Court Digest

Louisiana
Prosecutors offer deal to pastor who defied COVID rules
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A plea deal has been offered to a Louisiana pastor who was arrested after he repeatedly defied COVID-19 restrictions put in place in the early days of the pandemic.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore confirmed Monday that his office offered Pastor Tony Spell a deal that would allow Spell to plead no contest to one of the misdemeanor charges he faces in exchange for the five other charges being dropped, multiple news agencies reported. A no-contest plea doesn’t require a person to admit guilt, but it eliminates paths to appeal criminal charges.

Spell was arrested last year and accused of six counts of violating the governor’s COVID-19 restrictions by having too many people gathered inside his church, Life Tabernacle Church, for various services.

Jeff Wittenbrink, Spell’s lawyer, said that before his client will consider the plea offer, he wants to see an opinion from the state’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on the constitutionality of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ early order limiting crowd sizes to 10 people.

“The district attorney has been very respectful and very reasonable,” Wittenbrink said. “But we just have a difference of opinion on whether ... this action by the governor is constitutional. And, the latest United States Supreme Court cases tend to swing on our side.”

Spell has argued Edwards’ restrictions are infringements on constitutional protections to freely exercise religion, and he has sought relief in state and federal courts, which have either declined to take up the matter or ruled in favor of the governor, The Advocate  reported.

Though his challenges have been unsuccessful, recent rulings — including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last November preventing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from imposing restrictions on religious services — may see courts rehear cases that weren’t taken up before.

Edwards has since relaxed restrictions on crowd sizes, prompting the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to find that one of Spell’s challenges was no longer relevant.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year declined to hear the case months after the lower court’s decision.

Moore said he doesn’t expect Spell to take the deal and expects the matter will go to trial. A court hearing is scheduled for June 1.

Spell hasn’t appeared in any of his in-person court hearings because courthouse officials require that masks be worn, and he refuses to comply.

Texas
Exxon Mobil ordered to pay $14.25M penalty in pollution case
HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge ordered Exxon Mobil to pay a $14.25 million civil penalty Tuesday in an 11-year-old lawsuit alleging it violated the Clean Air Act for eight years at its flagship Baytown, Texas, refinery.

In setting the penalty, which would go to the U.S. Treasury, U.S. District Judge David Hittner of Houston reduced a previous award he handed down in 2017 of almost $20 million. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling on Exxon’s appeal last July and remanded the case to Hittner.

In a statement, Exxon Mobil spokesman Todd Spitler said the company is “currently reviewing the decision and considering next steps.” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, the nonprofit advocacy group that filed the suit in 2010, said he expected further appeals.

The group Environment Texas sued the Irving, Texas-based company in 2010. After a trial of almost three weeks in 2014, Hittner ruled against the company and ordered the larger penalty two years later. The appeals court remanded the case to Hittner last July.

“Exxon has been fighting this case for 11 years now, refusing to take any responsibility for spewing millions of pounds of illegal pollution into Texas communities,” Metzger said in a statement. “We call on Exxon to finally stop its scorched-earth litigation tactics, pay its penalty and drop these endless appeals.”

In his latest opinion, filed Tuesday, Hittner said Environment Texas, the Sierra Club and the National Environmental Law Center had proved thousands of instances of illegal flaring and unauthorized releases of pollutants causing smoke, chemical odors, ground-level ozone, and respiratory problems.

Washington
Woman charged with murder of woman over political sign
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — A woman accused of shooting to death another woman allegedly involved in the theft of a political sign has been charged in Skagit County Superior Court.

Angela Conijn of Big Lake is charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 13 death of Kamran Cohee, 32, the Skagit Valley Herald reported.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Conijn, 55, is accused of shooting Cohee after a fight between Conijn’s husband and a man with Cohee.

Angela Conijn’s husband told deputies he came out of his house when he saw someone pull into his driveway, believing the people meant to steal a political sign, documents say. A fight between the men ensued and Conijn’s husband was chased back into his home, he told deputies.

Outside, the other man and Cohee allegedly began beating on the Conijns’ front door with a wheelbarrow, according to documents. Angela Conijn then allegedly exited the house and fired a gun toward the parked vehicle, striking Cohee, documents say.

The Skagit County Coroner’s Office has determined Cohee’s cause of death to be a gunshot wound to the head.

When deputies arrived at the Conijn home, they found Cohee dead in the driveway and the man who arrived with Cohee allegedly admitted to taking the sign, documents said.

Angela Conijn was arrested and posted $250,000. It wasn’t immediately known if Conjin has a lawyer.

Nevada
Former inmate awarded $1.35M for wrongful conviction
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada man who was exonerated after spending more than two decades in prison for a 1992 murder that he didn’t commit has been awarded a $1.35 million settlement and a certificate of innocence from the state.

Fred Steese, now 57, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal outside court on Monday he’s relieved he won’t have to worry about how he’ll pay rent or afford food, and he plans later this week to celebrate three years of sobriety.

He also said he wants to help inmate support programs such as the Innocence Project and Hope for Prisoners and take advantage of a financial literacy program.

“I’m not going to dwell on the 20 years I lost,” Steese said. “I’m going to move forward.”

In the eight years since he was freed, Steese has worked as a truck driver and a handyman but battled addiction.

He credited attorneys Lisa Rasmussen, Kristina Wildeveld and Nancy Lemcke for fighting for his pardon and compensation from the state amounting to $75,000 for each year he was imprisoned.

Steese said that Rasmussen occasionally helped him with money for groceries or a phone bill.

“There have been struggles,” he said. “But, you know, I pulled through it.”

Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a prepared statement that while no amount of money can replace freedom, he was “thrilled that Mr. Steese has been declared an innocent man.”

Steese was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison for the death of Gerard Soules, a 56-year-old dog show performer at the Circus Circus hotel-casino. Soules’ throat was slashed and his naked body was found in North Las Vegas.

Steese always maintained his innocence, and a judge declared him factually innocent in 2012, but the district attorney refiled charges.

The Nevada Board of Pardons unconditionally cleared Steese in November 2017.

Steese said he doesn’t hold a grudge against the prosecutors in his case — Douglas Herndon, now a Nevada Supreme Court justice, and Bill Kephart, who served eight years as a state court judge in Clark County but lost a bid for reelection last November.

Pennsylvania
Bankruptcy judge approves sale of century-old amusement park
CONNEAUT LAKE, Pa. (AP) — A federal bankruptcy court judge has approved the sale of a century-old amusement park in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh-based U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jeffrey Deller on Tuesday morning approved the sale of Conneaut Lake Park to Keldon Holdings LLC for a cash price of $1.2 million.

An auction had been slated, but although more than 10 parties expressed interest, only Keldon submitted a bit for all park assets, said attorney Jeanne Lofgren, representing the park’s board of trustees. The park didn’t open for the 2020 season and because of that lost income wasn’t expected to open for the 2021 season, she said.

The sale includes the amusement park and its rides, including the historic Blue Streak roller coaster, as well as the water park, the beach area, Hotel Conneaut, a campground and active leases on assets.

Conneaut Lake Park, despite some closures during years of financial difficulty, has operated as an amusement park since 1892, when it opened as Exposition Park.

Jim Becker, director of the county Economic Progress Alliance, which manages the park, said the new owner intends to continue to invest and improve the park. He said the scheduling of the sale was intended to allow a new owner time to open for the upcoming summer season.

“Everything that we have been led to believe is that the park is going to operate as-is. He plans to operate it as an ongoing concern,” Becker told the Erie Times-News.


Indiana
State high court splits over revealing execution drugs
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Department of Correction faces paying more than $500,000 in legal fees in its unsuccessful fight to keep its execution drugs secret.

A 2-2 split among Indiana Supreme Court justices leaves in place a lower court ruling that ordered the prison agency to release the information. The Supreme Court’s order issued last week also means the state must pay the legal fees of an anti-death penalty attorney who has been seeking information about Indiana’s lethal injection drugs for seven years.

The ruling will hinder Indiana’s ability to carry out executions and leaves many unresolved issues that will likely end up back in court, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher told The Indianapolis Star.

Indiana currently has eight men facing the death penalty who are being held at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. No executions are currently scheduled, and the state last executed an inmate in 2009.

The legal case began after Katherine Toomey, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represents groups opposing the death penalty, filed a public records request seeking the identities of the manufacturers, distributors and suppliers of Indiana’s execution drugs. Toomey filed a lawsuit after the Department of Correction refused that request.

Prison officials in Indiana and others states have argued they will face trouble obtaining drugs for future executions if their suppliers believe they could be exposed. Some drug companies have refused to sell medications to states if they will be used for executions.

Indiana legislators in 2017 tried to circumvent a judge’s decision ordering release of the information by retroactively changing state law to make confidential any contracts to acquire drugs for executions and the identities of manufacturers or suppliers involved.

Marion County Judge Sheryl Lynch, however, refused to reverse her ruling. Lynch found, among other things, that the new law wrongly prohibited those outside state government, such as drug manufacturers or suppliers, from providing the information.

Lynch also ordered the state to pay Toomey nearly $540,000 in attorney fees, citing the Department of Correction’s “egregious” conduct in pushing the legislative work-around.

Indianapolis attorney Peter Racher, who represented Toomey, said the Supreme Court’s order was a vindication of the state’s public records law.

“The law in Indiana has long required public agencies to respond to requests just like the one Kate Toomey made back in 2014,” Racher said. “Citizens should not have to fight this hard to have their government respond to records requests.”

Indiana Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff voted to uphold the Marion County judge’s ruling, while Justices Steven David and Mark Massa voted to overturn it. Justice Geoffrey Slaughter did not participate in the case, but no reason for that decision was announced.