National Roundup

Wisconsin
Court: Fishing captain properly convicted of attempted theft
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — An appeals court says a Door County judge properly convicted a fishing boat captain after he tried to win a salmon tournament by stuffing a weight inside his catch.

According to court documents, Michael Cefalu’s charter client submitted a 30.27-pound salmon in a 2013 tournament where the first-place prize was $10,000 cash and $1,500 worth of prizes.

Tournament officials discovered a 1-pound weight in the salmon. Judge David Weber found Cefalu guilty of attempted theft by fraud of more than $5,000 to $10,000, a felony, in 2016.

Cefalu argued there wasn’t enough evidence to support a conviction. The 3rd District Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling Tuesday that Cefalu helped register the fish and was reluctant to cut it open.

Cefalu’s attorney, Howard Mitz, declined comment.

New York
Man sentenced to prison for courthouse grenade scare
QUEENSBURY, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York man accused of sending an inert hand grenade to a judge has been sentenced to 2½ years in prison.

The Post-Star in Glens Falls reports 49-year-old Joseph Schutta Jr. entered an Alford plea Monday to a felony charge of placing a false bomb or hazardous substance. The plea means he doesn’t admit to the charge but acknowledges there’s enough evidence to convict him.

Police say a postal employee found a suspicious package in a mailbox in July 2017 at the Warren County Municipal Center, and an X-ray revealed the grenade inside.

The package’s intendent recipient, Warren County Judge John Hall, had sentenced Schutta to jail in 2005 for threatening a person and possessing a gun with the serial number filed off.


Arizona
­Coconino County voters choose merit selection for judges
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Judges in Coconino County will be appointed under a merit selection system instead of chosen in partisan elections under a measure approved by county voters.

The change approved this month means the state’s sitting governor will appoint new judges from a list chosen by a 16-member county commission on judicial appointments.

Coconino joins Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties in using merit selection. Counties larger than 250,000 in population have used the system since 1975 under a state Constitution provision. Appeals and Supreme Court judges also go through the merit selection process.

Coconino becomes the first county whose voters opted to use merit selection, which is designed to ensure qualified judges sit on the bench.

Appointed judges must sit for a retention election in two years and then every four years.

California
State Supreme Court overturns murder conviction
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California Supreme Court decided unanimously to overturn the murder conviction of a Los Angeles man who became mentally unstable during his trial.

Domingo Rodas was convicted of killing a homeless man and attempting to kill two others during a series of random stabbings in Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Times reports the high court decided Monday that the trial judge should have suspended proceedings and conducted an evaluation when doubts were raised about Rodas’ competency.

Rodas, who suffers from severe mental disorders, was found fit for trial after spending several months in a psychiatric hospital receiving medication.

In 2013, after a jury had been selected but before opening statements, Rodas’ lawyer told the judge that she doubted whether her client was mentally competent. The judge allowed the trial to proceed.

New Mexico
State high court to hear ‘warrior gene’ appeal
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Supreme Court will review an appeals court ruling in the case of a man convicted of murder who unsuccessfully sought to introduce evidence that he was genetically predisposed to violence.

Anthony Blas Yepez was convicted of beating, choking and burning to death his girlfriend’s 75-year-old step-grandfather, George Ortiz, during a domestic dispute in 2012.

Yepez’s lawyer attempted to introduce evidence at his 2015 trial, seeking to cast doubt on his client’s ability to form the intent required to convict him, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

The so-called warrior gene theory has been debated since a Dutch scientist discovered in the early 1990s that all the male relatives in a New Zealand family with a history of aggressive violence lacked a specific gene critical for regulating anger. The theory is that people with low levels of a certain enzyme, who also are abused in childhood, are prone to impulsive violence.

The violence that ended in Ortiz’s death began when Ortiz struck his girlfriend in the face, according to her testimony at Yepez’s trial.

Yepez said he didn’t remember exactly what happened next, only that he “must have blacked out.” When he regained consciousness, he was on top of Ortiz, who was bleeding profusely from the back of his head and appeared to be dead. The couple then poured cooking oil over Ortiz’s body and set it ablaze before fleeing in Ortiz’s car, according to records.

Before the case went to trial, his lawyers told a judge they planned to call expert witnesses to testify about studies that had shown people who have low levels of an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters, including serotonin, which is believed to help regulate mood — are more likely to be impulsively aggressive.

That’s particularly true, experts claim, if these individuals were abused as children — as, they said, Yepez had been.

His attorneys said Yepez’s enzyme level was low, which they said that cast doubt on whether the killing was premeditated. But District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer rejected the argument and did not allow the jury to hear the expert testimony.

A Santa Fe County jury subsequently convicted Yepez of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 22 years in prison. He appealed his conviction on the grounds the warrior gene evidence should have been allowed.

The state Court of Appeals ruled in July that Sommer erred when she excluded the expert testimony. But the court also determined the mistake was harmless, because Yepez had been convicted of second-degree murder, which does not require the state to prove premeditation. It also affirmed his sentence.

L. Helen Bennett, representing Yepez under contract with the Law Offices of the Public Defender, says Sommer abused her discretion when she decided a proposed witness incorrectly interpreted the studies. Bennett is seeking a retrial for Yepez.