Washington
Caregiver acquitted in accidental vinegar death
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former caregiver charged in connection with the 2019 poisoning death of a developmentally disabled woman has been acquitted of felony assault.
Fikirte T. Aseged mistakenly gave cleaning vinegar instead of colonoscopy prep medicine to her 64-year-old client Marion Wilson.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke rendered his verdict this week through an Ethiopian language interpreter, Northwest News Network reported.
“This was a tragedy. It should not have happened,” Clarke said.
The judge said that Aseged’s actions met the definition of criminal negligence, but he couldn’t find the vinegar was wielded as a weapon — a requirement for conviction based on a previous Supreme Court finding. Clarke also noted that when Aseged gave Wilson the vinegar, she was 13 hours into a 16-hour double-shift.
Aseged was charged by the Washington state Attorney General’s office. According to the investigation, Aseged confused the bottle of vinegar with the bottle of GoLYTELY solution when she and another caregiver awakened Wilson at 3 a.m. to take the second half of her prep medication.
At her colonoscopy appointment, Wilson started having difficulty breathing and died in an emergency room. An autopsy determined that the cleaning-strength vinegar had inflamed and killed the tissue in Wilson’s esophagus, stomach and small bowel, resulting in her death.
“I assumed it was the same … I just grabbed the bottle, I was rushing,” Aseged reportedly told state investigators.
Aseged was employed by Aacres Washington, a Spokane-based company that in 2018 had taken over the care of clients like Wilson from its sister company, SL Start, after the state decertified SL Start for a “history of serious … non-compliance with the law and regulations.”
An investigation by the state Department of Social and Health Services found that Aacres had failed to take a number of steps to protect Wilson. It also found that 18 Aacres employees didn’t immediately report Wilson’s death as required by law. The state has since cancelled its contracts with Aacres to serve clients in Spokane County.
Aacres, which still operates elsewhere in the state, is in the process of being sold to a Minnesota-based company.
Arizona
Court upholds prison ban on sexual, explicit content
PHOENIX (AP) — A three-member U.S. appeals court panel has sided with Arizona prison officials’ ban on sexually explicit material for inmates, denying a prison journal’s claims of First Amendment violations.
The 9th Circuit panel in San Francisco issued an opinion Friday mostly supporting the Arizona Department of Corrections’ previous censorship of various issues of Prison Legal News.
The state had challenged a district court’s permanent injunction of the ban and an order to deliver four issues unredacted.
“We conclude that most of the Department’s redactions of the Prison Legal News issues ... abide by the First Amendment,” Circuit Judge Eric Miller wrote. For example, it found the redaction of graphic passages from an October 2014 article were “rationally related” to discouraging sexual harassment of corrections officers.
Representatives for the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Human Rights Defense Center, which publishes Prison Legal News, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
The Department established an order in 2010 prohibiting prisoners from sending, receiving or possessing sexually explicit material or content seen as “detrimental” to the safety and operation of prison facilities. It was issued after mostly female staff complained inmates were harassing them with sexual images.
Inmates at more than 3,000 prisons nationwide subscribe to Prison Legal News, according to the court opinion. Arizona prison officials permitted the circulation of over 90 issues without incident. But in 2014, they refused to deliver one issue over sexually explicit material. Officials later changed their minds except for one article in the October issue.
In 2017, the corrections department redacted articles in three other issues for the same reason.
Prison Legal News initially won a lawsuit in 2019 challenging the ban. While the 9th Circuit panel ruled the censorship clearly did not cover mere mentions of sexual acts or sexual violence, including in academic contexts, it did apply if officials were keeping inmates from accessing content that would make prisons less safe.
Kentucky
Judge accused of misconduct violations
PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) — The Judicial Conduct Commission has filed a complaint accusing a western Kentucky judge of misconduct violations.
The complaint against 42nd Judicial Circuit Court Judge James T. Jameson, who presides over cases in Marshall and Calloway counties, was released Thursday to the public, news outlets reported.
Three allegations are related to Jameson’s creation of a corrections panel and his involvement with an ankle monitoring program. The commission said Jameson’s creation of the Community Corrections Board “constitutes an improper use of judicial resources” and that he created “the appearance of impropriety” by failing to separate his judicial duties from the board.
A fourth allegation says Jameson pressured attorneys and others to support his 2022 political campaign.
Jameson told WPSD-TV that he disagrees with the commission’s interpretation of his actions, and does not believe he has done anything wrong. A response filed on Jameson’s behalf said the allegations were politically motivated.
“Kentucky’s Constitution provides that all judges are to be elected by the people they serve, not by the JCC, and certainly not based on politically motivated untimely claims reported in an election year,” the response said.
The Judicial Conduct Commission is the only entity authorized to take disciplinary action against a sitting judge under Kentucky’s Constitution.
Missouri
Man sentenced to 27 years in fatal 2019 shooting
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man who was linked to a shooting by a tissue he used to blow his nose has been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s office said Sunday that Timothy Fernandez, 45, of Kansas City, had been sentenced for second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2019 shooting death of 40-year-old Michael Bryan, according to the Kansas City Star.
Police found Bryan dead on the sidewalk outside the Windstar Sinclair gas station at 17th Street and Grand Boulevard. He had been shot multiple times.
Court records say Fernandez was identified through DNA left on the used tissue and by fingerprints on an item in a backpack near the scene. Surveillance video also showed Fernandez and Bryan outside the gas station when Bryan walked away and Fernandez drew a gun and shot at him.
Detroit
Man charged with buying gun used to kill officer
DETROIT (AP) — A 26-year-old man was charged Sunday with buying a firearm that police say a 19-year-old later used to fatally shoot a Detroit police officer last week.
U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said the Detroit man is charged with making a false statement in the acquisition of the firearm. He appeared in federal court Sunday and is being held until a detention hearing on Tuesday, according to a news release from prosecutors. It was unclear Sunday if the man has a defense attorney who could comment on his behalf.
Officer Loren Courts, 40, died after he and his partner were “ambushed” on Wednesday night as they responded to a report of a man firing a weapon, Detroit Police Chief James White said. Police say the gunman, Ehmani Davis, 19, was fatally shot by another officer as Courts’ partner was rendering medical aid to Courts.
Ison said investigators traced the firearm used in the crime and determined the 26-year-old bought it at a Michigan gun store last month, where he said he was buying it for himself. He was later seen on surveillance video meeting with Davis in a nearby parking lot.
New Jersey
New trial ordered in stabbing death after Eagles’ 2018 win
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (AP) —An appeals court has ordered a new trial for a New Jersey man convicted in a stabbing death shortly after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018.
The court cited an assistant prosecutor’s repeatedly calling the defendant a liar and also cited errors in the judge’s instructions to the jury.
Supreme Life, 60, of Lumberton was sentenced to 20 years after he was convicted in Burlington County in March 2019 of passion provocation manslaughter in the death of Moriah Walker, 26, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and the attempted murder of another New York man.
Life, formerly known as Charles Hoskins, testified that as people were outside celebrating the Eagles’ February 2018 win, he teased his son, a Dallas Cowboys fan, and his son responded with an epithet about the Eagles. He said two New York men leaving a nearby party overheard the remark and attacked his son, and he acted in self-defense.
During the trial, Life acknowledged having lied in a statement to police, and the appeals court said that was fair game for prosecutors to point out. But the court said the prosecutor’s repeated use of “derogatory epithets” was improper and the constant labeling of Life as a liar tipped the scales of justice against him.
The court also found fault with the judge’s omission of certain instructions on how jurors could interpret self-defense as it relates to manslaughter.
“The combination of errors in this case, together with the prosecutor’s improper summation, require reversal of defendant’s convictions,” the court said in a decision issued Thursday.
A spokesperson for the county prosecutor’s office told Nj.com Thursday that the decision is under review.
Wisconsin
Parents charged after toddler ingested deadly fentanyl
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — The parents of a Green Bay toddler who died after ingesting fentanyl have been charged with child neglect resulting in death.
According to a criminal complaint, the father of the 18-month-old child told police that he, the toddler’s mother and the boy laid down for a nap on May 3 and when he woke up he found the child wasn’t breathing.
An autopsy showed the “presence of illicit fentanyl in the decedent’s system is a contributing factor to the cause of death.”
The mother, 22-year-old Tyana Putzlocker, told investigators she didn’t know how her son got the fentanyl, but theorized he may have found the drug while he was with her while she was doing laundry in the basement.
Prosecutors say Young had a different story, WLUK-TV reported.
“Derrick admitted to using and being addicted to fentanyl and also admitted to selling fentanyl. Derrick was using and selling fentanyl at the time of his son’s death. Derrick and Tyana typically smoked fentanyl in the apartment basement but would sometimes smoke in the apartment bathroom. Derrick said he kept fentanyl pills in the apartment closet and if his son got exposed to fentanyl, there was no other explanation other than it being his pills,” the complaint states.
Young was charged in November with maintaining a drug trafficking place and drug possession.
Putzlocker is being held on $10,000 cash bond. Young’s bond has been set at $25,000 cash. Court records do not list an attorney for either defendant.
