National Roundup

California
San Francisco to pay $400K to settle lawsuit over former DA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco has agreed to pay $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former city investigator who claimed retaliation after expressing concerns that former district attorney George Gascon was allegedly carrying firearms on flights in violation of federal law.

Henry McKenzie was fired in 2017 from the prosecutor’s office and sued the city in 2018, claiming that he was subjected to a “pattern of retaliation and harassment” after he and other investigators went to the federal Transportation Security Administration with their concerns about Gascón, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday.

McKenzie believed Gascon was violating federal law, which allows peace officers to carry firearms while traveling so long as they state they are doing so for a work-related reason. They believed Gascon, who became district attorney in 2012, was no longer an active officer.

McKenzie told the newspaper he felt vindicated by the unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Max Szabo, a spokesman for Gascón, who is running for the district attorney’s office in Los Angeles, said the former prosecutor “requested this case be taken to trial so a jury could decide the merits of this farce, but the city attorney made a business decision in response to the cost of litigation.”

John Cote, spokesman for the city attorney, said it was far cheaper to settle the lawsuit than to take it to court.

Massachusetts
Probate judge charged with misconduct for alleged groping

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts Probate and Family Court judge has been charged with misconduct for allegedly groping an administrative office worker, according to court documents.

Formal charges were filed with the Supreme Judicial Court alleging that Judge Paul Sushchyk “pinched or squeezed” the butt of a colleague at a bar after a work conference held at Ocean Edge Resort in Brewster in April 2019, the Boston Herald reported.

The woman said Monday during a virtual hearing that she was sitting at the bar with other coworkers when she felt someone sliding their hand under her. The unidentified woman said, “It felt like someone was sliding their hand under me and using their full hand to grab upwards.”

She says when she turned around Sushchyk was standing behind her.

Sushchyk denied the allegations. In a statement filed with the court, he said on that night he was “somewhat unsteady” from hip surgery and a long day at work.

Sushchyk admitted to walking past the woman and steadying himself “in the direction of her chair.” At that moment he said he “came into momentary contact with a portion of her lower body.”

New York
Christian adoption agency’s legal fight back to trial court

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A Christian adoption agency’s legal fight with New York state over its policy toward unmarried and same-sex couples will continue under a federal appeals court ruling Tuesday.

New Hope Family Services in Syracuse professes that because of religious beliefs, it cannot recommend adoptions by same-sex or unmarried couples. The service sued the state Office of Children and Family Services after it was told it must change its “discriminatory” policy or shut down, according to court papers.

The U.S. District Court in Albany dismissed New Hope’s lawsuit in May 2019, saying New York officials weren’t infringing on the agency’s religious freedom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled Tuesday that the lower court’s dismissal was premature and sent the case back down to the trial court for further proceedings.

“It is plainly a serious step to order an authorized adoption agency such as New Hope—operating without complaint for 50 years, taking no government funding, successfully placing approximately 1,000 children, and with adoptions pending or being supervised—to close all its adoption operations,” read the court’s opinion.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization representing New Hope, said the appeals decision was a “resounding victory.”

In a statement, OCFS said it didn’t comment on pending litigation, but said the state and the agency “remain committed to non-discrimination and will continue to advocate for all children and families.”

Washington
County exec plans to depopulate youth jail by 2025

SEATTLE (AP) — King County Executive Dow Constantine announced Tuesday afternoon he plans to convert the remaining detention units at the county’s juvenile jail to “other uses” by 2025.

He made the announcement on Twitter, citing a desire to move public funding away from “systems that are rooted in oppression,” The Seattle Times reported.

“Phasing out centralized youth detention is no longer a goal in the far distance,” Constantine wrote in a lengthy thread. “We have made extraordinary progress and we have evolved to believe that even more can be done.”

He added that his announcement comes after “the vicious, state-sponsored murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.”

King County has declared a goal of “Zero Youth Detention” for years, even as a new jail facility was built.

The recently-opened, 156-bed Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center replaced an older Youth Services Center that had 100 more beds than the new facility — “almost twice the number of detention beds needed today,” according to the county’s website.

The new facility, which also includes courtrooms and a resource center, was initially built as a “part of our larger aspirational goal of a safer, more restorative alternative for every youth,” Constantine tweeted Tuesday.

According to a statement from Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, the organization met with Constantine’s office and public health officials Tuesday to “(outline) a path forward.”

“We want a system that supports youth and helps them lead healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives,” BLMSKC board member Livio De La Cruz said in the statement. “Their lives matter. Ending youth incarceration is the right thing to do for our children, their families, and all of us.”

“The path to Zero Youth Detention gets steeper and steeper from here, and only an all-out, concerted effort from government and community partners will get us to that summit,” Constantine wrote.
“Community has continuously called on us to do more and to go further, and with their help, we will answer that call.”