Court Digest

Alabama
Woman sentenced to 40 years in killing of husband

DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman convicted of killing her husband in front of one of their children was sentenced to 40 years in prison after a court rejected defense claims she was mentally ill.

Michelle Owens, 48, of Decatur received the penalty during a hearing Tuesday before Morgan County Circuit Judge Stephen Brown, the Decatur Daily reported. She will be eligible for parole consideration after serving 15 years.

A jury convicted Owens of murder in October in the killing of Lawrence Edward “Eddie” Owens, 44, rejecting her claims of mental illness. The man was shot to death at the couple’s home with a pistol in June 2016 as one of their young sons watched, evidence showed.

The defense told a judge in court documents that there was no doubt that the woman suffered from a serious mental illness since she’d been diagnosed with a disorder at a Tennessee hospital just a few weeks before the slaying.

But prosecutor Garrick Vickery said the sentence was fair. During the trial, Vickery told jurors Owens had the “presence of mind” to buy the revolver and ammunition at two different stores and to keep her older teenage son out of the house after the shooting.

Owens did not make a statement at the sentencing hearing.

Virginia
Police officer cleared in handcuffing of Black man

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A police sergeant was cleared of wrongdoing for handcuffing an innocent Black man in a Virginia Beach food court, but he’ll be disciplined for not wearing a mask during the encounter, the city’s police chief told city council members.

Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said in a briefing Tuesday that his department’s two-week investigation showed the officer, who he identified as Sgt. Coffrin, did not violate any laws or policies, The Virginian-Pilot reported. Police launched the probe after a video of the Dec. 19 encounter at Lynnhaven Mall went viral on social media.

The chief said Coffrin and another officer who was with him will be disciplined for not wearing masks, but didn’t clarify what their punishments will be. The man who was detained, Jamar Mackey, tested positive for COVID-19 three days after the incident. The sergeant has tested negative.

The police chief had apologized to Mackey when police announced they were launching the probe, and said this week that the apology was warranted, but Mackey’s detainment “was all reasonable and in accordance with the law,” based on what officers knew at the time.

The incident began with a woman’s report that her purse had been stolen, by a Black man with dreadlocks, wearing all black clothes and accompanied by a child wearing red. Mackey matched the description — and so did another man who also was detained in the food court, Markee Smith.

The chief displayed side-by-side photos of Mackey and Smith during Tuesday’s briefing — both are Black, have long dreads, were dressed in all-black clothing, standing next to a boy who was wearing red.

Officers sorted out the confusion at the scene, arresting Smith on charges of credit card fraud and receiving stolen goods. They released Mackey a short time after handcuffing him and escorting him out of the mall.

“When we evaluate the stop and evaluate the circumstances based on the factors that were just presented, all the information the sergeant knew at the time, we concluded that the sergeant had reasonable suspicion to detain Mr. Mackey,” the chief said.

Mackey could be heard on the video saying his treatment is why people say “Black Lives Matter.” The chief spoke to that, saying that a review panel will look for possible improvements in the department’s policies and training. He also said that all officers will take a course on implicit bias, and body cameras will be issued to officers in supervisory roles.

Washington
Appeals court sends case against officers back to court

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A case against two Tacoma police officers accused of telling a woman to beat her 9-year-old grandson with a belt should not have been dismissed, an appellate court said Tuesday.

Prosecutors charged Jesse Jahner and Damion Birge with third-degree child assault and official misconduct, the News Tribune reported. They were fired by the Tacoma Police Department following an internal investigation.

Charging papers said the officers responded to a 911 call that involved the boy, who had the intellectual capacity of a 4-year-old. Birge allegedly told her to “beat the demons” out of the child and showed the woman how to use the belt by hitting it on a table.

Jahner allegedly held the boy down as the grandmother hit the child. They allegedly told her they wouldn’t respond to her home in the future if she didn’t.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Jerry Costello granted Birge’s and Jahner’s motions to dismiss those charges in 2019, and the state appealed.

The new ruling from a three-judge panel of the Washington State Court of Appeals reversed that dismissal and remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.

“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the State has presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of guilt of both third degree assault and official misconduct, even if some facts are in dispute,” Judge Rebecca Glasgow wrote for the unanimous panel.

The panel also rejected arguments from the defendants that the official misconduct statute is too vague and too broad to be constitutional.

“Obviously we’re disappointed,” attorney David Allen, who represents Jahner, said Tuesday. “... We’re ready to go back to trial whenever the court tells us to.”

Attorney J.C. Becker, who represented Birge and retired last year, said via email Tuesday: “... the decision was just issued today and we have yet to discuss it. It does not say they were guilty, just that there was ‘enough’ evidence for a trial.”


Oregon
Woman sentenced for embezzling $1.1M from medical practices

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A bookkeeper from LaGrande who embezzled over $1.1 million from the medical and dental practices where she worked to support a lavish lifestyle was sentenced to four years in federal prison.

The betrayal by Anndrea Jacobs continued for at least five years -- including after her arrest while she was on pretrial supervision, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Bounds said.

Jacobs, 49, speaking by phone from Multnomah County’s Inverness Jail Tuesday, told the judge she got “caught up in living a double life, things just spiraled out of control.”

“I’m willing to put in the work and dedication it’s going to take to make amends,” she said.

Jacobs pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return for 2011, aggravated identity theft in the furthering of wire fraud and impersonating an IRS employee.

U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez ordered Jacobs to pay $1.2 million in restitution.

From January 2011 through December 2015, Jacobs wrote business checks from a LaGrande urologist’s practice to herself. To hide her fraud, she prepared and maintained false business financial records, overstating expenses and estimated tax payments, according to Bounds.

She engaged in bank fraud in 2019, depositing insurance checks made out to a second employer, a Hood River dental practice, into her Wells Fargo Bank account and then spent the money on herself, Bounds said.

Jacobs has been in custody since August after violating her release conditions.

New Mexico
Lawsuit alleges financial exploitation of immigrant teachers

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general is accusing a company that recruits immigrant teachers from the Philippines to work at public schools of charging exorbitant fees and using deceptive financial tactics, according to a lawsuit announced Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed with a state district court in Albuquerque against Total Teaching Solutions International and CEO Janice Bickert of Ruidoso, alleging exorbitant fees to place Filipino teachers in schools on work visas.

The suit accuses the company and Bickert of violations under the state unfair practices act. It seeks a permanent restraining order against the company, financial restitution to immigrant teachers, fines of $5,000 per violation and damages.

Bickert and company officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement that the lawsuit is necessary amid a teacher shortage to stop predatory business practices against immigrants.

The suit says the company subjected immigrant teachers to fees of $15,000 for placement services on average, when other companies provided identical services for about $4,000.

“Once in the United States, teachers are forced to pay previously undisclosed additional fees, placement fees, or sign additional refinancing contracts,” the lawsuit states. “Teachers who are unable to pay the required installment of around $400 per month are subject to late fees.”

The company filed lawsuits in 2019 against eight teachers, alleging breach of contract, in cases set for trials before juries.

The lawsuit also alleges that Filipino job applicants signed financing agreements without knowledge of their future salaries.

The lawsuit also says the recruitment company may have relied on Janice Bickert’s husband, George Bickert, in his position as the superintendent of Ruidoso’s public school district to “create legitimacy” for the company.

Arkansas
Appeals court upholds hold on abortion laws

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday kept on hold an Arkansas law banning abortions 18 weeks into a woman’s pregnancy and another banning the procedure from being performed because the fetus has Down syndrome.

The 8th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s 2019 ruling temporarily blocking  Arkansas from enforcing the measures.

“As the district court recognized, the law governing the constitutionality of two of the three statutes at issue — Act 493 and Act 619 -- though obviously subject to change in the future, is well established in this Circuit today,” the three-judge panel said in Tuesday’s ruling.

U.S. District Court Judge Kristine Baker in 2019 ruled that both measures unconstitutionally restrict abortion before a fetus is viable, or able to survive outside the womb.

“This ruling is a victory for all Arkansans and a decisive repudiation of Arkansas politicians’ ongoing crusade to deny people the right to make their own medical decisions and force them to continue pregnancies against their will,” Holly Dickson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, said in a statement. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood challenged the laws.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who had defended the measures in court, said she planned to seek further review of the appeals court’s decision.

“The Supreme Court must limit and ultimately overturn Casey and I plan to do everything in my power to see that they do,” Rutledge, a Republican, said in a statement, referring to the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which prohibited regulations that created an “undue burden” on women seeking an abortion.

The appeals court dismissed part of the case challenging Baker’s decision blocking a requirement that doctors performing abortions be board-certified or board-eligible in obstetrics and gynecology. Little Rock Family Planning Services, the state’s only surgical abortion clinic, has said that part of the appeal was moot because it has since hired a board-certified OB-GYN. The appeals court directed Baker to lift her order blocking the law’s enforcement.

Attorneys for the clinic previously said the law would likely force the clinic’s closure.

In a separate ruling, Baker issued a preliminary injunction that would block four other abortion restrictions, including one that bans a procedure commonly used in the second trimester.

Baker had granted a temporary restraining order blocking the four laws on Dec. 22 that had been set to expire Tuesday unless it was extended. The injunction would sideline the restrictions until Baker can make a final judgment of the merit of the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Little Rock clinic.

The rulings come less than a week before the start of Arkansas’ next legislative session, where lawmakers are expected to take up new abortion bans in response to the U.S. Supreme Court shifting further to the right under President Donald Trump. One lawmaker has filed a measure that would ban nearly all abortions in the state.