Court Digest

Wisconsin
Judge reaffirms ruling that law allows consensual medical abortions
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Tuesday reaffirmed her ruling from earlier this year that state law permits consensual medical abortions, handing abortion rights advocates a massive victory but opening up appellate options for conservatives.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the court’s landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion, in June 2022 reactivated an 1849 Wisconsin law that conservatives interpreted as banning abortion. Abortion providers ceased operations in the state out of fear of violating the ban.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit days after the U.S. Supreme Court decision challenging the ban’s validity. He argued the statutes were too old to enforce and a 1985 law permitting abortions before fetuses can survive outside the womb trump the ban. Three doctors later joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs, saying they fear being prosecuted for performing abortions.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled this past July that the ban prohibits someone from attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child but doesn’t apply to consensual medical abortions. Her finding didn’t formally end the lawsuit but Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin was confident enough in the ruling to resume abortion procedures at their Madison and Milwaukee clinics in September.

Joel Urmanski, the Republican district attorney in Sheboygan County, where Planned Parenthood’s third abortion clinic is located, had asked Schlipper to reconsider her the ruling.

Schlipper refused in a 14-page opinion issued Tuesday, writing that Urmanski failed to show how she misapplied state law or made any other mistake and declared that the plaintiffs had won the suit.

She declined the doctors’ request, however, to issue an injunction prohibiting prosecutors from charging abortion providers. Prosecutors in Dane, Milwaukee and Sheboygan County have said they would abide by her ruling that state law permits consensual abortions, she noted.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said in a statement Tuesday that it expects to resume abortion procedures at its facility in Sheboygan “as soon as possible.”

Urmanski’s attorney, listed in online court records as Andrew Phillips, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Kaul called the ruling a “momentous victory.”

“Freedom wins. Equality wins. Women’s health wins,” he said in a statement.

The lawsuit is likely far from over. Tuesday’s ruling opens the door for conservatives to appeal and a case of this magnitude will likely end up before the state Supreme Court. Liberal justices currently control the court, making it likely that Schlipper’s ruling will stand.

Georgia
Attorneys for family of absolved Black man killed by deputy seeking $16M from sheriff
WOODBINE, Ga. (AP) — Attorneys for the family of a Black man fatally shot by a Georgia deputy during an October traffic stop have given formal notice of plans to sue the sheriff’s office in a letter demanding $16 million in restitution.

Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels told reporters Tuesday that the sum represents $1 million for every year Leonard Cure spent imprisoned in Florida on a wrongful conviction. He was killed just three years after Florida authorities set him free.

“Everything was going right for Leonard, things were looking up, until he had this encounter with this sheriff’s deputy,” Crump said during a news conference with members of Cure’s family.

Camden County Staff Sgt. Buck Aldridge killed 53-year-old Cure during a violent struggle on the shoulder of Interstate 95 after pulling him over for speeding and reckless driving.

Dash and body camera video of the Oct. 16 shooting show Aldridge shocking Cure with a Taser after he refused to put his hands behind him to be cuffed. Cure fought back and had a hand at the deputy’s throat when Aldridge shot him point-blank.

Relatives have said Cure likely resisted because of psychological trauma from his imprisonment in Florida for an armed robbery he didn’t commit. Officials exonerated and freed him in 2020.

The lawyers for Cure’s family say Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor should never have hired Aldridge, who was fired by the neighboring Kingsland Police Department in 2017 after being disciplined a third time for using excessive force. The sheriff hired him nine months later.

And video from a June 2022 chase that ended in a crash shows Aldridge punching a driver who is on his back as the deputy pulls him from a wrecked car. Records show no disciplinary actions against the deputy.

“We don’t believe he should have ever been a deputy at this point, when you look at the history of his violating the civil rights of citizens,” Crump said.

Georgia requires lawyers to give formal notice to state or local government agencies before they can file civil lawsuits against them in state courts. The letter, which the Cure family’s attorneys said they mailed Monday, gives Camden County 30 days to settle the case out of court.

Cure’s mother, Mary Cure, said spending the holidays without her son has been painful and that coming into Georgia on the highway where he was shot had filled her with anxiety Tuesday. But she vowed to get justice for his death.

“No, the money doesn’t mean a damned thing to me,” Mary Cure said. “I would rather have my child back.”

Capt. Larry Bruce, a spokesman for the sheriff, said the department had not yet received the attorneys’ letter Tuesday. He declined further comment.

An attorney for Aldridge, Adrienne Browning, declined to comment Tuesday. She has previously said he’s a “fine officer” who shot Cure in self-defense.

Aldridge is on administrative leave pending a decision by Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Keith Higgins on whether to seek criminal charges in Cure’s death.

Three experts who reviewed video of the shooting told The Associated Press they believed it was legal, as Aldridge appeared to be in danger when he fired. But they also criticized how Aldridge began the encounter by shouting at Cure and said he made no effort to deescalate their confrontation.

Colorado
Former officer accused of parking patrol car hit by train on railroad tracks pleads guilty
DENVER (AP) — A former Colorado police officer pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of reckless endangerment for parking his patrol car on railroad tracks before a handcuffed woman was put inside and seriously injured when it was hit by a freight train.

Pablo Vazquez had been charged with five misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment in connection with the crash that injured Yareni Rios last year but reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

A judge sentenced Vazquez to 12 months of unsupervised probation. If he stays out of trouble during that time, the misdemeanor charge will be dismissed and the case will be sealed, KUSA-TV reported.

Another former officer who put the woman in the patrol car after a traffic stop, Jordan Steinke, was found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault for the crash near Platteville. A judge acquitted her of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter after a bench trial in July.

Steinke was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation and 100 hours of community service after both prosecutors and defense attorneys asked for her not to be sent to jail.

Rios suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as numerous broken ribs, a broken leg and a broken back in the crash and is suing police.

Her attorney, Christopher Ponce, called Vazquez’s sentence “disappointing”, adding that Rios wished there was more of a permanent conviction.


Maryland
Teen and parents indicted after shootout outside high school that left 3 wounded
BALTIMORE (AP) — A grand jury has indicted a Baltimore teen and his parents on allegations they brought a gun to a high school campus in October and beat up a student shortly before classes were to start, prompting a shootout that left three young people wounded, city prosecutors said Tuesday.

The shooting added to an uptick in youth violence plaguing the city this year, including several instances of Baltimore public school students being shot on or near high school campuses. That trend has persisted even as Baltimore gun violence overall has declined during the past several months.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced the charges at a news conference Tuesday morning. He questioned how the city is supposed to reduce youth violence if parents are active participants.

“As a parent, it is absolutely mindblowing to read the allegations in this indictment, where a child’s guardians facilitate in settling a schoolyard dispute with violence,” he said. “Hear me clear, parents, if you have a child, you must also be responsible for your children’s actions.”

William Dredden, 40, and Tiffany Harrison, 37, are both charged with over a dozen counts, including first-degree assault, illegally transporting a handgun and conspiracy to commit attempted first-degree murder.
Their 15-year-old son, whom officials said was indicted in adult court, hasn’t been identified because he’s a minor.

A spokesperson for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender said she was unsure whether the office had been appointed to represent the defendants and declined to comment so early in the case.

The indictment accuses Dredden and Harrison of driving their son to Carver Vocational Technical High School the morning of Oct. 27 and helping him attack a student outside the school by “striking him repeatedly with a handgun and their fists as he waited for his classes to begin.”

As the three were leaving the area after the attack, the son started shooting, leaving two other students injured in gunfire, prosecutors alleged. One of the gunshot victims allegedly fired back at the 15-year-old, who was also injured, Bates said. He said most of the encounter was captured on surveillance cameras.

At least two other people involved in the dispute are also facing charges, but Bates said he couldn’t release specifics because some cases are proceeding in juvenile court. He also declined to say what the fight was about.

Bates said he wanted the focus to be on Dredden and Harrison’s participation in the violence.

He said surveillance video shows them and their son returning to their SUV after the shooting and driving the short distance back to Harrison’s house, where she went inside and changed clothes while Dredden called 911. Harrison then accompanied her son in the ambulance and Dredden removed a red sweatshirt he had been wearing, according to the indictment.

“We need parents to be part of the solution, not the problem,” Bates said.