Court Digest

California
Judge blocks new criminal disqualifiers to asylum
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked a Trump administration rule about to take effect that would have put up new roadblocks for asylum-seekers convicted of a variety of crimes.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco said the rule “sweeps too broadly” and was unnecessary because current federal law already includes a host of disqualifying crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting.

Pangea Legal Services, a legal service provider for immigrants, and other non-profits sued after the rule was announced last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice. It was set to take effect Friday.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order without an expiration date. She scheduled a Dec. 9 hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

Illston agreed with the plaintiffs’ contention that the two government agencies exceeded their authority and said the rule was “substantively and procedurally defective.”

The departments of Homeland Security and Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

The White House has instituted a slew of measures to make asylum more difficult to obtain.

President-elect Joe Biden said on his campaign website that he will end Trump’s “detrimental asylum policies” but has not commented on this specific rule.

While asylum has long been denied to people convicted of “particularly serious crimes,” the new rule would have added a litany of crimes that would have been disqualifying. They included convictions for domestic violence — whether a felony or misdemeanor — assault or battery, re-entering the country illegally, identify theft, public benefits fraud, immigrant smuggling and driving under the influence.

The rule would have also denied asylum to people convicted of crimes that an adjudicator “knows or has reason to believe” was committed to supporting a criminal street gang.

Asylum is for people fleeing persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group. It isn’t intended for people who migrate for economic reasons.

President Donald Trump has called asylum “a scam” and has introduced a string of policies against it since the U.S. became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017.

Another rule proposed in June gives judges the power to reject claims without a hearing. Several new factors weigh against asylum, including failure to pay taxes.

A rule in July lets authorities block asylum-seekers from countries with widespread communicable disease.

Illinois
Boy, 13, gets 7-year juvenile sentence for thefts
URBANA, Ill. (AP) — A 13-year-old central Illinois boy who admitted stealing five vehicles earlier this year has been sentenced to seven years in juvenile prison after a judge rejected his pleas for another chance.

The Rantoul teen sobbed Wednesday as a Champaign County judge sentenced him for the vehicle thefts, which occurred in Champaign and Urbana between June and October, The (Champaign) News-Gazette reported. The boy had begged the judge for another chance to remain free.

State’s Attorney Julia Rietz told the court that after the first vehicle theft, the boy had been given a chance at a diversion program that would have kept him out of the juvenile justice system, but he was arrested again.

The teen pleaded guilty to an August vehicle theft and was on home detention with an ankle monitor awaiting sentencing when he was arrested again the day before his sentencing hearing.

After he was charged with two September vehicle thefts, he pleaded guilty to those and was again released on home detention with an ankle monitor pending sentencing. Rietz said the teen then committed the fifth vehicle burglary in October.

“This is extraordinarily frustrating because we started out with (the boy) to give him the opportunity to move forward positively,” she said.

Assistant Public Defender Matt Ham had asked for probation for the teen in the thefts.

But Champaign County Kudge Roger Webber called the boy a “serious danger to the public and property of others and to himself.”

“I know you are sorry, but there are consequences to your decisions,” Webber told the boy.

West Virginia
Court affirms $17M jury verdict for woman injured at Walmart
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The West Virginia Supreme Court has affirmed a jury verdict of nearly $17 million for a woman injured when WalMart staffers tried to detain a shoplifter.

The court rejected the retail giant’s appeal on Thursday.

A lawyer for 53-year-old Diane Ankrom said employees were trying to detain a shoplifter last year when he ran into Ankrom’s shopping cart, which was carrying her granddaughter. Ankrom fell to the ground with the cart falling on top of her.

Ankrom’s lawyers said she has had multiple surgeries and has been admitted to the hospital over 20 times.

Washington
Woman sentenced in fraud scheme to steal aircraft
SEATTLE (AP) — A Federal Way woman who falsified documents in a fraud scheme designed to steal and sell aircraft was sentenced in federal court to four years, three months in prison, according to prosecutors.

Michelle Renee Hughes, 43, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and identity theft in April and was sentenced Thursday by Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez, who warned her that she faces more prison time if she doesn’t change her behavior.

“This defendant has pursued identity theft and fraud crimes for more than a decade,” said U.S. Attorney Brian Moran. “These are not victimless crimes—real people have to sort out the damage done to their credit and financial life. In this case victims’ sense of health and well-being and their ability to help others was derailed by this brazen fraud scheme.”

According to court documents, Hughes sent forged bills of sale and falsely changed aircraft registrations in a public Federal Aviation Administration database. She made it look like she had bought the aircraft and then tried to sell them. She would try to get payments from unsuspecting buyers, documents said.

The true owners of the aircraft incurred legal fees and stress trying to get the clear title to their planes restored.

Martinez ordered Hughes to complete three years of supervised release after serving her prison term and pay one of her victims more than $11,000 in compensation.

Virginia
2nd man convicted in fatal shooting of boy, 9
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A jury is recommending 33 years in prison for a Virginia man convicted of murder and other charges for the shooting death of a 9-year-old girl and the wounding of another boy during a cookout in a Richmond park last year.

A Richmond City Circuit Court jury reached the verdict against Jermaine Davis, 23, Thursday evening following a two day trial, news outlets reported. The victim, Markiya Dickson, was  killed in May 2019 when bullets ripped through the Memorial Day weekend cookout at Carter Jones Park. An 11-year-old boy and a third person were also wounded.

Prosecutors said Davis, his younger brother Quinshawn Betts, and a third co-defendent, Jesus Turner, fired in the direction of the children as a fourth shooter fired at them.

The wounded child testified at the trial, saying he was playing tag when he heard what he thought was fireworks. Before the verdict was reached, Davis told the jury that he felt sorry for Markiya and “her family for what they had to go through,” but said he never fired a gun that day.

Davis’ convictions include second degree murder and two counts of malicious wounding. He is expected to be sentenced in February, but defense attorney Leonard McCall said they are planning an appeal.

Betts, 19, was convicted of murder and other charges earlier this year, and sentenced to 68 years in prison, with all but 22 years suspended. Turner is set to face trial in January.

Illinois
Lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct at jail settled
CHICAGO (AP) — The Cook County Board of Commissioners on Thursday approved a $14 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by female jail workers and assistant public defenders who contended a pattern of sexual misconduct along with physical and verbal abuse by inmates created a hostile work environment at the Illinois facility.

The lawsuit filed in 2017 alleged Cook County Jail authorities and the public defender’s office did not do enough to stop male detainees from exposing themselves, masturbating and threatening attorneys in courtroom lockups and the jail.

The lawsuit contended attempts by Sheriff Tom Dart and Public Defender Amy Campanelli to curb the misconduct were either ineffective or short-lived. It claimed that at one point the sheriff rewarded detainees with a pizza for going 30 days without exposing themselves or masturbating. Both Dart and Campanelli have denied the allegations, saying in court filings they took appropriate steps to curtail inmates from exposing themselves.

A federal judge in August 2019 gave the lawsuit class action status.

The lawsuit claimed assistant public defenders were easy targets of misbehaving detainees because they confer with their indigent clients while they’re being held in crowded lockups behind courtrooms in Chicago and its suburbs.

During conferences, other detainees routinely exposed themselves or masturbated, often while making verbal threats in front of female attorneys, the lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit alleged the problem is so pervasive one of the female assistant public defenders who brought the lawsuit expressed the belief “most if not all” of the estimated 200 women who work as attorneys or interns in the office had experienced such abuse.

An assistant public defender pressed criminal charges against a detainee who masturbated in her presence and who later appeared in a lockup with her on several occasions, according to the lawsuit.

“On each such occasion the detainee yelled profanities and threats,” the lawsuit said, adding detainees have grabbed female assistant public defenders and law clerks by the legs or buttocks.

New York
4 sue Vatican over handling of McCarrick
NEW YORK (AP) — Four accusers of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick have filed a lawsuit against the Vatican, arguing it should be held liable for allowing the now-disgraced cleric to serve in multiple positions in New York and New Jersey when it knew of numerous allegations of sexual abuse against him.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, where McCarrick served as archbishop from the mid-1980s until 2000. Prior to that, he served as bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, also in New Jersey, and as a priest in the archdiocese of New York.

He was appointed archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000 by Pope John Paul II and became one of the highest-ranking, most visible Roman Catholic officials in the United States and a skilled fundraiser. McCarrick was defrocked in 2019 after an investigation substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against him.

Three of the plaintiffs were parishioners who allege McCarrick abused them as youths in the 1980s. The fourth is a priest who alleges McCarrick abused him at a beach house in New Jersey in the 1990s and that a fellow priest told him to forget about what happened “for the good of the church.”

An internal Vatican report released last week found that bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed multiple reports of sexual misconduct by the now-90-year-old McCarrick, who lives as a layman in a residence for priests.

The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages, as well as an injunction to force the Vatican to release the names of more than 3,000 clerics who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse, and all documents relating to those claims.

Popes from John Paul II to Benedict to Francis  “chose to conceal and condone this conduct,” Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said Thursday.

The lawsuit characterizes the Holy See, the government of the Catholic Church located in Vatican City, as a “vast enterprise” that exerted total control over McCarrick, its employee, and had the sole authority to remove him but refused to do so because of its policy of keeping sexual abuse allegations secret.

“If Defendant Holy See had not engaged in its vast enterprise of soliciting funds, recruiting members, and other commercial activities, and had not deceived Plaintiffs while undertaking this commercial activity, Plaintiffs would not have been abused,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit’s claims include violations of international human rights laws, consumer fraud, breach of contract, negligence and infliction of emotional distress.

An email message was left after hours Thursday with a spokesperson for the Vatican in Rome.

The Holy See has successfully defended previous lawsuits by Anderson and others by arguing that it is immune as a foreign sovereign and its priests aren’t Vatican employees. Anderson said Thursday that the immunity defense has been weakened over the years.

“It’s our belief that there’s a clear legal path that must be taken,” he said.