Court Digest

North Dakota
New trial granted for Lyft driver convicted of raping rider
MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A judge has granted a new trial to Mandan Lyft driver whose 2019 conviction for raping a customer was upheld by the North Dakota Supreme Court.

South Central District Judge Bobbi Weiler wrote in an order earlier this week that Corey Wickham’s constitutional rights were violated when his defense attorney failed to object to police testimony she said impacted the jury’s decision.

Wickham, now 42, was working as a Lyft driver in August 2018 when he was accused of raping a woman after driving her home. A jury convicted him of two sexual assault charges and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Wickham’s attorney, Lloyd Suhr, argued that a Bismarck police detective’s testimony about Wickham’s request for an attorney was an improper comment that should have drawn an objection from defense counsel. The jury was deadlocked early in deliberation and asked for the detective’s testimony to be read back to them.

Less than an hour after hearing the testimony for the second time, the jury returned a guilty verdict. Wickham’s attorney at the time, James Loraas, did not object either time.

Loraas did not immediately respond to an email by The Bismarck Tribune request seeking comment.

The state Supreme Court in January 2020 upheld the conviction. Wickham at that time argued the district court erred by admitting testimony from five witnesses without requiring the prosecution to qualify them as experts.

Nevada
Court: Inmate no longer eligible for death penalty
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada death row inmate convicted in the 1980 robbery-killing of a man for $2 is no longer eligible for capitol punishment and must be resentenced, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled.

The Nevada justices ruled Thursday that a New York court’s recent erasure of Samuel Howard’s lone conviction for a violent crime took the death penalty off the table for his Nevada murder conviction, the Las Vegas Review-Journal  reported.

Howard, 73, has been on death row for nearly 40 years after being sentenced in the 1980 fatal shooting of Las Vegas dentist George Monahan during a robbery.

According to the Nevada high court, the vacating of Howard’s New York conviction eliminated the one remaining aggravating circumstance making him eligible for a possible death sentence.

Under a new penalty hearing for Howard, a jury would decide between a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole or without the possibility of parole.

The last person executed by Nevada was Daryl Mack. He was executed in 2006 for the 1988 murder of Betty Jane May of Reno.

Illinois
Woman sentenced to 75 years in prison for killing boyfriend’s son
PEKIN, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois woman accused of resenting a boyfriend’s 4-year-old son was sentenced to 75 years in prison for killing the boy.

Lesli Jett was portrayed as a selfish drug abuser who didn’t like being at the East Peoria home with Tate Thurman. The boy had multiples bruises and abrasions when he died in 2020.

“The defendant is manipulative, dishonest, untrustworthy, parasitic, cold, self-centered and cruel,” Assistant State’s Attorney Mara Mishler told the judge Friday.

Jett, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder in July. Her sentence was enhanced by the age of the victim, the Journal Star reported.

The boy’s dad, Jeremy Thurman, said Jett, who had her own 2-year-old child in the home, seemed loving.

“All the while, she was hiding malicious behavior,” Thurman said. “I have struggled to come to terms knowing I will never hear Tate say, ‘Daddy, I love you.’”

Jett has insisted she’s innocent. She gave a letter to the judge but didn’t speak in court.

“The fact that she’s not showing remorse ... doesn’t necessarily help her here today,” Tazewell County Judge Paul Gilfillan said.

Virginia
Email surveillance suit rejected by 4th Circuit
FALLS CHURCH (AP) — A divided federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of an ACLU lawsuit challenging a portion of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international email and phone communications.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 15 that the lawsuit must be dismissed after the government invoked the “state secrets privilege,” meaning that a full exploration of the issue in a court of law would damage national security.

In the lawsuit the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, said that the National Security Agency’s “Upstream” surveillance program necessarily captures some of its international communications and is a violation of free-speech rights and its Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

Details of the Upstream program are classified, but it collects data from transmissions over high-speed cables that carry electronic communications into and out of the country.

In a majority opinion, Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee, agreed with government assertions that a lawsuit over the program’s constitutionality cannot be conducted without harming national security.

“There’s simply no conceivable defense to this assertion that wouldn’t also reveal the very information that the government is trying to protect: how Upstream surveillance works and where it’s conducted,” Diaz wrote.

In a dissent, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote that the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on a case that could spell out the breadth of the state secrets privilege, and that allowing the government to invoke it ahead of that ruling is a mistake.

She said that the majority opinion “stands for a sweeping proposition: A suit may be dismissed under the state secrets doctrine, after minimal judicial review, even when the Government premises its only defenses on far-fetched hypotheticals.”

Patrick Toomey, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, which represented Wikimedia, said he is “extremely disappointed” with the ruling and lawyers are considering their appeal options.

“Every day, the NSA is siphoning Americans’ communications off the internet backbone and into its spying machines, violating privacy and chilling free expression,” he said in a statement.

Virginia
Family of woman who died in jail settles lawsuit
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) — The family of a woman who died at a Virginia jail after staff ignored her drug withdrawal symptoms has agreed to settle a lawsuit for $500,000, a family attorney said.

The Virginian-Pilot reports that Pamela Riddick was booked into the Portsmouth city jail on Aug. 21, 2017, on outstanding warrants following a car crash. She died less than two days later.

According to a lawsuit filed by Riddick’s four sisters, Riddick told a booking officer she regularly used heroin and was suffering from cramping, vomiting and diarrhea. Instead of notifying medical staff about her condition, the deputy had Riddick sent to general population.

Video showed that no deputy walked past Riddick’s cell for nearly an hour and a half in the early morning hours of Aug. 23, 2017, even though department policy required deputies to walk their posts two times per hour. During that time, Riddick can be seen on the video waving her arms and hands through the bars of her cell trying to get help.

An autopsy showed she died of fentanyl toxicity, with recent cocaine intoxication contributing to her death.. The family’s lawsuit alleged that deputies falsified logs after Riddick died to make it appear that they had checked on her more often than they did.


Maryland
MS-13 gang member sentenced to 35 years in slaying
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A 23-year-old Maryland man has been sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for his role in a violent street gang prosecutors said preyed on the Hispanic community in Annapolis over a two-year period.

The Capital Gazette reports that Moises Alexis Reyes-Canales, also known as “Sicopita,” was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise as part of MS-13 gang activities.

Reyes-Canales admitted that he participated in the murder of a suspected rival gang member and conspired and attempted to murder two victims in Annapolis, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He admitted being a member of MS-13 since March 11, 2016 and participated as a member in a racketeering conspiracy that included assaults, murder, attempted murder, robbery, and drug trafficking.

With roots in that Latin American country, the gang is a crime organization known to focus on communities where immigrants from Latin America and South America live. Annapolis has a thriving Hispanic/Latino community, with a large portion of immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Reyes-Canales admitted that on March 11, 2016, he and other MS-13 members and associates agreed to murder a man police later identified as Jose Hernandez-Portillo, whom the gang suspected of being a rival gang member. Reyes-Canales received authorization to commit the murder from MS-13 leadership prior to the stabbing and directed others during the attack at Quiet Waters Park. Police didn’t find his body until Aug. 28, 2017.

Kansas
Nurse pleads guilty to over-drugging dementia patient
A Kansas nurse who texted a co-worker a picture of a dementia patient slumped over in a wheelchair and then suggested she was responsible and deserved thanks has pleaded guilty to intentionally administering the wrong medication.

The Kansas City Star reports  that 37-year-old Jennifer Lynn Reavis, of Atchison, is free on bond as she awaits sentencing on charges of endangerment, unlawful administration of a controlled substance and battery. She pleaded guilty to the charges Friday in Leavenworth County District Court.

In May 2019, administrators with Twin Oaks Rehab Center in Lansing contacted police after discovering that a patient had been getting evening medications along with the anti-anxiety drug Ativan and Benadryl when she was not supposed to.

“Your (sic) welcome! I hope she is asleep most of the day tomorrow,” prosecutors said Reaves wrote to an oncoming night nurse in a text that included the photograph of the victim apparently sleeping in a wheelchair. “Hint hint.”
The medication caused the patient to become lethargic and be hospitalized, prosecutors say.

Reavis admitted to police giving the medicine to the woman, saying she tried to wander away from the nursing home.

Illinois
Hate crime charged after Black woman says man spit at her
OAK PARK, Ill. (AP) — A 53-year-old man has been arrested on a felony hate crime charge after he allegedly hurled racial slurs and spit on a Black woman and her daughter before striking their vehicle with his own car outside a suburban Chicago grocery store, prosecutors said.

At a Sunday court hearing in which Alberto Friedmann was formally charged with a felony hate crime and aggravated assault, a judge ordered that he be released from custody on $2,500 bail, the Chicago Tribune reported.

At the hearing, prosecutors said that on Sept. 7 in Oak Park, Friedmann allegedly honked his horn at the car in which the woman and her 7-year-old daughter were sitting, climbed from his vehicle, yelled slurs at her, slammed her door shut and spit at her.

Prosecutors allege that Friedman then struck the woman’s vehicle twice with his car.

At he hearing Friedmann’s attorney, John McNamara, said his client, a minority and a “child of immigrants,” denied that Friedman used any racial language during the incident.

Friedmann, an Oak Park resident, holds a doctorate in kinesiology and exercise science and neurology and teachers neurokinesiology at National University of Health Sciences, McNamara said during the hearing.