Court Digest

Michigan
Judge sides with fruit grower who opposes same-sex marriage
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The rights of a Michigan fruit grower were violated when a city barred him from a seasonal market because of his opposition to same-sex weddings at his orchard, a judge said.

East Lansing’s decision to exclude Steve Tennes and Country Mill Farms in 2017 “constituted a burden on plaintiffs’ religious beliefs,” U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney said Monday, applying a U.S. Supreme Court precedent to the case.

“Plaintiffs were forced to choose between following their religious beliefs and a government benefit for which they were otherwise qualified,” Maloney said.

Tennes grows apples and other fruit in Eaton County, 22 miles away from East Lansing. He also had made his farm available for weddings.

But Tennes wasn’t allowing same-sex weddings, citing his religious beliefs. When he expressed his views on Facebook, he said he wasn’t invited back to the East Lansing market for the 2017 season.

Maloney issued an injunction that year, ordering the city to reinstate him while Tennes’ lawsuit moved forward.

“He serves and welcomes everyone to his stand. No one is ever turned away,” attorney John Bursch said Tuesday.

East Lansing cited its non-discrimination ordinance and vendor rules in barring Tennes from the market. But the judge found problems.

“The city has not demonstrated a compelling interest in excluding plaintiffs” from the market,” Maloney said. “The city’s non-discrimination ordinance tolerates the same discrimination in other situations.”

An email seeking comment on the judge’s decision was sent to East Lansing officials.

Bursch said he now hopes to reach an agreement with the city and close the litigation.

Washington
President Biden names new White House counsel
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that the new White House counsel will be Ed Siskel, a former Obama administration attorney who helped craft the response to the congressional investigations into the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

Siskel, who’ll begin in September, takes over during a critical time at the White House, when Biden is vying for reelection and congressional and judicial investigations into his administration and family are swirling. House Republicans are also talking about opening an impeachment inquiry into the Democratic president.

“Ed Siskel’s many years of experience in public service and a career defending the rule of law make him the perfect choice to serve as my next White House Counsel,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden’s personal attorney remains Bob Bauer, who represents the president in his personal capacity, most notably in matters related to the classified documents found in his office and his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

The White House counsel’s job is to advise on legal and policy questions related to the presidency. The office is the primary White House contact for the Justice Department, and it handles presidential pardons, works on judicial appointments and reviews legislation. The office also helps investigate and manage congressional investigations into the administration and lawsuits against the president when he is sued in his official capacity.

This year will be a thorny one: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is facing pressure to impeach Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct, Biden’s son Hunter is under federal investigation, and former President Donald Trump has been charged with federal and state crimes as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Plus, GOP lawmakers are probing the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Siskel replaces Stuart Delery, who spent nearly three years in the job. Delery joined Biden’s transition legal team after Biden defeated the incumbent Trump in November 2020. Delery served as deputy counsel before he was elevated to the top job last summer after Biden’s first counsel, Dana Remus, left the White House.

Under the Obama administration, Siskel oversaw the White House legal response to congressional oversight and the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Siskel, a Chicago native and the nephew of movie critic Gene Siskel, served for two years as the top lawyer in Chicago under Mayor Rahm Emanuel and is a former assistant U.S. attorney in Illinois. He also clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court.


Montana
State asks judge to allow TikTok ban to take effect
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana is asking a federal judge to allow its law banning new downloads of the video-sharing app TikTok to take effect in January while a challenge filed by the company and five content creators is decided by the courts.

The state filed its response Friday to the plaintiffs’ motion in July that asked U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy to temporarily prevent the law from being implemented until the courts can rule on whether it amounts to an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen had the bill drafted over concerns — shared by the FBI and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — that the app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on U.S. citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok has said none of this has ever happened.

The federal government and more than half the U.S. states, including Montana, have banned TikTok from being used on government-owned devices.

“The federal government has already determined that China is a foreign adversary. And the concerns with TikTok are well documented at both the state and federal level,” the brief said. The Montana law, “therefore, furthers the public interest because it protects the public from the harms inseparable from TikTok’s operation.”

Disallowing Montana’s regulation of TikTok would be like preventing the state from banning a cancer-causing radio “merely because that radio also transmitted protected speech,” the brief argues.

There are other applications people can use to express themselves and communicate with others, the state argues. The plaintiffs have said their greatest social media following is on TikTok.

TikTok has safeguards to moderate content and protect minors, and would not share information with China, the company has argued. But critics have pointed to China’s 2017 national intelligence law that compels companies to cooperate with the country’s governments for state intelligence work.

Montana’s law would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.

New York
Man convicted of attempted ­murder for ­menacing Black Lives Matter ­protesters
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City man who menaced Black Lives Matter protesters wearing a glove with serrated blades and then got in his SUV and tried to run them over has been convicted of nine counts of attempted murder and other charges, prosecutors announced.

Frank Cavalluzzi, 57, was found guilty on Monday after a two-week trial for threatening peaceful demonstrators on June 2, 2020, during a wave of protests over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.

Cavalluzzi faces up to 25 years to life in prison for each of the attempted murder charges when he is sentenced in October.

“A dangerous man is going to jail,” Katz said in a news release. “It’s a good day for New York and the First Amendment.”

According to prosecutors, Cavalluzzi was driving through the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens when he encountered a group of demonstrators with Black Lives Matter signs and posters.

Cavalluzzi stopped his SUV and started screaming profanities and racial slurs at the protesters, Katz said. He also told them, “You are in the wrong neighborhood,” according to Katz.

He then got out of his SUV wearing four serrated blades attached to a leather glove, which he waved at the protesters while chasing them and continuing to scream at them, Katz said.

Then Cavalluzzi got back in the SUV, yelled “I will kill you,” and drove onto the sidewalk at the demonstrators, Katz said.

No one was injured, but one of the protesters, Lorraine McShea, 22, told The New York Times that the confrontation was “extremely scary.”

Cavalluzzi’s attorney, Michael Horn, told the Times that his client was experiencing mental health challenges and “struggling to understand the evolving city where he lives.”


New York
Jailed Bankman-Fried can’t prepare for trial without vegan diet and adequate meds, lawyers say
NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried can’t adequately prepare for trial in six weeks while in jail without proper access to computers, necessary medications to help him concentrate, and a better diet than bread, water and peanut butter, his lawyers told a magistrate judge Tuesday.

The lawyers made their complaints at a Manhattan federal court hearing after Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to seven charges he’ll face at his Oct. 3 trial, including wire fraud and multiple conspiracy counts.

Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas in December after prosecutors said he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits, spending tens of millions on his businesses, speculative venture investments, charitable donations and on illegal campaign contributions aimed at influencing cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.

The 31-year-old California man was making his first court appearance in a drab beige prison uniform since his $250 million bail was revoked 10 days ago by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. The judge had granted a request by prosecutors to jail him after agreeing that the fallen cryptocurrency whiz had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him.

Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, presiding over Tuesday’s hearing, told Bankman-Fried’s attorneys that she would not overrule Kaplan’s rulings about access to computers, but that she would see if she could get the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to provide medications and a diet more closely aligned to the defendant’s vegan preferences.

Attorney Mark Cohen told Netburn that Bankman-Fried hadn’t received medication that’s necessary for him to focus since he was sent to jail on Aug. 12.

He said his client continued to be served a “flesh diet,” leaving him to rely solely on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter.

Another defense attorney, Christian Everdell, told Netburn that Bankman-Fried was being denied the right to adequately prepare for trial because he was only allowed to review millions of pages of evidence two days a week.

“There is no way for him to effectively prepare for his defense,” Everdell said.