California
H. Lee Sarokin, judge who freed ‘Hurricane’ Carter, dies at 94
SAN DIEGO (AP) — H. Lee Sarokin, the federal judge who freed boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and in a landmark case famously said tobacco companies engaged in a “vast” conspiracy to conceal the dangers of smoking, has died in California, news outlets reported Friday. He was 94.
Sarokin died Tuesday in La Jolla, a seaside community in San Diego where he and his wife lived in retirement, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Sarokin had pulmonary fibrosis and other ailments, his wife, Margie Sarokin, told the paper.
Haddon Lee Sarokin was a New Jersey-born graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. He was nominated to a federal judgeship by former President Jimmy Carter and served on the district court in New Jersey from 1979 to 1994 and the appeals court from 1994 to 1996.
In 1985, Sarokin threw out the convictions of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis, two Black men who were wrongfully convicted of killing three white men. Sarokin ruled that their prosecution was based “upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, concealment rather than disclosure.”
The ruling stood after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
Carter’s innocence had been championed by celebrities and was the basis of a 1975 song by Bob Dylan.
Sarokin told the Union-Tribune in 2014 that Carter called him every year on Nov. 7, the anniversary of the ruling.
In 1988, Sarokin also presided over a landmark liability case against tobacco companies. Sarokin’s pre-trial rulings opened the way for corporate records to be submitted as evidence. When lawyers for the company asked Sarokin to dismiss the case in their favor, he refused, saying famously that evidence showed the tobacco industry engaged in a conspiracy “vast in its scope, devious in its purpose and devastating in its results.”
The case resulted in a jury awarding $400,000 to the estate of Rose Cipollone, who had died after decades of smoking.
An appeals court overturned the verdict and removed Sarokin from a second similar case, saying some of Sarokin’s comments suggested bias against the tobacco makers, which he denied. However, documents in the case helped pave the way for a wave of similar lawsuits brought by state attorneys general in 1998.
Sarokin issued some 2,500 rulings over his career, among them deciding that a homeless man couldn’t be barred from a public library because of his smell.
“He was never afraid to say what he thought,” his wife said.
In retirement, Sarokin was a regular contributor to HuffPost and wrote a dozen plays with themes of social justice and civil rights that were staged by the regional North Coast Repertory Theater.
In addition to his wife, Sarokin is survived by five children and 11 grandchildren.
Pennsylvania
Fourth defendant sentenced to prison in slaying of classmate
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — The last of several teenagers charged in the shooting death of a classmate in a drug-related robbery more than three years ago in Pennsylvania has been sentenced to prison following a plea deal.
Damien Green, now 19, was sentenced Friday to 15 to 30 years after pleading guilty to third-degree murder in Blair County Court, The (Altoona) Mirror reported. Prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge from second-degree murder, and Green also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery, robbery and illegal use of a communication facility.
Prosecutors said Green and another 15-year-old as well as a 16-year-old planned to rob 15-year-old Devon Pfirsching of money and marijuana in February 2020. Authorities said one of the youths pulled a gun on the victim and pistol-whipped him, and when the victim fought back, he was shot.
Defense attorney Dan Kiss said his client didn’t want to speak in the courtroom because he couldn’t find the right words to express his condolences to the victim’s family members who were present. He said Green has matured during his more than three years behind bars in Indiana County and “is not the person he was in 2020.”
The other two youths earlier pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. Owen Southerland, who was 16 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to 35 years to life. Logan Persing, who was 15 at the time, was sentenced to 17 to 34 years. Another youth accused of supplying the gun was sentenced to 10 to 20 years.
California
Doctor convicted of prescribing opioids illegally
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A California physician who wrote more than 8,200 prescriptions in a one-year span has been convicted on 12 counts of distributing opioid pills without a legitimate medical purpose, including to one person who died of an overdose, federal prosecutors said.
A federal jury found Donald Siao, 58, guilty after a weeklong trial, according to a statement Friday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Siao, who practiced family medicine in San Jose, prescribed oxycodone and hydrocodone in increasing quantities to undercover law enforcement agents posing as patients, prosecutors said.
“The undercover agents received prescriptions from Siao despite complaining of only vague pain or discomfort, requesting specific opioids by name, and admitting to sharing the pills with friends and coworkers,” the statement said.
Eight of the 12 counts against Siao involved a mother and son who received prescriptions from the physician even after claiming to have lost or had pills stolen, prosecutors said. The son died from an overdose of opioids in December 2019.
Each of the 12 counts against Siao carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Sentencing was set for Nov. 7.
Ismail J. Ramsey, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said he would seek to have Siao’s medical license forfeited.
Georgia
ACLU lawsuit says school ignored racism targeting Black students
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Four Black students sued a Georgia school district in federal court Friday, saying teachers and administrators violated their civil rights by fostering “a longstanding and ongoing environment of racial discrimination.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Effingham County School District in southeast Georgia.
The unnamed teenage plaintiffs, identified only by their initials, allege that school officials ignored complaints of white students casually using racist slurs, and at times made Black students feel like troublemakers for reporting them.
A Black student identified only as N.T. said that after posting his reaction on social media to racist comments by white peers, his high school’s athletic director “blamed Black students for the White students’ language, asserting that White students used racial epithets because Black students used racial language when talking to each other,” according to the lawsuit.
A Black girl identified only as H.L. says that in September 2020 she started crying after white students in her class mockingly reenacted the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, which she recorded with her cellphone.
The lawsuit says the white students were removed from the school and didn’t return until the following academic year. But it also says the school principal told H.L. “to delete the video from her phone and told her not to send it to anyone else.”
Another Black girl, identified as G.L. in the lawsuit, says high school administrators sent her home for wearing red braids in her hair, with one of them saying: “you know that’s not a natural color for your kind.” While the school dress code requires students to keep their hair in natural colors, the lawsuit said, white girls were allowed to attend with hair dyed purple and green.
Effingham County School Superintendent Yancy Ford declined Friday to comment on the allegations in the lawsuit. But Ford denied that his school district permits race discrimination.
“Regardless of the details alleged, the Effingham County School District does not tolerate racism or discrimination whatsoever,” Ford said in an emailed statement. “And I will continue to work toward ensuring all students in the District are able to enjoy a learning environment free from negative impacts of racial bias, prejudice, and discrimination.”
About 65,000 people live in rural and suburban communities in Effingham County west of Savannah. The county’s population is 80% white and 16% Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Effingham High School’s sports teams compete as the Rebels with a Confederate soldier mascot. The lawsuit says the district has allowed students to wear clothing decorated with Confederate flags but prohibited Black Lives Matter T-shirts.
Colorado
Girlfriend of dentist who killed wife sentenced to 17 years in prison
DENVER (AP) — The girlfriend of a dentist convicted of murdering his wife on an African safari was sentenced Friday to 17 years in prison for being an accessory to the crime during a hearing where relatives of the slain woman told her she had destroyed their family.
Ana Rudolph, daughter of 57-year-old victim Bianca Rudolph, said that Lori Milliron, 65, had “plotted to eliminate” her mother.
“Lori, you have taken my parents,” Rudolph said directly to Milliron, but “despite everything you have done you will never take my soul. This might be difficult to understand ... because you don’t have one.”
Milliron was convicted last year of perjury, being an accessory to a murder after the fact and obstructing a grand jury in a case that’s garnered national attention. She was charged alongside Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph, a U.S. dentist who was convicted last year of fatally shooting his wife while on a 2016 hunting trip in Zambia. His sentencing, originally set for this week, has been postponed.
John Dill, an attorney for Milliron, said the prison sentence was longer than what is typically dolled out for such charges, calling it “excessive” and vowing to appeal. Dill argued that the convictions were merely based on Milliron’s perjury charges and do not implicate her in the execution of the crime.
Standing in front of the judge on Friday, Milliron insisted she was innocent of the crimes but said she was “sympathetic” to the Rudolph family.
Judge William J. Martínez argued that the long sentence was deserved because evidence pointed to Milliron “encouraging” the crime. Martínez added that Milliron seemed “unrepentant” in part because he judged her emotionally unmoved when she was shown graphic images and listened to wrenching testimony during the trial.
After Bianca Rudolph’s death in 2016, Lawrence Rudolph claimed his wife accidentally shot herself while packing to leave Zambia for the United States. Later, Rudolph collected millions in accidental death insurance payments. After an FBI investigation, however, authorities charged Rudolph in 2021 with her murder.
Rudolph maintains that his late wife of 34 years accidentally killed herself, but prosecutors countered that evidence showed that that was impossible because the wound to her heart came from a shot fired from 2 to 3.5 feet (60 centimeters to 1 meter) away.
