Court Digest

New?Jersey
Ex-police chief sentencing postponed for medical reasons

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — The sentencing of a former New Jersey police chief, who was convicted of lying to the FBI and is awaiting retrial on hate crime assault and civil rights violation charges, was postponed.

Former Bordentown Township police chief Frank Nucera, 64, had been scheduled for sentencing April 16 on the lone federal conviction. But a federal judge rescheduled the proceedings for May 13, citing "serious medical issues" that hospitalized the defendant for nine days in February.

"I do believe that he is not, at this point, physically well enough to continue," Kugler said during a brief conference call Thursday.

Nucera's attorney, Rocco Cipparone Jr., said he has only communicated with his client once by phone and once by email since he was released from the hospital.

"I have had no meaningful substantive communication with him," Cipparone said.

Nucera was convicted of the count in October 2019 by a jury that deadlocked on two more serious charges — hate crime assault and deprivation of civil rights under color of law. Federal authorities have said they plan to retry him on those charges but the proceedings have been on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those counts stem from a September 2016 incident at a Bordentown Township hotel in which Nucera, who is white, was accused of slamming a handcuffed Black man's head into a doorjamb. Nucera resigned from the police force in January 2017 upon learning of the federal investigation. He denied committing an assault.

Prosecutors said an officer secretly recorded Nucera's comments over the course of a year out of concern over what they termed "racist remarks and hostility toward African Americans." Cipparone had argued that some officers wanted to get rid of Nucera because of his tough disciplinary policies.

Bordentown is a predominantly white town of about 11,000 that is a few miles from Trenton, New Jersey's capital city that has a large Black population.

Florida
Hit-and-run crash kills New York federal judge

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman who claimed she is Harry Potter fatally struck a federal judge visiting from New York and seriously injured a 6-year-old boy after swerving her car onto a sidewalk, officials said.

Nastasia Snape, 23, is charged with vehicular homicide and other felonies for Friday's crash that killed District Judge Sandra Feuerstein, 75, who served in the Eastern District of New York since 2003. The boy, Anthony Ovchinnikov, was taken to the hospital, but his condition Sunday could not be determined.

According to court records, witnesses told Boca Raton police the Snape was driving erratically, going around stopped traffic, on a busy road when she drove onto the sidewalk and struck Feuerstein. Snape then drove back onto the roadway, striking the boy in a crosswalk.

Police say Snape then fled into neighboring Delray Beach, where she crashed. A Delray police officer said Snape appeared to be having convulsions, but was able to get out of the car. She stared into space and would only say she was OK.

Police say that in the ambulance, Snape began screaming and fighting with medics while yelling she is Harry Potter. The medics drugged her. Police say they found in her purse the synthetic drug commonly known as "bath salts," which can cause psychotic episodes.

She remained jailed Sunday on $60,000 bond. The Palm Beach County public defender's office was not open Sunday and has a policy of not speaking about its cases. In the Potter novels, there is a character named Snape.

Feuerstein was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush after 16 years as a New York state judge, according to Eastern District website. The court's jurisdiction covers Long Island, including Brooklyn and Queens, along with Staten Island.

She had been presiding over the case of a former New York City police officer, Valerie Cincinelli, who is accused of paying her lover to kill her husband. The lover went to authorities and she was arrested. Cincinelli had been expected to plead guilty this week, according to media reports. It is unclear how Feuerstein's death will affect the case. Her late mother, Annette Elstein, was also a judge and they were believed to be the first mother-daughter duo to be judges.

In a statement, Eugene Corcoran, the Eastern District's executive, said Feuerstein's "eccentric style and warm personality lit up the courtroom. She will be missed by her colleagues and litigants alike."

Feuerstein was born in New York in 1946 and worked as a schoolteacher before earning a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 1979.

"She viewed a judge's role as interpreting and not creating law," Joshua Glick, who clerked for Feuerstein, told Newsday. "She was focused on writing clear and concise opinions that were easily understood. She was occasionally tough on litigants who she felt were not being fully candid with her, but she was always fair."

Georgia
Prosecutor won't retry parents in baby's death a decade ago

COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — A prosecutor says he won't retry a Georgia couple for their newborn daughter's death more than a decade ago after the state's highest court overturned their murder convictions.

Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit Mark Jones has filed motions to drop all charges against Ashley and Albert Debelbot, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. The two were convicted in October 2009 in their daughter McKenzy's death, but the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously overturned their convictions in February 2020.

The high court found the Debelbots' attorneys were ineffective so they didn't get a fair trial and granted them a new trial. Jones' motion to drop charges cites "insufficient evidence and the interests of justice." A hearing is to be held Tuesday.

Jones told the newspaper that dismissing a case is a tough decision but, he said "mounting medical evidence" caused him to believe reasonable doubt about the couple's guilt exists. The current evidence and other demands on his office led him to believe it wasn't worth retrying the case.

"I don't see how we have time to invest in it," he said.

The Debelbots met in the Army and got married, moving to Columbus for Fort Benning. McKenzy was born May 29, 2008, and was released from the hospital the next afternoon.

Early on June 1, the Debelbots brought their baby back to the hospital after finding a lump on her forehead, and she was pronounced dead at 3:55 a.m. A medical examiner found that the infant died from trauma caused by a blow or multiple blows to the head.

Both parents were charged with murder and convicted in October 2009.

Attorneys for the Debelbots have since argued in appeals that McKenzy was born with a brain deformation and argued the couple's trial attorneys failed them by not calling medical expert witnesses.

The state Supreme Court found that the prosecutor misstated the measure of proof required to overcome "reasonable doubt."

"You don't have to be 90 percent sure. You don't have to be 80 percent sure. You don't have to be 51 percent sure," the prosecutor told the jury.

The Debelbots' trial lawyers failed to object to that even though it was inaccurate. The high court found that was grounds for a new trial.

Albert Debelbot is now 35 and Ashley Debelbot is now 36. They each began serving sentences of life in prison in December 2009. They were released on bond in July.

Mississippi
Police: Rapper, 23 others arrested in shooting

SENATOBIA, Miss. (AP) — A Tennessee rapper was among a caravan of at least two dozen people who were arrested in connection to a highway shooting in Mississippi, authorities said.

Big Boogie, whose real name is John Lotts, was taken into custody Thursday along with 20 others who were with the Memphis-based rapper on their way to a performance in Biloxi, news outlets reported.

Senatobia police said they were alerted to a shooting on Interstate 55 near Coldwater around 12:45 p.m. One person was wounded and authorities learned that multiple vehicles were involved in the shooting, police said.

Police coordinated a "take down" and met the caravan as it exited on Highway 6 in Batesville, where witnesses said police swarmed the area.

"It was something out of a movie," Edith Aaron told WMC-TV. "Lights were everywhere. It was like the 4th of July. It may have been 50 cars already there."

During the investigation, police found a gun and drugs inside the victim's vehicle, which led to three additional arrests. One of the passengers was a convicted felon, police said.

In total, 24 people, including Big Boogie, were taken into custody and four cars were impounded.

No charges were immediately announced. It's unclear whether Big Boogie had an attorney who would comment on his behalf.

Big Boogie is signed to Yo Gotti's CMG label. Lotts is best know for his song "Mental Healing," which has over 23 million views on YouTube.

Hawaii
State could pay over $370,000 in homestead lawyer fees

HONOLULU (AP) — The state of Hawaii could pay over $370,000 in lawyer fees after losing a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 2,700 Native Hawaiians who spent years on the waitlist for homestead land.

The $370,418 payment is pending approval from the state Legislature and covers only attorneys fees during an appeal that stretched from 2017 to 2020, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported  Sunday.

The amount is just a portion of what the state is expected to pay after the full costs for lawyer fees are determined and damages are awarded to those waitlisted.

"The state is well aware that it is going to be a very significant amount and that's a consequence of its decision to fight this lawsuit for 20 years," said attorney Carl Varady, who has represented the plaintiffs in the case, known as Kalima v. State.

The Hawaii Supreme Court last year voted unanimously to allow the class-action lawsuit to continue and for damages to be awarded to plaintiffs, some of whom have waited for decades for leases on the state's 203,000 acre (about 82,151 hectare) land trust.

The land trust was created by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 to improve the lives of Native Hawaiians, who are defined as having at least 50% Hawaiian ancestry.

Native Hawaiians are eligible to apply for 99-year leases at $1 per year for residential, ranching or farming leases on a land trust of 317 square miles (821 square kilometers) overseen by the agency.

There are currently about 23,000 Native Hawaiian applicants on the waitlist.

A request for comment made by the Associated Press to a spokesperson from the Hawaii Department of Home Lands received no response on Sunday.