Court Digest

Florida
Sex offender on the run for 21 years arrested
SPRING HILL, Fla. (AP) — Investigators in Florida have arrested a 53-year-old sex offender, a fugitive from California who had been living under a false identity for 21 years.

The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office announced that it received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on Tuesday about a sex offender who was possibly living in Spring Hill.

Sheriff’s officials immediately began investigating and learned that David Swenson, 53, was an “absconded sex offender” from California. He had active warrants there for failing to register as a sex offender in 2000.

Detectives also learned that Swenson was living with his wife under the name Kevin Crowley, the sheriff’s statement said. They used various databases to discover that he had recently used the name Kevin Crowley to obtain a fishing license. The two vehicles, a camper, and a boat at his home in Spring Hill were all registered to Crowley’s wife, the statement said.

Sheriff’s deputies had a previous encounter with the man, when they were called to the home in 2009, and found him hiding in the attic. He provided them with his false name, Crowley, and was issued a notice to appear in court, but the case was dropped due to a pre-trial diversion.

Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles records show that Swenson never obtained a driver’s license or ID card under his own name or the name of Kevin Crowley. He also never registered as a sex offender in Florida, sheriff’s officials said.

Detectives from the agency went to the home in Spring Hill and spoke to the man’s wife. She told them that her husband was riding his bicycle in the neighborhood, the post said. They searched, but weren’t able to locate him. A sheriff’s aviation unit spotted him a short time later walking on a bike trail near a park.

That’s when detectives made contact with him. The man confirmed his identity as David Swenson and was taken into custody, the report said.

During an interview, he told investigators he wanted to “end his time on the run.” He told them he had been in Spring Hill for 21 years, after leaving Northern California.

California’s sex offender registry shows Swenson was convicted of forcible rape in Santa Clara County in 1989 and was released from prison in 1993.

He’s now charged in Florida with failure to register as a sex offender and is being held without bond. Court records did not indicate whether he has an attorney.

New Jersey
Judge orders mediation in transgender rant beer toss case
GALLOWAY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey judge is turning to community mediation to try to resolve the case of a middle school vice principal who threw beer at people who were filming his wife’s rant against a transgender woman’s use of a public women’s restroom.

Galloway Township Municipal Court Judge Howard Freed on Thursday sent the case of Michael Smurro and three people who accuse him of throwing beer at them last month to community mediation as a first step in trying to resolve the case.

If that process fails, the case could return to court. No date was set for the mediation.

Smurro is vice principal of Neptune Middle School in Monmouth County. Video filmed by patrons at an outdoor restaurant April 24 in Galloway shows him tossing a cup of beer at a table of people when he and his wife realized they were being recorded.

In an email to The Associated Press days after the incident, Smurro apologized for his actions, and said he should have just walked away from the situation.

Smurro filed harassment complaints against Debra and Robert Harris, and Elaine Nelson, who filed complaints against him, also alleging harassment.

None of the parties in the case spoke during Thursday’s online hearing.

The footage from the outdoor restaurant shows Lisa Smurro complaining at length about a person she said was a transgender woman using the women’s bathroom. New Jersey law prohibits discrimination based on gender identify and permits people to use public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

The footage shows that when the couple became aware someone was filming, they got up and walked over. Lisa Smurro continued to complain and a woman at the table replied: “Please take your hate elsewhere.”

Michael Smurro then tossed the contents of a cup of beer at occupants of the table.

“Here you go, pal,” he says on the video. “There you go.”

Michael Smurro then takes several steps back and, gesturing toward himself, says, “Now you can come out. I’m right here,” before the couple walks away.

The Neptune school district said it has taken “swift and serious” action in the case, but says it cannot reveal what it was for legal reasons.

California
Prosecutors sue over prison good conduct rules
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Three-quarters of California’s district attorneys sued the state Wednesday in an attempt to block emergency rules that expand good conduct credits and could eventually bring earlier releases for tens of thousands of inmates.

The lawsuit objects on procedural grounds, arguing that Corrections Secretary Kathleen Allison used the emergency declaration to bypass the usual regulatory and public comment process.

The rules affecting 76,000 inmates, most serving time for violent offenses, took effect May 1, although it will be months or years until inmates accumulate enough credits to significantly shorten their sentences.

Forty-four of the state’s 58 district attorneys brought the lawsuit, which says the only stated emergency was the corrections department’s desire to follow the “direction outlined in the Governor’s Budget Summary” nearly a year earlier. Notably absent were district attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco who have backed criminal sentencing changes.

The lawsuit asks a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to throw out the regulations and bar the department from granting any of the good conduct credits until it goes through the regular process.

“There is no actual emergency, and they cannot meet those emergency requirements,” the lawsuit contends. “Nowhere in the supporting documents is there an explanation of how last year’s budget has become an operational need for the adoption of the regulations on an emergency basis.”

The department said it acted under the authority given it by voters when they passed Proposition 57 in 2016, allowing earlier parole for most inmates.

It “filed regulations to promote changes in good behavior credits, and followed all policies and procedures by the Office of Administrative Law,” the department said in a statement promising to “continue to work with our partners to promote rehabilitation and accountability in a manner consistent with public safety.”

The emergency rules boost good behavior credits for a projected 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes, allowing them to prospectively serve two-thirds of their sentences rather than the previous 80%.

Another 10,000 prisoners convicted of a second serious but nonviolent offense and nearly 2,900 nonviolent third strikers would be eligible for release after serving half their sentences, down from two-thirds.

Inmate firefighters and minimum-security inmates in work camps, regardless of the severity of their crimes, are eligible under the new rules for a month of earlier release for every month they spend in the camp.

“Allowing the early release of the most dangerous criminals, shortening sentences as much as 50%, impacts crime victims and creates a serious public safety risk,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said in a statement. She has led the opposition and is running for state attorney general as an independent.


Oregon
Man who shot at police sentenced to 9 years in jail
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A judge has sentenced a Eugene man found guilty of attempting to kill a police officer to nine years in prison.

Jordan Wilson, 56, was sentenced Wednesday, KEZI-TV reported. Wilson also will spend three years on post-prison supervision after he completes his prison term. Lane County Circuit Court Judge Charles Zennache ordered him to forfeit the gun that was involved in the shooting.

On Friday, a jury found Wilson guilty of second-degree attempted murder with a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon.

In July 2020, police say officers responded to reports of a man menacing another man with a gun at a Eugene residence. Police said Wilson then ran to his home and fired at arriving officers who fired back at him. No one was injured, police said.

SWAT and a crisis negotiation team eventually arrested Wilson.

In a separate Lane County court case, Wilson faces charges of kidnapping and sex abuse and has pleaded not guilty. That case is scheduled to go to trial in late June.

West Virginia
Transgender athlete law challenged in federal court
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal lawsuit was filed Wednesday challenging West Virginia’s new ban on transgender athletes from competing in female sports in middle and high schools and colleges.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its West Virginia chapter filed the lawsuit on behalf of an 11-year-old transgender girl who had hoped to compete in cross country in middle school in Harrison County. The lawsuit names the state and Harrison County boards of education and their superintendents as defendants.

“I just want to run. I come from a family of runners,” the student, Becky Pepper-Jackson, said in a statement released by the ACLU. “I know how hurtful a law like this is to all kids like me who just want to play sports with their classmates, and I’m doing this for them. Trans kids deserve better.”

Bills over school sports participation bans also have been enacted this year in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Montana. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem implemented the move by executive order. Other states, including Kansas and North Dakota, passed bans only to have them vetoed by the governor.

A 2017 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school used state-level, population-based surveys to estimate that West Virginia had the highest percentage (1.04%) of residents ages 13 to 17 among all states who identified as transgender. That equated to about 1,150 teens.

The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, which oversees scholastic sports, said earlier this year that it had not received any complaints about transgender athletes on girls teams.
“Transgender youth in West Virginia who want to be on a team and challenge themselves should have the opportunity to do so, just like any other student,” ACLU attorney Joshua Block said in a statement.

The state Department of Education declined comment on the lawsuit. The Harrison County superintendent did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The bill had narrowly passed the state Senate, which had added the college component, before being overwhelmingly approved in the House of Delegates.

Several Democrats said the bill was discriminatory, while some Republicans said the bill was about ensuring an equal playing field for biologically female athletes. Supporters have argued that transgender athletes would have physical advantages in female sports.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill despite warnings from some lawmakers that the NCAA could retaliate and decide not to hold college tournaments in the state. Justice had said that while it concerned him that the state could miss out on a sporting event, he believed the benefits of the law “way outweigh the bad part of it.”

In March, hundreds of college athletes signed a letter to the NCAA Board of Governors asking the organization to refuse to schedule championships in states that have banned transgender athlete participation in sports.

The NCAA in 2016 moved championships out of North Carolina in response to a bill legislating transgender people’s use of public restrooms.

Maryland
Officials renew effort to take gun cases to court
BALTIMORE (AP) — Law enforcement officials in Baltimore are renewing an effort to prosecute gun crimes in federal court where the penalties are stiffer.

News outlets report that the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Maryland on Wednesday unveiled a renewed push of the initiative known as Project Exile with the addition of three more local and federal prosecutors.

The local effort, part of a national program, represents a partnership of the U.S. attorney’s office, federal agents, Baltimore police, prosecutors and Maryland’s attorney general to steer gun cases from state to federal court.

“The main thrust of our strategy is stronger criminal enforcement bringing impactful cases using all of our resources to target violent criminal organizations in Baltimore,” acting U.S. Attorney of Maryland Jonathan Lenzner said at a news conference.

Starting last year, Gov. Larry Hogan’s office funded four special assistant U.S. attorneys to take gun cases to federal court. There’s no parole in the federal court system, and a conviction typically brings a longer prison term.

The additional special prosecutors brings the unit seven people. Officials call it a “force multiplier.”