Court Digest

Ohio
Challenges to state’s new congressional map reach supreme court
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Is Ohio’s new congressional map unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans who controlled the mapmaking process? That’s the question being argued Tuesday before the Ohio Supreme Court.

At issue is the new map showing boundaries for 15 U.S. House districts Ohio was allotted by the 2020 census, down from the current 16 due to lagging population.

As COVID-19 surges again, justices plan to hear from attorneys over video.

Two lawsuits on behalf of Ohio voters contend it’s indisputable that the map “‘unduly’ favors the Republican Party.” The suits are being brought by the National Democratic Redistricting Commission’s legal arm, as well as the Ohio offices of the League of Women Voters and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

The latter two groups surmise the map includes 13 Republican districts — 10 safe seats and three “arguably competitive” ones that also favor the GOP — and only two safe Democratic districts. That’s 67% of seats for Republicans, despite their candidates receiving only about 54% of votes in statewide races over the past decade, the two groups’ lawsuit said.

Meanwhile, the NDRC’s constitutional challenge contends the map leans 12-3 in favor of Republicans, although the GOP describes it as 6-2, with the remaining seven districts being competitive.

Republicans have called the map constitutional, fair and competitive. It sprinted through the Ohio Statehouse  last month and passed without Democratic support, and was signed days later by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
Because it got no backing from Democrats, the map will hold for just four years, rather than the typical 10.

Both lawsuits target DeWine and the other members of the powerful Ohio Redistricting Commission, rather than the Legislature.

Voters empowered the commission with a potentially pivotal role in approving Ohio’s legislative and congressional district maps, but the panel missed its deadline for approving a congressional map without taking a vote. That punted the process back to the GOP-led Legislature, which approved the map despite Democrats’ objections.

Oklahoma
Federal judge grants stay of execution to death row inmate
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A federal judge in Oklahoma has granted a stay of execution for a death row inmate who was scheduled to receive a lethal injection in March.

In his order last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot agreed to stay the execution of 49-year-old James Coddington. The order reinstates Coddington as a plaintiff in a case with other death row inmates who are challenging Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal injection protocol. A trial in that case is scheduled to begin before Friot in February.

Coddington initially was removed from that case because he failed to select an alternative method of execution that Friot required of the plaintiffs.

But Coddington’s attorneys were able to prove to the judge that Coddington had indeed selected firing squad as an alternative method. Firing squad is one of several authorized execution methods under Oklahoma law, along with lethal injection, electrocution and nitrogen hypoxia. Lethal injection has been the only method used in Oklahoma since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

Coddington’s public defender declined to comment on the judge’s order, and a spokeswoman for Attorney General John O’Connor didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Coddington was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1997 hammer killing in Choctaw of co-worker Albert Hale, who prosecutors said had refused to lend Coddington $50 to buy drugs.

States and the federal government carried out 11 executions this year, the fewest since 1988, as support for the death penalty has continued to decline, according to an annual report on the death penalty released earlier this month. Texas executed three inmates and Oklahoma two in 2021. Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri each executed one, and the Trump administration executed three.

Oklahoma once had one of the nation’s busiest death chambers, but a temporary moratorium on capital punishment was put in place in 2015 following three consecutive flawed executions.

Oklahoma resumed executions in October with the lethal  injection of John Marion Grant, who convulsed and vomited on the gurney after the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was administered.


Indiana
Ex-mayor stays free for appeal of bribery conviction
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A former northwestern Indiana mayor is being allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals his conviction on bribery and tax evasion charges.

A federal judge ruled this past week that former Portage Mayor James Snyder had legitimate issues for appeal and could remain free on bond rather than surrender on Jan. 5 to begin serving a 21-month prison sentence.

Judge Matthew Kennelly, who took just a few minutes during a teleconference call to issue his ruling, said if Snyder’s appeal was successful, it would throw out the prison term that he ordered for Snyder in October, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.

A jury convicted Snyder in March of taking a $13,000 bribe in 2014 in return for steering a $1.1 million city contract for garbage trucks from a trucking company.

Snyder, a Republican, has maintained his innocence, testifying during his trial that the money was payment for consulting work that he declared on his income tax returns.

Snyder’s attorneys argued that prosecutors didn’t prove that Snyder and the trucking company owners “made a quid pro quo agreement” for awarding the garbage truck contract.

Snyder, 43, won elections as mayor in 2011 and 2015. He was indicted on the bribery charges in 2016 and was removed from office in 2019 when he was first convicted in the case. A judge later threw out that verdict, ruling that aggressive tactics by prosecutors denied Snyder a fair trial.


Georgia
Judge bars prosecution of two 2004 murder suspects
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia judge has thrown out murder charges against two people who were arrested in a 2004 killing, barring the state from ever charging them again.

Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Gil McBride on Wednesday dismissed charges against Rebecca Haynie and Donald Keith Phillips in the death of William Kirby Smith Jr. in Columbus.

McBride wrote that the state’s delays in prosecuting the case are intolerable and the fact that charges were only filed after the involvement of true crime reality show further compromised the case.

“The state has had available vast public resources and ample opportunity to bring this case to trial during the approximately 17 years that have elapsed since the murder giving rise to these charges and seven years since defendants were first arrested for this crime,” McBride wrote.

Muscogee County prosecutors had asked McBride to drop the charges, saying they did not have enough evidence to win convictions, but wanted the chance to refile them later. But McBride agreed with defense lawyers who wanted Haynie and Phillips protected from future prosecution, saying he would not allow “further delay and further uncertainty.”

Haynie and Phillips were charged with murder in the 2004 homicide of Haynie’s then-husband Smith inside Kirby’s Speed Shop in Columbus. Prosecutors alleged Haynie, who was his estranged wife, conspired with her lover Phillips to kill him, shooting him twice.

McBride had already found prosecutors in contempt in June for disobeying court orders to provide materials to the defense, including evidence related to “Cold Justice,” a show that featured the suspects’ arrests.

“It is doubtful defendants would have ever been charged based on the record of this case in the absence of interest from a California entertainment studio 10 years after the crime was committed,” McBride wrote. “This order is the outcome that results naturally when forensic inquiry and the pursuit of truth are confused with entertainment.”

During a preliminary hearing in 2014, investigators said they immediately considered the estranged wife a suspect, as she and Smith were involved in a contentious divorce, and Smith claimed evidence of his wife’s infidelity.

But police did not arrest the pair until June 15, 2014, after producers of the “Cold Justice” show got involved. The arrests were featured in an episode that aired a month later.

Defense attorneys demanded materials from the show. McBride ordered prosecutors to hand it over, but they never did, McBride punished prosecutors by ruling they could not use evidence from “Cold Justice.”

Montana
Federal judge says public service districts likely illegal
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Montana’s Public Service Commission districts, which have not been reapportioned in two decades, are likely unconstitutional, a federal judge has concluded.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said in his order Wednesday that voters challenging the constitutionality of the districts were “likely — though not certain” to succeed in their lawsuit to have the districts redrawn before the 2022 election, the Billings Gazette reported.

At issue is whether those districts violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that political districts balance under the “one-person, one-vote rule” that allows a deviation of no more than 10% from the ideal population.

The voters challenging the districts are former Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown of Flathead County, and Hailey Sinoff and Donald Seifert of Gallatin County. They have asked for a three-judge panel to do the redistricting that Montana’s Legislature has repeatedly tried and failed to do.

Until the districts are brought into balance, the plaintiffs ask that Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen be stopped from certifying candidates for PSC elections in 2022.

If each of the state’s five PSC districts contained 216,845 people, they would balance. Only one of Montana’s five PSC districts, District 2, anchored by Billings, comes close to the target population. Two of the districts up for election in 2022 happen to be extremely out of whack.


West Virginia
Justice announces first judges for new appeals court
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced the first appointees to the newly created Intermediate Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

Thomas E. Scarr of Barboursville was appointed for a term of 2 1/2 years, concluding on Dec. 31, 2024. Daniel W. Greear of South Charleston was appointed for a term of 4 1/2 years, concluding on Dec. 31, 2026. Donald A. Nickerson Jr. of Wheeling was appointed for a term of 6 1/2 years, concluding on Dec. 31, 2028.

Justice said he had full confidence in his choices to serve on the court.

The West Virginia Judicial Vacancy Advisory Commission interviewed more than 20 attorneys interested in serving on the court and submitted recommendations to the governor.

The new court, which will hear appeals of civil judgments from circuit courts, is expected to open July 1.