Court Digest

Nevada
Judge: Woman accused in deaths incompetent to stand trial
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Clark County judge has found a woman accused of killing her husband in 2005 and a former college professor five years ago is incompetent to stand trial.

Rita Colon, 46, was ordered Friday to be held at a state-run maximum-security psychiatric facility until doctors determine she is fit to stand trial.

Colon fled to Peru after the death of former University of Nevada, Las Vegas, professor Leroy Pelton, 77. He was found dead in his Henderson home about a month after he died. Grand jury transcripts obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal show he had been stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen and neck.

Colon tried gain access to more than $1 million in Pelton's retirement fund before suddenly moving to Peru with her mother and young daughter, according to testimony heard by the grand jury.

Colon was arrested in Peru in December 2017. After her former brother-in-law, Luis Colon, learned of the arrest, he called Las Vegas detectives about similarities between Pelton's death and that of her first husband. Edwin Colon died in 2005 of a stab wound to the neck that was ruled a suicide.

Edwin Colon's family never believed he killed himself, Luis Colon previously told the Review-Journal.

The Clark County coroner's office changed Edwin Colon's manner of death from suicide to "undetermined," and in August 2019 Rita Colon was charged with murder in the death of her former husband.

Rita Colon had told investigators that her husband killed himself during an argument. North Las Vegas detectives who re-examined the case in 2019 came to believe it was a homicide.

She has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors agreed to not seek the death penalty as a condition of Rita Colon's extradition from Peru.

South Carolina
Judges order new sentence for man on death row
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for a South Carolina inmate who has spent two decades on death row.

Sammie Louis Stokes was sentenced to death in 1999 for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Connie Snipes in Orangeburg County, The State reported. Evidence at the trial showed he was paid $2,000 by the victim's mother-in-law, who planned to take custody of her grandchildren once Snipes was dead.

Judges for the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Stokes must have a new sentencing hearing because two of his previous defense attorneys failed to present evidence of his traumatic past. Stokes' trial attorney had the evidence but chose to withhold it from the jury, Gregory wrote.

"The jury returned a death sentence without hearing a word from the defense about Stokes as an individual," Gregory wrote.

His opinion said a second attorney assigned to Stokes for post-conviction hearings found more information about his troubled past but failed to use it to push for a lighter sentence.

The judge's opinion described physical and sexual abuse that Stokes suffered at a young age. Both of his parents were "serious alcoholics," Gregory wrote, and Stokes and his sister would skip school to steal food from the neighbors in order to eat. Stokes saw both of his parents die in front of him before he age 14, and he began abusing alcohol and drugs as well as dropped out of school.

"According to the child development expert retained by Stokes's federal counsel, these facts amount to an extraordinarily traumatic childhood that impaired Stokes's future emotional regulation and social adaptation," Gregory wrote.

The appellate judges set no deadline for Stokes' new sentencing hearing, but said it must happen "within a reasonable time."

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Marvin Quattlebaum said he didn't believe the attorneys provided Stokes with ineffective counsel during the sentencing phase of his' trial.


California
Judge rules ride-hailing law unconstitutional
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge Friday struck down a California ballot measure that exempted Uber and other app-based ride-hailing and delivery services from a state law requiring drivers to be classified as employees eligible for benefits and job protections.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled that Proposition 22 was unconstitutional.

Voters approved the measure in November after Uber, Lyft and other services spent $200 million in its favor, making it the most expensive ballot measure in state history.

Uber said it planned to appeal, setting up a fight that could likely end up in the California Supreme Court.

"This ruling ignores the will of the overwhelming majority of California voters and defies both logic and the law," company spokesman Noah Edwardsen said. "You don't have to take our word for it: California's attorney general strongly defended Proposition 22's constitutionality in this very case."

He said the measure will remain in force pending the appeal.

The judge sided with three drivers and the Service Employees International Union in a lawsuit that argued the measure improperly removed the state Legislature's ability to grant workers the right to access to the state workers' compensation program.

"For two years, drivers have been saying that democracy cannot be bought. And today's decision shows they were right," said Bob Schoonover, president of the SEIU California State Council.

Proposition 22 shielded app-based ride-hailing and delivery companies from a labor law that required such services to treat drivers as employees and not independent contractors, who don't have to receive benefits such as paid sick leave or unemployment insurance.

Uber and Lyft threatened to leave the state if voters rejected the measure.

Labor spent about $20 million to challenge the proposition.

The state Supreme Court initially declined to hear the case in February — mainly on procedural grounds — but left open the possibility of a lower court challenge.


South Dakota
Federal judge rules against state in lawsuit over abortion law
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A federal judge Friday ruled against South Dakota's attempt to lift a decade-old injunction that nullified part of a state law requiring women to consult with a crisis pregnancy center before having an abortion.

Planned Parenthood sued the state in 2011 after lawmakers passed a law requiring a three-day wait period for women seeking an abortion, as well as a consultation with a pregnancy center that often discourages women from
having an abortion. Judge Karen Schreier ordered a temporary injunction that kept the law from taking effect. The three-day wait period eventually became law, but the consultation requirement has not.

South Dakota last year asked the court to allow the consultation requirement to take effect, arguing the situation in the state had changed since 2011. But Schreier, who was appointed under President Bill Clinton, ruled that the legal situation has not changed since the original injunction stopped the consultation requirement.

"It continues to likely infringe on women's right to free speech secured in the First Amendment, and it presents an undue burden on a woman's right to access abortion," she wrote in her order.

Gov. Kristi Noem said she would appeal the ruling, arguing the law was necessary to make sure women have the opportunity to hear relevant information about their pregnancy.

"I look forward to the day when all life –- born and unborn –- is protected by law," she said in a statement.

Ohio
Foster care advocates appeal federal lawsuit claim
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Advocates for Ohio children cared for by adult relatives have asked a federal appeals court to hear their claims that an improper gap exists between the payments those relatives and licensed foster care parents receive.

At issue are relatives who aren't licensed caregivers but are approved to care for children taken from their parents. The arrangement is often referred to as kinship care.

Child advocates argue the state must follow a 2017 federal appeals court decision ordering equality in payments to kinship caregivers, and in November sued to force adherence to that ruling.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law late last year providing a partial fix. The plan authorizes a $10.20 per child per day payment for kinship caregivers for up to nine months.

Advocates say that money falls far short of what licensed foster care parents receive, citing as an example the $1,500 to $9,667 monthly payments per foster child in Hamilton County.

Last month, federal Judge Michael Barrett in Columbus acknowledged that children cared for by relatives deserve more money but said the advocates suing over the payment discrepancies didn't have a claim under federal law.  The advocates appealed last week to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

California
Judge dismisses most claims in homeless lawsuit
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A judge dismissed most claims in a lawsuit that accused San Diego city and county officials of discriminating against homeless people with disabilities during the fight against the spread of COVID-19.

Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal allowed two of the complaint's six arguments to move forward, the Union-Tribune reported Sunday. One is an allegation that defendants violated a state code that prohibits discrimination against protected classes of people and the other is a claim for a judicial declaration that the defendants acted improperly.

Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi, the senior attorney at Disability Rights California who filed the complaint, said despite the legal efforts by city and county lawyers to stop the case, it will proceed.

"In the coming days, we will be analyzing next steps with our clients," she said.

City and county officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision.

The case filed last year accused housing and public health officials of discriminating against homeless people with disabilities by steering them into congregate-living situations instead of moving them into hotel and motel rooms.
Bacal's decision earlier this month sustained four of six arguments by the city and county that the allegations brought by the plaintiffs were not sufficient to proceed to trial.

The plaintiffs said in their lawsuit that they were denied help unless they agreed to move into facilities like the temporary shelter set up last year in the San Diego Convention Center.


Wisconsin
Conservatives file lawsuit over redistricting
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative group filed a redistricting lawsuit with the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday, an action that comes after Democrats filed their own legal challenge in federal court less than two weeks ago.

The two lawsuits mean there are fights in both state and federal courts in Wisconsin over redistricting, even before the Legislature proposes a map or takes a vote on new political boundary lines.

Both lawsuits argue that the current maps, adopted in 2011, are unconstitutional and courts should establish a plan to draw new lines because the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will not be able to agree.

Democrats are asking the federal courts to handle the drawing of new maps, while the new lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, known as WILL, asks the conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court to do it.

"Adopting new legislative maps is a state responsibility," said Rick Esenberg, president of WILL, in a prepared statement. "If the legislature and governor cannot agree, it is entirely appropriate – even necessary – for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a branch of state government, to pass a judicial apportionment plan to adopt constitutional maps."

The lawsuit asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, rather than have it start at lower state courts and work its way up.

The two lawsuits were filed after the state received population data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Aug. 12, information that forms the basis for the once-a-decade task of drawing maps for legislative and congressional boundary lines.

The federal lawsuit was filed by Marc Elias, who is leading the Democratic Party's legal fight against new voting restrictions.

The Republican-controlled Legislature is seeking to intervene in the Democrats' lawsuit and have it dismissed. They argue that the lawsuit is "wildly premature" and an attack on the Legislature's constitutional responsibility to draw new maps for legislative and congressional districts every 10 years.

The current maps were drawn by Republicans and enacted by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2011. Republicans who strengthened their legislative majorities under the maps want to use them as the starting point for redistricting this year.