Court Digest

Washington
Appeals court upholds ruling against lawyer in theft case
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — The Washington state Court of Appeals upheld a guilty verdict Monday for an attorney who won a client almost a million dollars in a lawsuit and then stole from him to pay off her mortgage.

Jeffrey Barrett suffered a traumatic brain injury when a drunk driver hit his vehicle in 1995 on Highway 9. He couldn’t recognize his wife and children, according to court documents. He had to relearn how to speak, walk and use the bathroom, the Everett Herald reported.

A year and a half later, his brother hired Helga Kahr to represent Barrett in the civil lawsuit to recover damages from the crash. Kahr won a nearly million-dollar settlement from the Lucky Seven Saloon, arguing it over-served the driver who hit Barrett.

His family reportedly hoped he could live off the money. Instead, Kahr stole nearly $300,000 to pay off her mortgage. She was convicted in 2019 in King County Superior Court on two counts of theft.

Kahr was sentenced to 18 months confinement in 2019. She argued in her appeal that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her and that Barrett shouldn’t have been ruled competent to testify at trial.

The appeals court disagreed, affirming the original ruling.

California
Judge tosses school board member’s lawsuit
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out an $87 million lawsuit that a San Francisco school board member filed against the district and her colleagues after they voted to strip her of senior board positions because of tweets that were widely criticized as racist.

Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr. said in his ruling on Monday that the claims by Alison Collins, who was vice president of the San Francisco school board, had no merit and there was no need to argue the case in court, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Collins filed the lawsuit in March, accusing the San Francisco Unified School District and five of her colleagues on the seven-member board of violating her free speech rights when they voted in a 5-2 ruling to strip her of her position as vice president and remove her from committees due to tweets dating back to 2016, before she was a school board member.

Collins sought $72 million in damages from the district and $3 million from each board member who had voted to strip her titles. In the lawsuit, Collins also sought an injunction to restore her as vice president, which the judge also denied.

Collins, who is Black, came under fire after critics unearthed the tweets in which she wrote that many Asian Americans “use white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead’” and “believe they benefit from the ‘model minority’ BS.”

In the thread, Collins called for Asian Americans to speak out against then-President Donald Trump’s policies, saying that her daughter stepped in to stop Asian American boys who were bullying a Latino student. “Don’t Asian Americans know they are on his list as well?” Collins wrote, using asterisks in place of a racial slur: “Being a house n(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)r is still being a n(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)r. You’re still considered ‘the help.’”

The tweets sparked outrage and calls for Collins to resign, which she resisted and remains on the school board. At the time, Collins said the tweets were taken out of context and that she was speaking out against harassment, racism and bullying of Black and brown students in the district.

Gilliam’s ruling allows Collins to amend her complaint against the individual board members, but not the district, which is a government agency and not subject to lawsuits.

The ruling was welcomed by district officials Monday, as San Francisco schools reopened for the fall term.

“We’re focused on supporting our schools as they begin the new school year,” Deputy Superintendent Gentle Blythe said. “It’s helpful to have one less distraction.”

Collins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Louisiana
Biden admin to appeal order blocking oil, gas lease pause
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration filed notice Monday that it is appealing a federal judge’s order that blocked Biden’s suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and waters.

A Louisiana-based federal judge issued the ruling in June, siding with Louisiana’s attorney general and officials in 12 other states. Those states said the administration bypassed comment periods and other bureaucratic steps required before such delays can be undertaken and the moratorium would cost the states money and jobs.

In a statement on the appeal, the Interior Department said it will proceed with leasing, consistent with the judge’s June ruling, while the appeal proceeds. However, the department also said it “will continue to exercise the authority and discretion provided under the law to conduct leasing in a manner that takes into account the program’s many deficiencies.”

The statement reemphasized the administration position that the pause is needed because the federal oil and gas leasing programs are responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions. The appeal is being filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

The moratorium was imposed after Biden signed executive orders on Jan. 27 to fight climate change. The suit was filed in March and U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Lafayette issued his injunction June 15. The Interior Department had already canceled oil and gas lease sales from public lands through June — affecting Nevada, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the bureau’s eastern region.

Biden’s orders included a call for Interior officials to review if the leasing program unfairly benefits companies at the expense of taxpayers, as well as the program’s impact on climate change.

Doughty cited what he called the administration’s “omission of any rational explanation in cancelling the lease sales, and in enacting the Pause.” He sided with states’ attorneys who argued that the delay of new leasing cost states revenue from rents and royalties.

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia are the other plaintiff states.

In the statement announcing the appeal on the pause of oil and gas leases, the administration said it plans to officially announce this week plans to review the federal coal leasing program. The statement provided no details.


Wisconsin
Ex-teacher to pleads guilty to filming students
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A former Wisconsin high school teacher accused of secretly videotaping undressed students during field trips in Wisconsin and Minnesota pleaded guilty in federal court Monday, under a plea deal with prosecutors.

David M. Kruchten, 39, of Cottage Grove, faces six to 20 years in prison, after pleading guilty to two federal charges in Wisconsin, the State Journal reported. Sentencing has been set for Oct. 22.

In Minnesota, Kruchten still faces three counts of interfering with the privacy of a minor. No court dates have been scheduled in that case.

Kruchten told U.S. District Judge James Peterson and a courtroom packed with former and present students and parents that he positioned the cameras in the bathrooms of students’ hotel rooms “just out of curiosity to see what was going on, what they were doing.”

He said he wanted to see students undressed, and had been setting up cameras compulsively.

Kruchten was charged last year with multiple counts of attempting to produce child pornography. He resigned from his teaching job in February 2020.

Kruchten’s attorney, federal defender Joseph Bugni, said he believed Kruchten would be convicted if the case went to a jury because of the way that the cameras were set.


New Jersey
Court rules virus restrictions didn’t cause unfair trial
The state Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Bergen County man wasn’t denied a fair trial because of jury selection changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, though the justices took the additional step of ordering courts to begin collecting demographic data from prospective jurors.

Wildemar Dangcil’s trial last fall was the first jury trial in the state to use the hybrid jury selection process, a mostly virtual undertaking aimed at limiting in-person contact as the number of coronavirus cases surged.

Dangcil was convicted of attempted assault, attempted arson, making terroristic threats and other charges, and appealed on the grounds that the jury selection process failed to ensure a jury representing a cross section of the community.

A similar challenge in a separate case, alleging a lack of access to technology would unconstitutionally exclude minority, poor and elderly jurors, was rejected by the Supreme Court in April.

Dangcil’s attorneys also argued the jury selection process denied him the right to be present during the excusal and disqualification of jurors.

In Monday’s unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court rejected both arguments but wrote that the appeal raised important issues.

“To better assist our courts in preventing potential underrepresentation and irregularities stemming from the hybrid process and other facially neutral selection procedures, we direct the (Administrative Office of the Courts) to begin collecting jurors’ demographic information,” including race, ethnicity and gender, Justice Lee Solomon wrote. The disclosures would be voluntary.

Attorney Brian Neary, who argued on behalf of Dangcil, said the requirement is another step toward addressing potential bias in the jury selection process.

“Now we’ll be able to get a sense of whether we are eliminating, via pre-qualifying questions, certain groups — maybe not intentionally, but implicitly,” he said.

In a statement from the New Jersey State Bar Association, which also argued in support of Dangcil, attorney Lawrence Lustberg said the ruling “reflects the Association’s earlier recommendations to begin collecting demographic information about even those potential jurors who are excused prior to coming to court, which will guard against the risk of unconstitutional jury selection and under-representative juries.”


Nevada
15 years prison for man for child porn distribution
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say a Nevada man who went to great lengths to try to conceal his identity and avoid detection by law officers has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for distributing emailed images of young children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du sentenced 36-year-old Benjamin Morrow of Fernley in Reno Monday after he pleaded guilty in April to two counts of distribution of child pornography

Court documents say forensic analysis of devices seized from Morrow revealed more than 119,000 images and nearly 5,000 videos of child porn.

Prosecutors say he used encrypted messaging applications, online aliases and various U.S. and overseas addresses to send unsolicited emails to approximately 182 recipients, including some images of sadistic and masochistic abuse of children under age 12.

Morrow was arrested in Fallon on August 2019 after he was indicted on five criminal counts, including advertising, receiving and possessing child pornography. The the other three counts were dropped under a plea-bargain agreement.

In addition to prison, Du sentenced him to lifetime supervision upon his release.

The FBI was assisted in the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Nevada attorney general’s office, Reno police and sheriff’s deputies in Carson City and Washoe and Lyon counties.


Georgia
Investigators: Man threatens to shoot judge
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A suburban Atlanta man has been arrested for threatening on a social media video to shoot a Georgia judge.

The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office said deputies arrested Micquel Deandre Gay on Monday, local news outlets report. Investigators said Gay posted a 24-minute video claiming he would shoot a Gwinnett County Superior Court judge who denied Gay’s motion to end his probation.

The sheriff’s office said Gay also threatened to shoot employees and shut down the county courthouse.

Gay is charged with terroristic threats, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and criminal gang activity.

Authorities said the threats were “real and valid” and that Gay displayed a gun during the video.

“In the 24-minute live video, Gay makes multiple threats of killing law enforcement and public officials and proceeds to demonstrate his firearm,” the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Gay was arrested in Rockdale County and processed through the jail there. Records show he was released to custody elsewhere. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer representing him.