Court Digest

South Dakota
ACLU sues state over its vanity plate restrictions
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota announced Monday that it is suing South Dakota over a state law that restricts content on vanity plates.

The ACLU said in a press release that it filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lyndon Hart, whose application for a plate that said “REZWEED” was initially denied by the South Dakota Motor Vehicle Division for allegedly being “in poor taste.”

Hart runs a business called Rez Weed Indeed, which he uses to support the legal selling and use of marijuana on Native American reservations. Hart intended for the personalized license plate to refer to his business and its mission of promoting tribal sovereignty, the news release said.

According to the complaint filed Friday, the state Department of Revenue denied Hart’s application in 2022. Under state law, the department has the authority to “refuse to issue any letter combination which carries connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”

The department later reversed its decision without explanation and granted Hart the REZWEED plate. But Hart’s free speech rights are still at risk because state law allows the department to recall the plates at any time if they are believed to have been issued in error, the complaint says.

The department used its authority to recall at least three personalized plates in 2022, the lawsuit says.

It names both the state’s Department of Revenue and the state’s Motor Vehicle Division.

Kendra Baucom, a spokesperson for both entities, declined to comment Monday on the lawsuit or on the state’s policy.

The ACLU said the Motor Vehicle Division has rejected hundreds of personalized plate requests in the past five years for allegedly carrying “connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”

The state’s standard is “overly broad, vague and subjective,” the ACLU says, and it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that include the rights of free speech and due process.

The ACLU added that the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that license plates are a legitimate place for personal and political expression, and courts throughout the country have struck down similar laws.

In January, North Carolina decided to allow more LGBTQ+ phrases on vanity plates. The state’s Division of Motor Vehicles approved more than 200 phrases that were previously blocked, including “GAYPRIDE,” “LESBIAN” and “QUEER.”

Other states — including Delaware, Oklahoma and Georgia — have been sued over their restrictions in recent years.

New Mexico
Players’ lawsuit alleges guns were often present in locker room
Two former New Mexico State basketball players and a student manager filed a lawsuit Monday saying their teammates frequently brought guns into the locker room where they sexually assaulted players as a way of ensuring everyone on the team remained “humble.”

Kyle Feit, along with a teammate and student manager who did not want their names used, filed the lawsuit in district court in Las Cruces, New Mexico, against the school, its athletic director, Mario Moccia, and former coaches and players. All but Moccia were fired or left last season; Moccia received a contract extension and a raise.

The lawsuit was filed the same day as the Aggies’ 2023-24 season opener, at Kentucky.

Feit revealed his name, the lawsuit says, because “his interest in speaking out and holding all of the defendants accountable outweighs his desire to protect his personal privacy interests.”

Some of the allegations — that players would sexually assault teammates after forcing them to pull their pants down — were similar to those made in a lawsuit the school settled earlier this year with former players Shak Odunewu and Deuce Benjamin, along with Benjamin’s father, for an amount totaling $8 million.

The new lawsuit claims that in addition to being assaulted in much the same way as Benjamin and Odunewu, guns were a regular presence in the locker room and elsewhere on campus and on team trips. The lawsuit describes Feit as having guns pointed at him from inside car windows three times as he was walking across campus.

Guns are not allowed on New Mexico State’s campus, nor on trips involving school activities. The school’s enforcement of that rule came under increased scrutiny when former player Mike Peake shot and killed a University of New Mexico student while the team was on a road trip in Albuquerque. Peake was not charged with a crime because video showed he was acting in self-defense.

After the Peake shooting, the lawsuit says, “the presence of guns (within the team) became even more real and menacing. (Feit) knew his teammates were in fear of retribution for the shooting and the atmosphere was very tense.”

The lawsuit says Feit, who previously played at Arizona State and was featured in some of New Mexico State’s early season promotional materials in 2022, was on the verge of quitting the team before administrators abruptly canceled the season in February.

The lawsuit says Feit was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while at New Mexico State. He moved away from campus and earlier this year signed with a pro team in Israel. He has since returned home due to the war in the region.

“His PTSD was triggered by the war in Israel, resulting in him living in constant fear and worsening his condition,” the lawsuit says.

New Mexico State spokesman Justin Bannister said the school does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit was filed less than a week after the revelation that the same three players who were named in the lawsuit were found responsible for sexual misconduct, according to a Title IX investigation spearheaded by the school.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reported that the investigation determined the players, as a way of making sure their teammates stayed “humble,” would demand other players pull down their pants and expose their genitals, while also sometimes grabbing those players’ genitals.

All three plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege the players did similar things to them.

“It became difficult for Kyle Feit to focus on basketball and he felt like he was losing his love for the sport,” the lawsuit said. “Going to the gym had always been a safe and positive place, and it was no longer. His game suffered, as did his well-being.”

South Carolina
‘Doc’ Antle of  ‘Tiger King’ pleads guilty to wildlife trafficking and money laundering
An exotic wildlife preserve owner who gained notoriety on the popular Netflix series “Tiger King” plead guilty Monday to animal trafficking and money laundering, the U.S. Justice Department announced.

Bhagavan “Doc” Antle oversaw the sale or purchase of cheetah cubs, lion cubs, tigers and a juvenile chimpanzee that were all protected as endangered species, according to a Justice Department release. Officials said the 63-year-old man featured in a documentary miniseries about the tiger trade tried to hide animal payments as “donations” to his nonprofit organization.

“The defendant held himself out as a conservationist, yet repeatedly violated laws protecting endangered animals and then tried to cover up those violations,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement.

Antle faces a maximum of five years’ imprisonment, fines up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release for each count. He operates Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina and is the founder of a nonprofit registered in the state called the Rare Species Fund.

Investigators found evidence that Antle and a coconspirator had also used cash acquired through the transportation and harboring of immigrants who illegally entered the country.

A jury this June acquitted Antle of five counts of animal cruelty. The judge in that case dismissed four more animal cruelty charges facing Antle and all charges against his two adult daughters.

It’s the latest fallout for the subjects of “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” Joe Exotic, the show’s star, is serving a 21-year prison sentence for trying to hire two different men to kill animal welfare activist Carol Baskin. The ongoing feud between Joe Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — and Baskin featured prominently in the show. Maldonado-Passage had one year shaved off his penalty last year as he began treatment for early-stage cancer.


Alaska
Indigenous men imprisoned for 18 years for murder settle for $5M
Three of the four Indigenous men who served 18 years in prison for a murder conviction in Alaska that was ultimately vacated will receive a total of nearly $5 million in a settlement confirmed by the city of Fairbanks on Monday.

The convictions of the so-called Fairbanks Four in the 1997 death of Fairbanks teenager John Hartman were vacated in 2015 after a key state witness recanted testimony and following a weeks-long hearing reexamining the case that raised the possibility others had killed Hartman.

The men — George Frese, Eugene Vent, Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease — argued that an agreement that led to their release in which they agreed not to sue was not legally binding because they were coerced. The men also maintained there was a history of discrimination against Alaska Natives by local police. Pease is Native American; Frese, Vent and Roberts are Athabascan Alaska Natives.

The legal fight over whether the men could sue the city despite the agreement has gone on for years. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor.

Pease, Frese and Vent will each receive $1.59 million from the city’s insurer, according to a statement provided by Fairbanks city attorney Tom Chard. Roberts declined a settlement offer and his case is still pending, the statement said.

An attorney for Roberts did not immediately reply to an email sent Monday.

The city’s statement said the decision to settle was made by its insurer, Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association. The association’s executive director did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The statement said the settlement “is not an admission of liability or fault of any kind,” and the city declined further comment about it.

A federal judge in late September signed off on a request by the parties to have the case involving Pease, Frese and Vent dismissed. The settlement agreement was reported last week by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Thomas Wickwire, an attorney for Frese and Pease, declined comment on the matter, citing Roberts’ pending case.

Terms of the settlement with each of the three men included a “non-publicity” clause in which the men and their attorneys agreed to not make public statements about the case until claims by all the men are resolved.

A state court judge in 2015 approved terms of a settlement that threw out the convictions of the four men, who had maintained their innocence in Hartman’s death. Alaska Native leaders long advocated for the men’s release, calling their convictions racially motivated.

The Alaska attorney general’s office at the time said the settlement was “not an exoneration” and called it a compromise that “reflects the Attorney General’s recognition that if the defendants were retried today it is not clear under the current state of the evidence that they would be convicted.”