Court Digest

Nevada
Court sides with gunmakers in Las Vegas mass shooting lawsuit
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nevada’s Supreme Court ruled gun manufacturers cannot be held responsible for the deaths in the 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip because a state law shields them from liability unless the weapon malfunctions.

The parents of a woman who was among the 60 people killed in the shooting at packed music festival filed a wrongful death suit against Colt Manufacturing Co. and several other gun manufacturers in July 2019.

The suit said the gun companies “knowingly manufactured and sold weapons designed to shoot automatically because they were aware their AR-15s could be easily modified with bump stocks to do so, thereby violating federal and state machinegun prohibitions.”

Stephen Paddock used an AR-15 with a bump stock when he fired 1,049 rounds in just 10 minutes on the crowd of 22,000 people from his suite in a casino-resort tower before he killed himself. Fifty-eight people were killed at the site or died in hospitals and hundreds more were wounded, including two people who died in the years after of complications from their injuries.

Nevada’s Supreme Court largely sided Thursday with the manufacturers’ argument that Nevada law immunizes them from civil actions, with the only “exception for products liability actions involving design or production defects that cause the firearm to malfunction.”

“We hold that (state law) provides the gun companies immunity from the wrongful death and negligence per se claims asserted against them under Nevada law in this case,” Justice Kristina Pickering wrote in the unanimous decision.

The lawsuit filed by Carrie Parsons’ parents, James and Ann Marie Parsons of Seattle, alleged the manufacturers showed a “reckless lack of regard for public safety” by advertising the firearms “as military weapons and signaling the weapon’s ability to be simply modified.” It said there are dozens of videos online showing people how to install bump stocks.

“It was only a question of when — not if — a gunman would take advantage of the ease of modifying AR-15s to fire automatically in order to substantially increase the body count,” the lawsuit said.

Pickering said the lawsuit was based on a claim of fault “beyond a firearm’s inherent ability to cause harm, that is, the gun companies’ manufacture and distribution of illegal machineguns.”

But she said in the 20-page ruling the state law doesn’t limit the manufacturer’s immunity specifically to “legal” firearms. She said it states that no civil action is permitted in such cases against the maker of “any” firearm or ammunition.

“We in no way underestimate the profound public policy issues presented or the horrific tragedy the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting inflicted,” she wrote, while noting that the law as written did not allow the Parsons to make a claim against the manufacturers.

“If civil liability is to be imposed against firearm manufacturers and distributors in the position of the gun companies in this case, that decision is for the Legislature, not this court,” she wrote. “We urge the Legislature to act if it did not mean to provide immunity in situations like this one.”

Missouri
Zoo wants gun activist who fought its ban to pay legal bills
ST. LOUIS (AP) — After successfully defending its weapons ban in court, the St. Louis Zoo is now trying to force the gun rights activist who challenged the ban to pay part of its $150,000 in legal bills.

The zoo filed a request for its request for legal fees in August, but a judge has yet to rule on the motion, according  to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A lawyer for Jeffry Smith of Cincinnati, Ohio, who challenged the ban on guns called the motion “ludicrous.”

A St. Louis judge ruled last year that the zoo could ban guns on its property because it qualifies as a school and a gated amusement park under state law. The ruling came after a series of appeals in a 2015 lawsuit the zoo filed against Smith after he announced plans to challenge the gun ban by marching on zoo property while openly carrying guns.

After the zoo sought a restraining order against Smith, the planned protest with guns never happened although Smith still came to the zoo wearing an empty holster on his shorts.

One of the zoo’s lawyers, Adam Hirtz, said Smith should pay at least a portion of the zoo’s legal bills because he created the controversy.

Smith’s lawyer Jane Hogan said the zoo could have avoided the lawsuit in the first place by simply enforcing its policy against Smith instead of going to court. Hogan also argued in court filings that the zoo’s gun ban shouldn’t have been upheld in court, and Smith believed he was within his Second Amendment rights to carry a gun into the zoo.

“They’re being grossly unfair,” Hogan said.

South Carolina
Landscaper sent to prison for burning down neighbor’s home
ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina landscaper who burned down a neighbor’s home after threatening him for money has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The Herald reports that Jacob Lee Cabasal, 43, pleaded guilty in York County court to two counts of second-degree arson and harassment before South Carolina Circuit Judge Dan Hall handed down the sentence.

Cabasal had threatened Herman Pringle and another neighbor with demands they hire him at exorbitant rates to do landscaping and became irate when they refused, 16th Circuit Senior Assistant Solicitor Matthew Hogge said in court.

Home security video played in court showed Cabasal pouring gasoline on the doors of Pringle’s home, according to the newspaper. The fire caused an explosion, and another house was damaged, Hogge said. No one was hurt.
Cabasal fled York County after the fires but taunted Fort Mill police on social media, changing his Facebook profile to a photo from the film, “Catch Me if You Can,” Hogge said. A week later, he turned himself in at a Michigan hospital.

Cabasal did not speak in court other than to plead guilty and to say he was on medication after a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.


Georgia
VA?employee sentenced in theft of sleep apnea machines
ATLANTA (AP) — Federal prosecutors say a Veterans Affairs department employee in Georgia stole more than $1.9 million in medical devices that he purchased with a government credit card.

A judge Wednesday sentenced 41-year-old Kevin Rumph to two years and three months in prison.

According to prosecutors, the Fairburn resident bought hundreds of sleep apnea machines without permission from 2013 to 2021 while working as a purchaser for the VA. The U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta says he then stole the machines and sold them to a company in Ohio.

Rumph, an Air Force veteran, pleaded guilty in August.

“It is disappointing when someone entrusted to help care for our veterans instead steals from them,” U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine said in a statement. “As a veteran, Rumph should have been a compassionate servant, not a thief.”

Rumph was also ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution.

Tennessee
New trial after jury met in room with symbols of the Confederacy
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee appeals court has granted a new trial for a Black man who was convicted of aggravated assault by an all-white jury that deliberated in a room containing Confederate symbols.

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Friday that Tim Gilbert deserves a new trial on charges stemming from a December 2018 altercation, The Tennessean reported.

Gilbert was sentenced to six years in prison after his conviction on charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and resisting arrest.

His attorney appealed, arguing that Gilbert’s right to a fair trial was violated because the jury deliberated in a room adorned with an antique Confederate flag and a portrait of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
The appeal court’s ruling came after a circuit court judge denied Gilbert’s motion for a new trial.

The appeals court ruling said that allowing the jury to decide whether Gilbert was innocent or guilty in a room at the Giles County Courthouse maintained by the United Daughters of the Confederacy “exposed the jury to extraneous prejudicial information and violated his constitutional rights to a fair trial conducted by an impartial jury.”

The trial court also made a mistake by allowing a challenged witness statement, an error that “cannot be classified as harmless,” the appeals court said.


California
Charges for woman who admitted entering Capitol
MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Southern California woman who admitted entering the U.S. Capitol when it was stormed by a mob seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but who claimed that police “welcomed” her in.

Danean MacAndrew of Mission Viejo was arrested last Wednesday and faces charges including entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct and parading in the Capitol, the Orange County Register reported Sunday. The federal public defender assigned to represent her could not be reached for comment.

Investigators used cell phone tower data to identify MacAndrew as one of hundreds of people present at the insurrection in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, according to a sworn statement from an FBI agent. They then compared videos she posted to social media with surveillance footage recorded during the riot to confirm she was there.

MacAndrew told FBI agents that police were letting people in the Capitol when she arrived, according to court documents.

“Capitol Police opened the doors, welcomed us in, and stood aside as we wandered the hallways,” MacAndrew said in a social media post dated Feb. 22.

Prosecutors have filed charges against more than 700 people for taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Indiana
16-year-old boy faces 3 counts of murder, robbery
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A 16-year-old Indianapolis boy faces murder, robbery and other charges in connection with the shooting deaths of three people on the city’s south side, prosecutors said.

Caden Smith was charged Friday as an adult with three counts each of murder, felony murder and robbery as well as weapons and drug charges, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office said.

An off-duty police officer discovered the victims’ bodies during a routine check of a wooded area on Oct. 12. The Marion County coroner identified the victims as Joseph Thomas, 18, Michael James, 22, and Abdulla Mubarak, 17. All three died from gunshot wounds.

Smith was identified as a suspect through his communication with the victims before their slayings, the prosecutor’s office said.

Investigators found what is believed to be the murder weapon at Smith’s house, prosecutors said.

It’s unclear whether Smith has an attorney who might speak on his behalf.