North Dakota
Feds to appeal reversal in death penalty case
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Federal prosecutors plan to appeal a ruling that overturned the death sentence for a Minnesota man convicted of kidnapping and killing a University of North Dakota student.
A jury in 2006 convicted Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minnesota, in the killing of 22-year-old Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The same jury sentenced Rodriguez to death in the first and only federal capital punishment case in North Dakota.
Prosecutors filed a one-page notice Thursday with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that they were challenging the ruling by Judge Ralph Erickson, who oversaw Rodriguez’s trial and is now a member of the 8th Circuit.
Last year Erickson ordered a new sentencing phase for Rodriguez after ruling that misleading testimony from the coroner, the failure of lawyers to outline the possibility of an insanity defense, and evidence of severe post-traumatic stress disorder had violated Rodriguez’s constitutional rights.
Authorities said Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, kidnapped Sjodin from the parking lot of a shopping mall in Grand Forks in 2003 and drove her to Minnesota, where he killed her and left her body in a field near Crookston.
Sjodin’s disappearance sparked days of massive searches, reshaped the way Minnesota handled sex offenders and led to the national sex offender registry being renamed for Sjodin. Rodriguez remains locked up at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Kentucky
Attorney general probing challenged indictments
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Attorney General’s office is investigating at least 20 indictments in the 14th Circuit to determine if they should be dismissed because prosecutors allowed too many grand jurors to vote. Kentucky law requires only nine votes to indict, so impaneling more than 12 grand jurors could increase the odds of obtaining an indictment.
The Attorney General’s office sent a letter last week to Commonwealth Attorney Sharon Muse Johnson, informing her of the investigation by the Office of Special Prosecution, The Courier Journal reported. The letter said that all further criminal proceedings for the cases under investigation should be stayed and Muse Johnson’s office should “take no further action of any kind” on them.
The indictments under investigation include murder charges in cases in Bourbon and Scott counties, felony rape charges and simple drug possession. Karema Eldahan, directing attorney for the public defender’s office in Georgetown, said she expects many more motions challenging indictments to be filed in the coming weeks.
“I’ve been practicing for nine years, and I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Eldahan told The Courier Journal. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before. It’s definitely unchartered waters.”
The Attorney General’s office investigation stems from allegations first raised late last year by Former Circuit Judge Brian Privett, who accused Muse Johnson of recklessly handling grand jury presentations, including some to as many as 18 people.
Muse Johnson and her office denied the allegations, but Circuit Judge Jeremy Mattox personally investigated two grand jury proceedings in February and obtained sworn affidavits from grand jurors showing at least 14 had voted in one case and at least 13 in another.
In a letter to Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John Minton, Mattox said he expects to be inundated with motions from defense attorneys in the three counties of the 14th Circuit for the three years Muse Johnson has been in office. Mattox requested the chief justice appoint a special judge and Cameron appoint a special prosecutor to handle the investigation of these indictments.
Muse Johnson wrote to Minton and Cameron that she welcomed any investigation and would fully cooperate. She acknowledged that some grand jury deliberations included both 12 grand jurors and additional alternate grand jurors. She said that was “based on my interpretations” of the rules.
“There was never any intent to deprive a defendant of their rights or to create any procedural error,” Muse Johnson wrote.
She said she did not think it was an issue for the alternate grand jurors to be present because she was confident no more than 12 were voting on indictments. She was surprised to learn that alternate grand jurors attested to voting on indictments.
“We are willing to do whatever it takes to continue confidence in the justice system,” she wrote, adding that prosecutors were ready to re-present all cases if needed.
California
Jury rules in favor of cops who shot man in 2017
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A jury has decided that Southern California police officers did not use excessive force when they shot and killed a man behaving erratically at a crowded sports complex five years ago.
Jurors ruled that Huntington Beach officers Trevor Jackson and Casey Thomas acted appropriately for the defense of human life when they fired at Steven Schlitz, the Orange County Register reported Friday.
Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, who defended the officers in the civil case, said he was pleased with the verdict. Gates said the officers were trying to protect a woman and her child who they believed Schiltz was about to attack.
Dale Galipo, who represented Schiltz’s mother, Angela Hernandez, expressed disappointment.
“I still feel it was an excessive shooting and not a necessary shooting,” Galipo told the Register.
Police had responded following 911 calls reporting that Schlitz, 29, was hitting a tree with what looked like a baseball bat. The officers arrived to find Schiltz holding what they believed to be a sharpened down stick, according to court records.
Schiltz ignored the officers’ request to talk, according to court records, and started running around a soccer stadium that was filled with people.
City attorneys argued that Schiltz made a “threatening move” toward the mother and young son, a claim that was disputed by attorneys for Schiltz’s family.
Schiltz’s relatives previously said he had a history of mental illness. In their lawsuit, the family members denied he posed an immediate threat to others when he was shot and killed.
A federal judge in 2018 threw out the federal civil rights lawsuit, ruling that there was no indication that the officers were liable for wrongdoing.
An appeals court upheld most of the federal judge’s ruling, with the exception of allegations of state battery or state negligence, leading to the case being refiled in state court and to the recent jury trial.
