Court Digest

Arizona
No venue change for suspect in murders of 2 girls
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A Pima County judge has denied a venue change for the trial of a man accused of killing two young girls.

Lawyers for Christopher Clements argued that holding the proceedings in the county would deprive him of a fair trial.

Superior Court Judge Deborah Bernini denied the motion, stating that the county courts are more than equipped to handle both homicide cases against Clements in an orderly fashion.

Prosecutors have already filed a notice to withdraw the death penalty in the case.

Clements allegedly kidnapped and killed 6-year-old Isabel Celis and 13-year old Maribel Gonzalez.

He was indicted in 2018 on 22 felony charges including first-degree murder after the remains of the two young children were found separately in a remote area of Pima County.

Clements reportedly led law enforcement to the remains of Celis in 2017, about five years after she disappeared from her home in Tucson.

Gonzalez’s body was found in 2014, three days after she was reported missing.

Florida
1st Black man on State Supreme Court has died
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The first Black man to serve on the Florida Supreme court has died. Joseph W. Hatchett was 88.

The court announced Saturday that Hatchett died in Tallahassee. No cause of death was given.

Hatchett was the first African American on the state high court when he was appointed by then Gov. Reubin Askew in 1975, according to the court.

In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter named Hatchett to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hatchett graduated from Florida A&M University in 1954, then earned his law degree in 1959 from the Howard University School of Law,

Hatchett also worked as a federal prosecutor and in private practice.

Kentucky
Court orders new trial after Black jurors tossed
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday ordered a new trial for a Black defendant after finding that a lower court judge failed to protect his civil rights during jury selection, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

In a 2018 assault case against Darryl Keith Baker, former Judge John Reynolds should not have let the prosecutor strike two Black men from the jury pool without exploring her reasons for the strikes, the court said.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, removing a potential juror based on race violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. If defense lawyers challenge a prosecutor for possibly violating this rule — and Baker’s did — the trial judge is supposed to make the prosecutor explain in court why the decision to strike a juror was not influenced by the juror’s race.

The prosecutor said she objected to one of the men because he “gave off bad body language” and looked “disgruntled,” while the other had a father who was prosecuted decades earlier for murder, the Court of Appeals wrote in its decision. Reynolds failed to press the prosecutor any further.

“This is gravely insufficient,” the Appeals Court ruling stated. “Unfortunately, the trial court in the case ... utterly failed to conduct any kind of independent assessment of the prosecutor’s reasoning.”
In its Friday ruling, the Appeals Court noted the Kentucky Supreme Court in 2018 specifically warned trial courts that prosecutors cannot strike jurors based only on their perceived “belligerent” or “hostile” looks.
The court also wrote that a white woman whose father also had a criminal record was found to be acceptable to sit on the jury.

Baker was convicted of third-degree assault for punching a Lexington police officer and for being a persistent felony offender. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The 12-person jury that convicted him ended up with one Black member, a woman.

The Court of Appeals on Friday reversed Baker’s conviction and returned the case to Fayette Circuit Court for a new trial.

Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn defended the prosecutor on Friday, saying she struck the jurors “for race-neutral reasons.”

In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge J. Christopher McNeill said the reasons the prosecutor offered for her jury strikes were adequate and the burden was on Baker’s defense lawyer to show that race motivated her actions.

Pennsylvania
Judge running for high court disavows QAnon conspiracy
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Philadelphia judge running for a seat on Pennsylvania’s highest court is disavowing any connection to QAnon, even though she did an interview with supporters of the conspiracy theory who also listed her as a featured speaker at an upcoming gathering.

Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick told  The Philadelphia Inquirer that she had no connection to QAnon, the baseless belief that former President Donald Trump waged a secret battle against a cabal of satanic child-molesting cannibals.

“Look, I’m a judge,” she said in an interview with The Inquirer’s editorial board on Thursday. “There’s no way I would link myself to anything that would be questionable like that.”

Patrick, 53, is running in the three-way Republican Party primary contest on May 18.

She has served on Philadelphia’s bench for 17 years, including stints in every major trial division on the court, and received the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s highest possible rating. She also has run statewide before, twice unsuccessfully, for seats on lower state appellate courts.

The other candidates on the GOP ballot are Kevin Brobson and Patricia McCullough, both Commonwealth Court judges.

Many of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were wearing clothes or holding signs adorned with symbols of the QAnon conspiracy theory. An FBI bulletin in 2020 warned  that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat.

Patrick said she wasn’t invited to the “Patriots Arise, Awakening the Dead!” event in Gettysburg in June, which says it will feature speeches about how to fight the socialist left. Patrick did not plan to attend and had never heard of it before, she said. By Friday, her name had been removed from the site.

However, in recent weeks, Patrick sat for an interview on a YouTube and podcast show hosted by the two conservative social media personalities and self-described prophets who are organizing the event.

The website for their group is full of references to QAnon. But Patrick said she hadn’t researched the podcast and wasn’t aware of their views on QAnon. Rather, she said she thought the show was targeted to a Christian audience.

“I just did an interview with reference to my candidacy, and that was it. I didn’t know anything else about any conspiracy theories,” Patrick told the Inquirer.

Maine
Court rejects appeal by man who killed wife with shotgun
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The state supreme court has upheld the murder conviction and 40-year sentence for man who killed his wife with a shotgun blast in their Windham home.

The Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday unanimously rejected Noah Gaston’s contention that COVID-19 restrictions violated his constitutional rights by preventing him from confronting parties at his sentencing.
Gaston acknowledged killing his wife, Alicia, with a shotgun blast in 2016, but maintained that he thought she was an intruder.

The prosecution allowed the victim’s family and friends to testify by video at the sentencing while Gaston’s family and friends viewed the proceedings from a separate room at the courthouse to allow for social distancing during the pandemic.

“Anyone who wanted to address the court or access the proceeding was able to do so, despite the pandemic restrictions,” Justice Joseph Jabar wrote in the supreme court’s ruling.

The court also rejected Gaston’s argument that the sentence was too long and that the judge wrongly concluded he waived his right to religious privilege when he told a third party about conversations with church members.

The church members, who picked Gaston up at the local police station after his wife died, said he told them he saw a figure he thought was an intruder before he fired. But he also told them that was the only story he could tell if he wanted to see his kids again, according to the police affidavit.

Maryland
County toº pay $1.1M to settle church’s religious bias claims
BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore County has agreed to pay $1.1 million to resolve a religious discrimination lawsuit over a county board’s denial of a church’s expansion plan.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the county and Hunt Valley Baptist Church reached the March 31 settlement after a federal judge in Baltimore upheld a ruling that the county violated a federal law that protects religious institutions from discrimination in zoning.

The church sued in 2017 after a county appeals board denied its plan to build a larger facility.

The church sought permission to build a 1,000-seat sanctuary with classrooms, a kitchen, gym, offices and parking for 240 cars on a 17-acre farm. The construction project had an estimated cost of $5 million.

County officials and an administrative law judge had approved the church’s plan, but an appeals board reversed the decision. Neighbors who opposed the church’s expansion argued that the project could lead to a proliferation of new development in the area.

The church’s lawsuit claimed the county’s zoning laws violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Oklahoma
Former doctor guilty of murder in opioid death
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former Oklahoma doctor has been convicted of second-degree murder in the opioid overdose death of a patient, according to state Attorney General Mike Hunter.

Former Midwest City Dr. Regan Nichols was convicted Friday on one of five counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of five patients between 2010 and 2013.

Nichols was acquitted on the remaining four counts.

“The facts and the evidence in this case were clear – through her reckless overprescribing, Regan Nichols put her patients in danger, which led to tragic deaths,” Hunter said.

Nichols prescribed more than 1,800 opioid pills to the five people who died during the same months as their deaths, according to investigators.

Defense attorney Tommy Adler told The Oklahoman that the guilty verdict will be appealed.

“We’re very surprised by the one conviction,” Adler said. “We believe (the jurors) worked hard.”

Hunter successfully sued pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson for a misleading marketing campaign that overstated how effective the drugs were for treating chronic pain and understated the risk of addiction.

The case has been appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Hunter also reached pretrial settlements with other drugmakers and has  filed a lawsuit against three opioid distributors.

Alabama
No youth status for teen suspect in football game shooting
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A teenager facing charges in the shooting of nine people two years ago during a high school football game in Alabama will face trial as an adult.

News outlets in Mobile say a judge ruled that Deangelo Dejuan Parnell will not be granted youthful offender status.

The shooting occurred in Aug. 30, 2019. Video and photos show the gunfire sent players and onlookers at Ladd-Peebles Stadium running for cover. Nine people were hurt.

Deangelo, who was a 17-year-old LeFlore High School student at the time, turned himself in the next day. He faces nine counts of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

At least one lawsuit has been filed over security at the game.

The defense argued last week that the defendant’s age and his lack of criminal history warranted youthful offender treatment. Prosecutors countered with school records showing 16 separate disciplinary infractions. Prosecutors also introduced evidence that Parnell was accused of assaulting and robbling a fellow inmate at Mobile Metro Jail in December.

Mobile County Circuit Judge James Patterson ruled in favor of the prosecution last week. He earlier had denied the defense’s request to exclude school and jail records.

An arraignment is set for May 13.