Court Roundup

Illinois
Ex-teacher convicted of pouring nitrogen on student
WHEATON, Ill. (AP) — A former chemistry teacher at a suburban Chicago high school has been convicted of reckless conduct for pouring liquid nitrogen on a student during a science demonstration in 2018, injuring the youth.

A DuPage County jury on Tuesday also found Garry Brodersen, 66, guilty of one count of endangering the health or life of a child following a two-day trial, prosecutors said. That charge and the reckless conduct charge are both misdemeanors.

Brodersen, of Carpentersville, was performing a science demonstration in front of a class in May 2018 at Bartlett High School when prosecutors said he poured liquid nitrogen on a male student’s chest and groin area. The student suffered burn injuries to a finger and his groin, the state’s attorney’s office said.

“Mr. Brodersen displayed extremely poor judgment when he doused a student with a dangerous chemical during a science demonstration,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlinsaid in a written statement.

The student had volunteered to take part in the science demonstration, but did so with the understanding that the liquid nitrogen would be poured over his chest area, not on his groin area, the state’s attorney’s office said.
The student has since fully recovered, the office said.

The student was lying on his back in a classroom when Brodersen poured the liquid nitrogen onto his chest, followed by a larger amount onto his groin, the Daily Herald reported.

Brodersen resigned from his position and voluntarily surrendered his teaching certificate in June 2018, according to School District U-46, which includes Bartlett High School, told the Chicago Tribune.

Brodersen is expected in court again March 18 for post-trial motions or sentencing.

Missouri
Lawsuit over Rams’ move from St. Louis delayed to 2022
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri judge intends to push back until early 2022 the trial for St. Louis’ lawsuit over the departure of the NFL’s Rams to Los Angeles.

Judge Christopher McGraugh on Wednesday cited Missouri Supreme Court guidelines for reopening courts during the coronavirus pandemic, along with concerns about finding enough jurors willing to sit for a trial that could last up to two months, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch  reported.

McGraugh said he intends to reschedule the trial for Jan. 10. It had originally been scheduled for October.

“I’m concerned about trying to push this through in October when at best it’s probably a 50/50, if less, chance of it actually occurring,” McGraugh told lawyers in a virtual court hearing Wednesday. Neither side objected.
The lawsuit pits St. Louis entities against Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the NFL.

Robert Haar, a lawyer for Kroenke and the Rams, expressed concern about pretrial media coverage of the case, and about finding impartial jurors in St. Louis.

“It’s a matter of critical importance to my clients and something we’re grappling with,” he said.

McGraugh said he recognized the difficulty in finding enough impartial jurors. He said he favored using detailed questionnaires to eliminate jurors with biases long before in-person jury selection.

“I agree getting a jury in this case is going to be the most difficult part about this trial,” McGraugh said.

The 2017 lawsuit filed by the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority claims the NFL violated its own relocation rules by allowing the Rams to move to Los Angeles in 2016.

The lawsuit seeks upward of $1 billion, claiming the Rams’ departure cost the city millions in amusement, ticket and earnings tax revenue.

North Carolina
Ex-Army officer guilty in ‘Fatal Vision’ case seeks early release
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A former Army captain serving life prison sentences for the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two young children at a North Carolina base wants to leave federal prison due to his deteriorating health during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lawyers for Jeffrey MacDonald were expected to make their case Thursday before a judge at the Raleigh courthouse. It’s the same place where the ex-physician was convicted in 1979 for the murders. Federal prosecutors oppose his release from a Maryland prison.

Attorneys for MacDonald, 77, wrote in court documents that their client’s illnesses — chronic kidney disease, skin cancer and high blood pressure among them — make him among those who are at the highest risk for severe illness of death, should he contract COVID-19.

The government’s lawyers have said MacDonald doesn’t qualify for compassionate release, and that he waived his last two opportunities for parole in 2020. U.S. attorneys also wrote that MacDonald’s refusal last week to take a COVID-19 vaccination means he can’t rely on the potential risks of the illness to justify his release.

Prosecutors said MacDonald used a knife and an ice pick to kill his wife and children at their house on Fort Bragg before stabbing himself with a scalpel. They said he donned surgical gloves and used his wife’s blood to write the word “PIG” over their bed to imitate that year’s Charles Manson murders.

MacDonald maintains he was wrongly convicted, pointing to “drug-crazed hippies” as the culprits.

It became known as the “Fatal Vision” case, the title of a true-crime book MacDonald had invited author Joe McGinniss to write to demonstrate his innocence. Instead, McGinniss became convinced of his guilt.

Texas
Murder warrant issued for officer in fatal shooting
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A murder warrant was issued Wednesday for the arrest of a Texas police officer involved in shooting an unarmed drug suspect.

Austin police Officer Christopher Taylor is accused in the warrant of murder in the April 24 shooting death of Michael Ramos.

Taylor, who wasn’t immediately in custody, has been on leave from the Austin Police Department since the shooting and has not faced a disciplinary hearing.

At the time of the shooting, Police Chief Brian Manley said officers were investigating reports of people in a car, including an armed man, doing drugs when they encountered Ramos  in an apartment complex parking lot in southeast Austin.

Manley said officers went to an apartment complex parking lot. Ramos got out of the car with his hands up and his shirt raised as if to show he had no gun in his waistband, but then ignored officers’ orders to remain outside the car and was shot first with a beanbag. When Ramos got back into the car and started to drive away, Taylor shot him with a rifle.

A search of the car failed to turn up a gun, police said later. The entire episode was captured on police video.

Black and Hispanic community activists reacted to the shooting with outrage, protest demonstrations and calls for Manley to resign. Demonstrators in Austin invoked Ramos’ name when they took to the streets to protest the May killing of George Floyd  by Minneapolis police.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler called the shooting “disturbing” after viewing a video captured by a bystander. Adler said Ramos did not appear to pose a threat to police.

At the time of the incident, Taylor had been with the department for five years.

Last August, the Austin City Council voted to cut the department’s budget by one-third, sparking a severe backlash by Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservative state officials.

Last month, Manley  announced his retirement  after 30 years with the department.

Alabama
Former sheriff indicted on ethics charges
EUFAULA, Ala. (AP) — A former southeast Alabama sheriff has been indicted on charges of using his office for personal gain after an investigation found more than $85,000 missing from public accounts.

Court records filed Wednesday show former Barbour County Sheriff Leroy Davie Upshaw is facing two felony ethics charges.

Upshaw, 50, left office in January 2019 after losing a reelection bid, and he was arrested in September for the alleged misuse of public funds after the Alabama Ethics Commission referred a complaint against Upshaw to prosecutors.

The attorney general’s office said Thursday its special prosecutions division presented the case to grand jurors. A sworn statement filed by an investigator about Upshaw’s arrest last year said he and family remembers improperly received about $85,000 from public accounts from 2015 through 2018.

An attorney for Upshaw did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Upshaw is free on bonds totaling $30,000, the state said.

Rhode Island
Judge dismisses tuition refund claims brought by students
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed most of the claims in lawsuits brought by students at several Rhode Island universities alleging they were entitled to tuition reimbursement when the schools switched to remote learning last spring.

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. wrote in the decision dated March 4 that there was “no plausible reading” in student handbooks or any other university materials that offered a contractual promise for in-person education.

The universities had the right to alter the way they delivered their academic offerings, he wrote.

The decision was in response to lawsuits brought by students at Brown University, the University of Rhode Island, Johnson and Wales University, and Roger Williams University.

“Brown, and other defendants were responding to the remarkable circumstances of this pandemic — which has upended countless aspects of our society’s usual and customary practices,” McConnell said in the decision.

The judge did allow some students’ claims to a partial refund of certain fees to continue.

“We are proceeding to pursue the claims the judge left alive,” Steve Berman, an attorney for Brown students, said in a statement.

Indiana
Judge: CDC exceeded authority in issuing eviction moratorium
CLEVELAND (AP) — A federal judge in Ohio has ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked the authority to issue a nationwide moratorium on rental evictions, the second such ruling issued by a federal judge in two weeks.

U.S. District Judge J. Philip Calabrese, sitting in Cleveland, ruled Wednesday that the CDC went beyond what the federal Public Health Service Act allows it to do in ordering a halt to evictions. However, he did not grant an injunction that would have stopped the agency from enforcing the moratorium.

The ruling comes two weeks after U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in the Eastern District of Texas determined that the moratorium was unconstitutional. The Justice Department is appealing that order.

The National Association of Homebuilders and a group of property owners from across northern Ohio had filed a federal lawsuit last October, claiming the CDC’s order was overreaching and arbitrary. The suit was one of several filed in federal courts across the country by property owners who have struggled financially because of the coronavirus.

The CDC eviction moratorium was signed in September by President Donald Trump and extended by President Joe Biden through March 31.

Wisconsin
Another lawsuit challenges locating fighter jets in Madison
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A group that opposes to basing the new F-35 fighter jets at Truax Field in Madison has filed a second lawsuit challenging the military’s environmental review.

Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court alleging the Air Force and National Guard Bureau failed to follow the law when it considered the impacts of its decision to locate the jets at the 115th Fighter Wing.

The F-35 jets will replace the aging fleet of F-16s beginning in 2023.

The nonprofit group said the military didn’t adequately consider the impact of noise, air and groundwater pollution that could result from the fleet.

“Truax is the worst location for these fighter jets,” said Steven Klafka, an environmental engineer and member of Safe Skies, tells the Wisconsin State Journal.

Spokespeople for the Air Force and National Guard Bureau declined to comment on the litigation.

A previous lawsuit filed by the group in December against the National Guard Bureau challenges its separate environmental review of the construction projects associated with the new jets, including aircraft shelters and a flight simulator building.

Safe Skies asked the U.S. District Court of Western Wisconsin to block construction until the National Guard does a more thorough review of those projects.