Connecticut
Court tosses shooting conviction based on ‘John Doe’ warrant
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man should not have been arrested years after a non-fatal shooting based on a warrant that only included a general description of the suspect and partial DNA evidence linked to several unknown people, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Friday in dismissing the case.
The case called into question so-called “John Doe” warrants increasingly being used by police to solve cold cases around the country and get around statute-of-limitations issues. Such warrants, which have been ruled valid by many courts, typically include only a DNA profile of an unknown suspect and are used years later to make an arrest after testing links the DNA to a specific person.
The man, Terrance Police, appealed — and the Connecticut high court ruled 7-0 that the warrant for his arrest was unconstitutional because the DNA evidence it referenced was not from a single person known to be the suspect, but rather from several people who may or may not have been the perpetrators.
Senior Justice Christine Keller, who authored the decision, said it is believed to be the first such ruling of its kind in the country on John Doe warrants issued based on DNA profiles from multiple unknown people. The decision said Police’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures was violated.
“In the present case, the arrest warrant affidavit did not alert the judicial authority to the fact that the DNA profiles did not include the perpetrator’s unique DNA profile but, rather, were mixed partial profiles generated from the touch DNA of at least four different individuals, three of whom evidently had no involvement in the crimes at issue whatsoever,” Keller wrote.
“Nor did it apprise the judicial authority of the statistical probability that any person chosen at random from the general population would have those DNA profiles,” she wrote.
Police, of Waterbury, was charged in May 2018 with assault and robbery in connection with an October 2012 shooting outside a Norwalk supermarket that injured a woman. His arrest came about seven months after the five-year statute of limitations expired, but was based on the John Doe arrest warrant signed by a judge a year earlier.
A month before his arrest, the mother of his child told authorities that Police confessed to her that he shot the woman. New testing was ordered comparing Police’s DNA to samples found at the crime scene, and it linked Police to the shooting, officials said.
Police pleaded no contest to the charges in 2019 on the condition that he could appeal, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
His public defender, Mark Rademacher, said he expects Police to be released from prison within the next week because of the Supreme Court ruling. He called the case a cautionary tale of over-reliance by law enforcement on complex DNA evidence that leads them to not undertake other investigation techniques.
Assistant State’s Attorney Timothy Sugrue said prosecutors are reviewing the ruling and will determine whether an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is warranted.
California
Appeals court upholds limit on foie gras ban
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Californians can buy foie gras produced out of state despite California’s ban on the delicacy, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2020 lower court ruling that said Californians can order foie gras from out-of-state producers and have it sent by a third-party delivery service.
The ruling only applies to people who buy foie gras for individual consumption. The 2012 state law still bans foie gras production in California while restaurants and retailers are forbidden to sell it or give it away.
Foie gras is made from the enlarged livers of force-fed ducks and geese. The Humane Society and other groups supported California’s law, arguing the process constituted cruelty to animals.
Producers argued that the force-feeding process mimicked something that happens in the wild, when ducks and geese overeat to store up extra nutrition for their long annual migration.
The law was challenged by producers, including New York-based Hudson Valley Foie Gras, which said it lost nearly one-third of its total sales when the ban took effect.
They argued that the state law conflicts with interstate commerce and federal food regulations that allow force-feeding for foie gras production.
In a 3-0 ruling, the appellate panel upheld the previous ruling but rejected efforts to overturn the entire law.
Ralph Henry, a lawyer for the Humane Society, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the ruling didn’t significantly weaken the law.
“Only a narrow form of transaction — a sale by sellers outside the state, shipping to end-use consumers in the state — is still allowed,” he said in an email.
Lawyers for producers said they would ask the appellate court for a new hearing before a large panel.
Chef Sean Chaney told The Chronicle in a statement that while he considers the law unconstitutional, “I’m also glad that 40 million Californians can continue to enjoy the foie gras products they buy online, and I hope to be able to cook it for them soon again.”
New York
Ruling ordering new trial in death of 8-year-old is reversed
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has reversed a ruling that overturned a health care executive’s manslaughter conviction for fatally drugging her 8-year-old autistic son.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Manhattan Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave was wrong in 2020 when she ordered a new trial for Gigi Jordan, who was convicted in November 2014 of killing her son, Jude Mirra, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2010.
Jordan, a wealthy medical entrepreneur, admitted to plunging a lethal dose of medications down her son’s throat with a syringe. She then ingested multiple medications herself and emailed a relative, who alerted authorities.
Jordan claimed at her trial that she had decided to kill herself and Jude because she believed that one of her ex-husbands was planning to have her killed, and that without her the boy would fall under the care of her other ex-husband and would be sexually abused. Both men denied her allegations against them.
Jordan was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The 2020 ruling ordering a new trial stemmed from an incident during the trial in which Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon acceded to a prosecutor’s request to close the courtroom for 15 minutes, over strenuous objections from the defense.
Cave determined that closing the courtroom had violated Jordan’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, and Jordan was released from prison to home confinement.
In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court said that even if the trial judge erred in closing the courtroom, no precedent clearly establishes that a conviction following an erroneous closure must be vacated.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that his office was pleased with the ruling, which “affirms that Gigi Jordan received a fair trial.”
The ruling means Jordan will likely be returned to prison. Messages seeking comment were left with her attorney.
Pennsylvania
Man gets 45 to 100 years in custody exchange slayings
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 45 to 100 years in the shooting deaths of two people last year during a custody exchange in the parking lot of a Walmart store in eastern Pennsylvania.
Edward Joel Rosario-Jimenez, 24, was sentenced after pleading guilty Thursday to third-degree murder in the February 2021 deaths of 22-year-old Jonathan Martinez and 20-year-old Nicolette Law in Whitehall Township.
Officials said Martinez, the child’s father, had arrived with his 3-year-old child and Law, his new girlfriend. Rosario-Jimenez drove a Toyota SUV to the store with the child’s mother and two other people. An argument began and the defendant shot Law and then Jimenez before fleeing, prosecutors said.
Law was pronounced dead that night and Martinez died just over a week later. Rosario-Jimenez was arrested a few days later and the handgun was found hidden in a snowbank. LehighValleyLive reports that video evidence showed that it was 45 seconds from the time Rosario-Jimenez arrived to when he shot the two victims.
In exchange for the plea, Lehigh County prosecutors dropped plans to seek the death penalty in the case. Assistant District Attorney Steven Luksa called the sentence tantamount to a life term, but Laws mother said she had wanted to see a life sentence for the man who killed her youngest child.
Judge Robert Steinberg told the defendant that he belonged “in the darkest place the state correctional institution can put you,” saying he had shown no remorse. He said it was a sad commentary on society that the killings occurred during a custody exchange.
“All their dreams and aspirations ended with your shooting of them,” the judge said of the victims.
New Jersey
Woman gets 95 years in shooting, murder of girlfriend
FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — A judge has imposed a 95-year prison sentence on a woman convicted of arranging to have her girlfriend shot and later strangling and burying her in the backyard of a New Jersey home.
“It is difficult to imagine a more heinous scheme of manipulation and cold-hearted depravity over four months than that orchestrated by Jennifer Sweeney,’’ Monmouth County Superior Court Judge David Bauman said in sentencing the 38-year-old defendant Friday.
Authorities said 41-year-old Tyrita Julius was wounded in a shooting two days before Thanksgiving in 2015. In March of the following year, her mother reported her missing. In August 2016, her body was found buried in the yard of a Long Branch home.
The resident of the home was 38-year-old Andre Harris, who authorities said was the gunman in the earlier shooting. He reached a plea deal and testified against Sweeney, saying she had threatened to kill his children if he didn’t shoot Julius, whom he didn’t know. He said Sweeney was jealous and believed Julius was cheating on her.
Sweeney was convicted in September of murder, conspiracy, attempted murder and weapons counts as well as evidence-tampering and desecration of human remains. Monmouth County prosecutors said Friday that she must serve at least 85% of both the 75-year life term for the murder and the 20-year term for the shooting.
Defense attorney Robin Lord said his client “loved the victim very much and maintains her innocence,’’ the Asbury Park Press reported. He argued unsuccessfully for a sentence of no more than 30 years.
Harris apologized before he was sentenced in a separate hearing Friday to 16 years in prison.
“I’m so sorry for what I’ve done,’’ Harris said to relatives and friends of the victim. “I don’t know what to say. I’m asking for you to forgive me.’’
At Sweeney’s sentencing, the victim’s mother, Queen Julius, wept as she said her daughter “left this world by nightmarish circumstances’’ that she plays out daily in her mind.
“I will forever be heartbroken,” she said. “She was my child, my only daughter.’’
