Court Digest

North Dakota
Judge: State’s redistricting violates federal law for Native American voters
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that North Dakota’s Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act in how lawmakers reapportioned legislative districts comprising two tribal nations.

U.S. District Chief Judge Peter Welte issued his ruling on Friday, months after a trial held in June in Fargo.

He ruled that the 2021 redistricting plan for two districts, one with two House subdistricts, “prevents Native American voters from having an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in violation” of a major provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Welte gave the Republican-controlled Legislature until Dec. 22 “to adopt a plan to remedy the violation.”

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Spirit Lake Tribe alleged the 2021 redistricting map violates the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law from 1965. Their complaint argued that the reapportionment “packs” Turtle Mountain tribal members into one House district and leaves Spirit Lake out of a majority-Native district.

Nevada
State to pay $340,000 in settlement over prison firefighting conditions
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nevada must pay $340,000 total to the ACLU of Nevada and eight people on a prison firefighting crew in a settlement reached earlier this week, but clears the state of admitting to claims including negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and cruel and unusual punishment.

The settlement reached Tuesday by the Nevada Board of Examiners ends both state and federal lawsuits filed in March stemming from a 2021 fire cleanup on the southern tip of the state.

In a lawsuit filed in Clark County District Court, the ACLU of Nevada alleged that supervisors “mocked and abused” prison firefighters after what was described as a gruesome cleanup assignment that left several unable to walk, stand or shower without assistance for days. The lawsuit claimed none of the incarcerated firefighters received medical treatment that night.

In the lawsuit, the ACLU of Nevada alleged on behalf of the plaintiffs that when the sole of one plaintiff’s boot melted off from the heat, a Nevada Division of Forestry supervisor duct-taped it back on and told her to continue working. When another plaintiff started crying from pain, the supervisor allegedly said, “You can keep crying as long as you keep working.”

The Nevada Division Forestry will also expand on training for its prison firefighting program, and implement or ensure a host of policies meant to protect incarcerated firefighters including avenues to submit anonymous concerns and better maintenance of protective equipment — including work boots.

The crew fighting the 2021 fire was from Jean Conservation Camp, the only prison firefighting facility designed for women. The Division of Forestry owns the camp and firefighting programs while the Department of Corrections staffs the camp.

The Nevada Department of Corrections and Division of Forestry both declined to comment. The settlement was first reported by The Nevada Independent.

The plaintiffs — comprised of current and formerly incarcerated people — will receive between about $24,000 and $48,000 each.

Florida
University system sued over effort to disband pro-Palestinian student group
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s university system was sued Thursday over its effort to silence a chapter of a pro-Palestinian student group, with a free speech group arguing that the state is violating the First Amendment rights of an organization that’s promoting peace.

State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues last month ordered schools to disband chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, saying the national organization supports terrorism after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. Rodrigues has since backed off the order while consulting lawyers to see how the state can proceed and whether it can force the groups to pledge to reject violence and Hamas and to follow the law.

The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court says the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is only loosely affiliated with the national chapter and doesn’t accept money or coordinate planning with the group. Either way, the national group’s speech is protected by the constitution, the lawsuit said.

The UF group’s mission is to “promote international law, human rights, and justice for all people affected by this conflict,” according to the lawsuit. The suit said interest in the group has grown since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but it now has to focus on its survival.

“Members fear that at any moment the University will disrupt their ability to sustain their growing momentum for their advocacy,” the suit said.

The Florida Department of Education and the Board of Governors didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking the status of the order to disband the group.

Florida
Ex-girlfriend drops lawsuits against Woods
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods ‘ ex-girlfriend has dropped her lawsuits against the golf superstar and the trust that owns his Florida mansion, saying she never accused him of sexual harassment even though her attorney has made that claim.

The attorney for Erica Herman filed a one-paragraph notice in state court last week saying she was voluntarily dismissing her $30 million lawsuit against the trust “with prejudice,” meaning the claim cannot be reasserted later. She had claimed that Woods promised she could live at the 30,000-square-foot (2,800-square meter) beachfront mansion until 2026 but kicked her out unexpectedly last year.

“In dismissing this action, Erica Herman states that she was never a victim of sexual harassment or sexual abuse at the hands of Tiger Woods or any of his agents and it is her position that she has never asserted such a claim,” wrote attorney Benjamin Hodas, who claimed on multiple occasions that Woods had sexually harassed his client.

A separate lawsuit against Woods was rejected by a judge in May, and court records show an appeal of that decision was dropped this week. Nothing in court documents indicates a settlement was reached on either lawsuit, though that could have been done privately.

Hodas did not return a call and email seeking comment Thursday. Woods’ attorney, J.B. Murray, declined to comment.

Herman was Woods’ girlfriend from 2015 until October 2022, moving into his $54 million mansion north of Palm Beach in 2016. She managed his Palm Beach County restaurant before and during the first years of their romantic relationship, and she signed a nondisclosure agreement in 2017 that barred her from discussing their relationship publicly. It also required her to take any legal disagreements with Woods to private arbitration and not court.

Hodas claimed in a May court hearing that Herman didn’t remember signing the document but that if she did it was under duress, having been told she would be fired from the restaurant if she didn’t.

Hodas argued the nondisclosure agreement was unenforceable under a new federal law that says such contracts can be voided when sexual abuse or sexual harassment occurred. He contended that Woods’ alleged threat to fire her was harassment.

“A boss imposing different work conditions on his employee because of their sexual relationship is sexual harassment,” Hodas wrote in a May filing.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Metzger rejected Herman’s attempt to quash the nondisclosure agreement later in May, calling her allegations “vague and threadbare.”

“Herman has had the opportunity (to) provide factual specificity for any claim relating to sexual assault or sexual harassment, however, she has not done so,” Metzger wrote.

Forbes Magazine estimates Woods’ net worth at $1.1 billion. In 2017, Woods had put the mansion into the Jupiter Island Irrevocable Homestead Trust, an entity he created that has only himself and his two children as beneficiaries.


California
Family sues sheriff’s office after deputy kidnapped girl, killed her mother and grandparents
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California family is suing a Virginia sheriff’s department that hired a deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint, killed her mother and grandparents, and set their home on fire.

Austin Lee Edwards, 28, died by suicide during a shootout with law enforcement on Nov. 25, hours after the violence in Riverside, a city about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The teenager was rescued.

Edwards had been hired as a Washington County sheriff’s deputy in Virginia just nine days before the killings, even though a 2016 court order prohibited him from buying, possessing and transporting a firearm. The court order stemmed from a psychiatric detention after Edwards cut himself and threatened to kill his father.

The girl’s aunt, Mychelle Blandin, and her minor sister filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court in the Central District of California against the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Edwards’ estate. The lawsuit says the department was negligent in hiring Edwards and seeks damages through a jury trial. The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Authorities have said Edwards had posed online as a 17-year-old boy while communicating with the teenager, a form of deception known as “catfishing,” and asked her to send nude photos of herself.

The girl stopped responding to his messages, prompting Edwards to travel across the country to her home in California. The lawsuit alleges that he showed his law enforcement badge and service weapon to Mark Winek and Sharon Winek, the girl’s grandparents, and said he was a detective and needed to question the family.

The suit says Edwards slit the throat of the teen’s mother, Brooke Winek, and tried to asphyxiate her grandparents by tying them up with bags over their heads. At least one of them was still moving when he set their home on fire, the lawsuit says.

Blandin said the killings “destroyed our family.”

“I am bringing this lawsuit because my family wants to know how Edwards was hired as a sheriff’s deputy and given a gun when the courts expressly ordered he could not possess a firearm,” Blandin said in a statement. “He used his position as a sheriff to gain access to my parents’ home, where he killed them and my sister. I want the Washington County Sheriff’s Office held accountable for giving a mentally unfit person a badge and a gun.”

Edwards was hired by the Virginia State Police in July 2021 and resigned nine months later. He was then hired as a deputy in Washington County last year.

The slayings — and their connection to Virginia — prompted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to ask the state’s inspector general for a “full investigation,” which found that a background investigator for the state police failed to check the correct database that would have pulled up the mental health order.

The state police, which is not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, has since changed its employment processes and background investigation policies and training.

A spokesperson for the state police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.