Washington
Prosecutors: Hate crimes on the rise in King County
SEATTLE (AP) — Two years ago, there were 30 hate crimes in King County, and last year that number was 38, but so far in 2020, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has handled 51 hate crime cases.
One case happened last month in Federal Way. Police say two white men chased a Black man in their cars for more than 10 miles, KING5 reported.
The defendants accused the man of a hit and run, and when they caught him, they began beating him and yelling racial epithets, according to police. The man had to be hospitalized.
“By far the most common victims for hate crimes in Seattle are African Americans and gay men,” said David Bannick. He and Leandra Craft are the deputy prosecuting attorneys who focus on hate crime cases for King County.
The pandemic has contributed to the rise in hate crimes in King County, they said.
“Due to COVID, we have seen hate crimes cases come in against Asian Americans,” Craft said.
Overall, an increase is being seen nationwide. The FBI reports that hate crimes in the United States have reached the highest level in more than a decade. Data from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that Washington state had over 500 cases in 2018. Only three other states reported more crimes motivated by hate.
Washington passed a bill last year that changed the legal name of the crime from malicious harassment to hate crime. Bannick said the change sends a message.
“It sounds like a little thing, but to me it’s a very big thing just to be able to communicate to victims, to judges, to attorneys, to the community. Call these crimes what they actually are,” Bannick said.
Bannick also says Seattle police created a bias crime unit with a detective dedicated to those cases. But not all departments have such a system in place.
“There’s likely dozens of hate crimes that go unreported, or do not ever make it to us,” Bannick said.
Virginia
Widow’s lawsuit over fatal Chesapeake Bay plunge to be heard
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A trial involving a widow’s lawsuit filed over the death of her husband who was killed when his tractor-trailer plunged over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel began on Tuesday in a Virginia court.
The Virginian-Pilot reported in January that the lawsuit filed by Billie Jo Chen against the CBBT said the bridge-tunnel’s own wind and gauge policy should have prohibited Joseph Chen from crossing the bridge in 2017. Billie Jo Chen is suing for $6 million.
CBBT is claiming sovereign immunity, which usually protects governmental entities from negligence lawsuits. A CBBT police investigation concluded Joseph Chen was responsible for the accident.
Joseph Chen, 47, was an experienced driver delivering seafood for a company based near Greenville, North Carolina. By the time his rig reached northern entrance, a powerful storm blew into the mouth of the bay. Such conditions activate the CBBT’s six-level system of traffic restrictions, which impact certain types of vehicles as wind speed increases. Tractor-trailers which are empty are stopped from crossing if gauges along the 17.6-mile (28.3-kilometer) span are detecting gusts higher than 46 mph.
Douglas Desjardins, the attorney representing Chen’s widow, says CBBT logs indicate a 47-mph gust hit just as Joseph Chen threaded the toll plaza and entered the span. At 12:21 pm, when his front tires struck the curb and went through the guard rail, a CBBT gauge clocked a 50-mph blast.
Shortly after the accident, a published story said CBBT Police Chief Edward Spencer said, “Any time there’s a loss of life, it’s a terrible tragedy. But there were 80 to 86 trucks out there on the facility at the incident, and they all made it across except him.”
The trial, which takes place in Northampton County Circuit Court, is expected to last three or four days. Attorneys representing Chen say they’d originally hoped to have a jury hear the case but opted for a bench trial in the face of pandemic-related backlogs. A verdict isn’t expected for several weeks.
Washington
Snohomish County judge censured for profanity
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A state judicial watchdog has censured a Snohomish County judge for behavior described as “indecorous, undignified, impatient and discourteous.”
Additionally in two separate cases, Superior Court Judge Joe Wilson’s words created an appearance of bias, The Herald reported.
It’s the third year in a row Wilson has faced questions about his conduct for lobbing epithets and curse words at defendants. In two cases of profanity cited in a Commission on Judicial Conduct order, the judge was speaking to someone struggling with addiction — a struggle the judge has dealt with himself.
“As someone who has been in their shoes, I know that soft words and politeness will not always crack the shell of denial and deflection that addicts use to protect themselves from reality,” Wilson wrote in a statement to the newspaper. “At times I was overly harsh, and I realize that my bluntness did not always serve the goals I was pursuing.”
Censure is the most serious sanction the commission can impose.
The commission in 2018 first admonished Wilson for calling a defendant an “animal” in a burglary case. At his sentencing, the man denied being abusive.
The censure issued this month focused on two more recent cases.
The state Court of Appeals overturned a sentence in 2019, after Wilson went on a profanity-laced tirade against a man in the drug court program. The appellate court ordered that defendant to be resentenced, because Wilson had shown him “personal animosity,” according to a ruling from January 2019.
Wilson stepped over the line again in April 2019 just after the judge had been essentially put on notice by the higher court. A woman, 37, came before Wilson for sentencing in six cases in which she had pleaded guilty to charges including home burglary, identity theft, forgery and possession of methamphetamine.
The woman asked for a drug offender sentencing alternative, and had participated in a drug court program in King County for about six months. Wilson cursed at least seven times, calling “BS” on her claim that she didn’t know what made her tick when it came to addiction.
The state Court of Appeals overturned the woman’s sentence in September, ordering that she be resentenced by another judge. Wilson’s intent may have been to encourage the woman, but “his harsh and inappropriate language defeated the purpose,” the Court of Appeals ruled.
Wilson has been a Superior Court judge since 2010. He ran unopposed for re-election in 2020, so he will remain a judge through 2024. His latest assignment has him working at the Denney Juvenile Justice Center, presiding over cases of children accused of crimes.
California
High court upholds serial killer’s death penalty
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of raping and strangling 10 women in Los Angeles. However, the court reversed his conviction for the death of one victim’s fetus.
Chester Dewayne Turner, a 54-year-old one-time pizza deliveryman, was convicted in 2007 of first-degree murder for killing the women over the course of more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s. Most victims were vulnerable women who were homeless, drug users or prostitutes, prosecutors said.
Turner also was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of the female fetus of a woman who was about 6 1/2 months pregnant.
During an automatic appeal, the state Supreme Court agreed with defense attorneys who argued that hearsay evidence about the ability of the child to survive outside the womb undermined the second-degree murder conviction.
However, the court ruled that error didn’t require throwing out the death sentence for Turner, who is considered one of the city’s most prolific serial killers.
The court also said other issues raised by the defense, including some technical arguments about DNA matches between Turner and crime evidence, didn’t require reversing Turner’s convictions or sentences for killing the women.
Turner was convicted of four additional killings in 2014 and sentenced to death. That case is on appeal.
Florida
Woman dies weeks after being run over while defending son
POLK CITY, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman has died weeks after a group of teenagers intentionally ran over her as she defended her son, who had been assaulted by the teens, deputies said.
Suzette Penton, a librarian in Polk City, died last week from injuries suffered in the Nov. 9 crash, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
An arrest affidavit said the crash left Penton with a traumatic brain injury and several broken bones.
Investigators said she was run over by a van carrying 18-year-old Elijah Stansell and three other teens, ages 14, 15 and 16. They were initially charged with attempted murder and deputies said upgraded charges are pending following Penton’s death, news outlets reported.
According to investigators, the teens went to the woman’s home because of a “romantic entanglement” between the teens and Penton’s son.
Polk County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Horstman told WFLA that the teens attacked the woman’s son. Penton then went outside to confront them, and to take pictures of their van to show to police.
“They purposely and intentionally ran her over and critically injured her,” said Horstman. “They had ample opportunity and space to get out of that area as she stood there in the street to take pictures of them to give to law enforcement. Instead, they ran her down in the road.”
A lawyer for Stansell wasn’t listed on court records.
California
Supreme Court overturns woman’s murder conviction
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Supreme Court on Monday threw out the murder conviction of a woman who was convicted of bludgeoning to death her boyfriend in 2003.
The court agreed with a lower court ruling that said expert testimony estimating the time of death could have raised reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors who convicted Kimberly Long.
Prosecutors said she killed Oswaldo Conde, 33, at her home in Corona, southeast of Los Angeles.
Long had said she found him dead after returning home after spending the evening with friends. The weapon was never found.
Long’s first trial ended in a mistrial but she was convicted of murder in 2005. She wasn’t sent to jail until losing an appeal in 2009 and spent seven years behind bars before being freed in 2016 after the Riverside County judge reversed the conviction.
The Riverside County district attorney’s office will review the Supreme Court decision before deciding whether to seek a retrial, spokesman John Hall told the Orange County Register.
Long, 45, said she remembers “breaking down” after hearing that the Supreme Court had overturned her conviction.
“I feel like justice is finally being served,” she told the Register.
Arizona
Lawsuits defy initiative taxing wealthy for schools
PHOENIX (AP) — Two lawsuits were filed Monday challenging a proposition that Arizona voters approved to impose an additional 3.5% tax on individuals earning above $250,000 to pay school teacher salaries and training.
The Goldwater Institute filed one action on behalf of a coalition of taxpayers, legislators, and small business groups, calling Proposition 208 unconstitutional.
A Scottsdale business owner and a retired local judge filed the second suit in Maricopa County Superior Court.
The lawsuits were filed the same day state officials certified the Nov. 3 election results. They argue that under the Arizona Constitution, the power to tax and spend state funds rests with the Legislature.
“I don’t think that either suit will go very far in the courts,” said David Lujan, one of the proposition’s authors. “It’s constitutional, it will go ahead and it will raise a lot of money for Arizona schools.”
Ann Siner, CEO and Founder of My Sister’s Closet, argued that the tax hike jeopardizes Arizona’s economy, which is already suffering from the financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Retired Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Buttrick said the initiative fundamentally upends the way that Arizona residents are taxed by bypassing the Legislature.
