the state Corrections Department to compile a list of incarcerated individuals who are eligible for early release. Under the order, inmates who are within 30 days of release would be eligible as long as they are not serving time for felony drunk driving, domestic abuse or assault on a peace officer and are not sex offenders.

As Friday, 143 individuals have been released under the governor’s order, said department spokesman Eric Harrison.

He said efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been put in place at the state’s 11 prison facilities. For example, all new intakes are quarantined for 14 days and immediately tested for the virus.

The department is testing 50% of staff every week at each facility for the foreseeable future. State corrections and health officials also will continue satellite testing of the inmate population to include high-risk individuals and new intakes.

The weekly hygienic supply for every inmate also has been doubled, Harrison said.

State data also shows more than 800 COVID-19 cases have been reported among inmates in federal custody within the state since the pandemic began.