Court Digest

New Jersey
Murphy names civil rights division head to high court
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday nominated Rachel Wainer Apter to be an associate justice of the state Supreme Court, making his pick to replace retiring Jaynee LaVecchia.

Apter is currently the head of the civil rights division within the state attorney general’s office and previously served as counsel to the attorney general.

Apter was also a clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was at the center of Monday’s nomination. Murphy noted the day would have been Ginsburg’s 88th birthday, and the event was held at the newly re-christened Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall at Rutgers Law School, where the justice had been a professor.

Apter’s appointment must be approved by the Democrat-led state Senate. If approved, she would fill the seat being vacated by LaVecchia, who recently announced she would be retiring from the high court when the term ends in August. She has served as a justice for more than two decades.

She is the governor’s second nomination to the court. Fabiana Pierre-Louis became the first Black woman on the court when she was sworn in in September.

Georgia
Man gets 5 years in prison for arson at city office
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for setting fire to a Savannah city government office building.

Stephen Charles Setter, 19, was sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge after pleading guilty to a charge of arson, federal prosecutors said in a news release. In his plea, Setter admitted to setting a blaze that destroyed the city’s code enforcement office last year on May 3.

Setter also told the court he had activated a fire alarm at a local marina that same night to draw firefighters away from their station. He said that allowed him to slip into the station and steal a radio, which he used to listen to fire department communications.

The fire at the code enforcement office spread to the attic and the roof. The building was declared a total loss with damage estimated at nearly $1 million. The fire was set late at night, when the building was unoccupied.
No one was injured.

In addition to the prison sentence, the judge ordered Setter to pay $1.2 million in restitution.

Wisconsin
Man accused of killing 2 relatives enters insanity plea
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A man accused of killing two of his relatives has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in Brown County Circuit Court.

Twenty-nine-year-old Oscar Lemus-Franco entered the plea Friday to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. Gerson Alvarez-Franco and Jaime Lemus, both relatives of Lemus-Franco, were shot and killed at a Green Bay residence last September.

Lemus-Franco also faces charges for allegedly stabbing a police officer in the face following his arrest.

If the court or a jury finds him guilty of the murders, a second trial phase would determine if Lemus-Franco should be held criminally responsible due to his mental condition. If he is not found to be criminally responsible he would committed for psychiatric treatment.

Previously, a psychiatric exam in this case determined Lemus-Franco was competent to stand trial, which means he understands the proceedings and can assist in own defense, WLUK-TV reported.

He remains in custody on a $1 million cash bond.

No trial date was set.

Massachusetts
State medical parole law angers victims’ kin, prosecutors
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts has released 21 convicted first-degree murderers under the state’s three-year-old medical parole law, most of them in the past year during the coronavirus pandemic, angering prosecutors and the families of their victims.

Under state law, people convicted of first-degree murder receive mandatory sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I’m not sure the members of the Legislature fully realized that they set up a conflict in the law: A first-degree murderer is not eligible for parole, yet we’re allowing them to be released,” Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey told The Boston Globe. “It’s very hard to go back to a family — some of these cases are 30 years old or older — and tell them the killer of their loved one is now potentially eligible to get out of prison.”

The law allows inmates, regardless of their crime, to petition the state Department of Correction for release if diagnosed by a physician as terminally ill, with a life expectancy of fewer than 18 months, or permanently incapacitated so they do not pose a risk to society.

John Stote, 61, sentenced to life for a 1995 killing in Springfield, was released in January when he was put on a ventilator in the hospital with COVID-19 and not expected to survive.

But now, according to this lawyer, he has recovered and is receiving care at a rehabilitation center. If his progress continues, he may be released to live with his daughter, Mark Bluver said.

That angered Maureen Regan Moriarty, whose father, John Regan, was stabbed to death by Stote.

“It’s beyond insulting to victims,” she said. “This is just an outrage to everybody, to every citizen and other victims’ families.”

Advocates for prison inmates defended the law.

“Every single one of these people who got released deserved to be released,” said Ruth Greenberg, a lawyer who has represented dozens of inmates seeking medical parole, including 13 who have been released. Several inmates were granted medical release hours before their death, she said.

Among all prisoners, 47 have been granted medical parole, of more than 400 who have applied, according to state records. Eleven have died since their release, two from illnesses related to COVID-19, according to the state.

Washington
AG wants additional $2.8M in legal fees from Tim Eyman
SEATTLE (AP) — State Attorney General Bob Ferguson wants an additional $2.8 million in legal fees and costs related to his lawsuit against anti-tax initiative promoter Tim Eyman.

The lawsuit dragged on because of what Ferguson called Eyman’s “cost-inflating, frivolous, obstructive and defiant litigation tactics,” The Seattle Times reported.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon already granted Ferguson’s office legal fees in the case when he ruled against Eyman last month. A hearing on Ferguson’s specific request for $2.8 million is scheduled for this week.

Eyman, in a fundraising email sent in response, said that last year the Attorney General’s Office, responding to a public records request, said it had spent $1.4 million on the case, through September 2020.

“Today Ferguson claims his political assault cost the taxpayers $2.8 million,” Eyman wrote. “Just another Ferguson lie.”

Eyman pays $10,000 to the state on the fifth of each month, as part of a court-approved payment plan, a total that will increase to $13,500 next year and continue for the foreseeable future.

On Twitter, Ferguson wrote that Eyman’s “antics and delay tactics” cost taxpayers millions. “I plan to collect.”

In a court filing Thursday, Ferguson produced an itemized bill that shows the lengths his office went to in its suit against Eyman.

In total, seven lawyers and staff spent 9,899.71 hours on the Eyman case, Ferguson said. That’s the equivalent of about 13.5 months, day and night. They billed at hourly rates ranging from $123 to $408.

The legal case against Eyman started in 2012, with an investigation by the state’s campaign finance watchdog, the Public Disclosure Commission.

Due to “avoidance tactics” the PDC had to issue 12 separate subpoenas to Eyman.

Georgia
Court upholds conviction, sentence in day care killing
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court Monday upheld the murder conviction and sentence of life in prison without parole for a man found guilty of fatally shooting another man outside a suburban Atlanta preschool.

A jury in 2016 convicted Hemy Neuman of malice murder and possession of a firearm while committing a felony in the 2010 killing of Russell “Rusty” Sneiderman. It was the second time Neuman was convicted in the killing, the Georgia Supreme Court having overturned his first conviction.

At his first trial in 2012, Neuman was found guilty but mentally ill on a malice murder charge and guilty on the gun charge. He appealed and the state Supreme Court reversed his convictions, citing a violation of attorney-client privilege after the judge allowed as evidence notes and records from two mental health experts who had examined Neuman before trial.

When the state retried him in 2016, the jury found him guilty of both malice murder and the gun charge, without the mental illness qualifier on the murder conviction. He received a sentence of life in prison on the murder charge and an additional five years on the gun charge.

In his appeal, Neuman argued that since the first jury had found him guilty but mentally ill, the second jury could not find him guilty without the mental illness condition. He also argued the DeKalb County district attorney’s office, which handled both prosecutions, should have been disqualified because it had privileged information from the first trial. He also argued the trial judge improperly limited his attorney’s examination of two defense witnesses and that his trial attorneys provided “ineffective assistance of counsel.”

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Charlie Bethel, the high court affirmed the lower court’s ruling, finding “no reversible error.”

Prosecutors said Neuman killed Sneiderman in November 2010 so he could be with Sneiderman’s wife Andrea, with whom he was having an affair. Andrea Sneiderman repeatedly denied the claims. Another jury later convicted Andrea Sneiderman of perjury and she spent time in prison before being released.

Mississippi
Man arrested in 2020 shooting of a judge
MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man has been arrested in the March 2020 shooting of a Chancery Court judge.

Ernest Edwards, 41, faces an attempted capital murder charge for shooting Judge Charles Smith.

The shooting happened outside the Lauderdale County Courthouse when Smith arrived for work on March 16, 2020, WTOK-TV reported. Smith was shot by a high-powered rifle while he was standing next to his truck.

The judge was in critical condition and underwent surgery at a Meridian hospital. He was later transported to Jackson for treatment, according to WTOK-TV.

After two months of healing, Smith returned to the bench in May 2020. Smith’s district includes Lauderdale and Clarke counties. Among subjects that chancery judges in Mississippi handle are divorces, child custody cases, adoptions and guardianships.

Edwards, of Meridian, is being held in the Lauderdale County Detention Center. He is not eligible for a bond “due to the nature of the crime and other pending charges,” according to a press release from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Smith became a judge in January 2019 after more than 20 years as a youth court and county court prosecutor.

West Virginia
Judge resigns after investigation of comments, text messages
PRINCETON, W.Va. (AP) — A magistrate judge in West Virginia has stepped down following an investigation into allegations of inappropriate comments and text messages, according to a news report.

Mercer County Magistrate Charles Poe resigned in a letter to Mercer County Circuit Judge William Sadler on Friday after the state Judicial Investigation Commission probe, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reported.

The commission began investigating Poe on Jan. 26 after an ethics complaint was made.

He was accused of making “inappropriate sexual, homophobic and racist comments” to a frequent courthouse visitor and of making discriminatory comments verbally and by text message, the newspaper reported.

The commission report said Poe admitted in a sworn statement that he sent the text messages and said many of his comments “amounted to harassment” of two people.

In an agreement with the commission, Poe said he would immediately resign his position and would not seek a judicial office again in West Virginia.