Court Digest

South Dakota
Man who sold Trump wares on public grounds gets jury trial
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The North Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that a Wisconsin Trump supporter found guilty of an infraction for using public grounds in Bismarck for commercial purposes without a permit is entitled to a jury trial.

It’s a case Eric Smith, 40, of Superior, Wisconsin, says is more about free speech rights than about where he was selling political merchandise. But the city prosecutor says the ruling only means she’ll now present her case to a jury.

The Bismarck Tribune reports Smith in August 2020 operated a stand selling Donald Trump wares. A nearby business manager and Smith both called police, with Smith saying the manager removed political flags from where his stand was placed.

Smith was summoned to appear in municipal court to face an infraction, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine.

Municipal courts don’t hold jury trials. A defendant to get one must request the case be transferred into district court, which Smith did at his arraignment. Municipal Judge William Severin denied the request, saying Smith had no right to a jury trial for an infraction.

State Supreme Court justices disagreed. A trial date has not been set.

California
Man, 82, pleads guilty in scheme to swindle political donors
BLYTHE, Calif. (AP) — An 82-year-old Southern California man has pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to defrauding thousands of donors out of more than $250,000 given to phony political action committees purported to be associated with Democratic Party candidates, prosecutors said.

John Pierre Dupont, who was convicted of wire fraud and identity theft, swindled the money in a scheme that ran from 2015 to 2019, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

None of the money donated to the phony PACs was spent on political candidates and Dupont failed to report the contributions, as required, in filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Southern California News Group reported.

Dupont used the funds to purchase a Mercedes-Benz sedan, pay credit cards bills and obtain cash withdrawals, according to prosecutors. He entered his plea last week and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21.

Dupont, of Blythe, operated multiple websites purported to be PACs that supported an array of Democratic Party candidates, according to the news group.

The phony PACs claimed to support the 2016 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders as well as Andrew Gillum, who ran for governor of Florida in 2018.

Virginia
Judge upholds Liberty University’s suit against Falwell
LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — A Lynchburg judge has upheld most of a lawsuit Liberty University filed against its former leader, Jerry Falwell Jr., after an acrimonious parting last year. The lawsuit survived its first round of legal challenges Friday as Falwell’s attorneys argued motions seeking its dismissal before Lynchburg Circuit Judge Fred Watson, The News & Advance reported.

Falwell’s departure  from the evangelical school in Virginia founded by his father came after Giancarlo Granda, a younger business partner of the Falwell family, said he had a yearslong sexual relationship with Falwell’s wife, Becki Falwell, and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur. Falwell denied the report. Falwell has alleged Granda extorted the family, which Granda denied.

Liberty claims Falwell crafted a “well-resourced exit strategy” from his role as president and chancellor at the school in the form of a lucrative 2019 employment agreement while withholding damaging information about the personal scandal that exploded into public view the following year. The agreement included a raise, which Falwell has said amounted to $250,000, and a $2.5 million severance package.

The lawsuit demanding at least $10 million alleged that Falwell breached fiduciary duties to the school and entered into a business conspiracy against it. Fiduciary duties don’t include disclosures of personal issues, even embarrassing ones, Vernon Inge, a lawyer representing Falwell, argued Friday. Falwell couldn’t be engaged in a business conspiracy with Granda against the university when the men were at odds, he argued.

Inge asked the court to order the university to cut out many pictures and statements in the lawsuit that aren’t relevant and are “rife with, frankly, personal attacks.”

The question of whether Falwell had a duty to disclose the alleged extortion attempts is for a jury to decide, said Scott Oostdyk, the attorney representing the university.

Falwell’s 2019 contract will remain under seal while attorneys file arguments over whether to keep it protected in the next two weeks. Liberty will be able to alter sections of the lawsuit regarding digital and computer property the university alleges Falwell kept unlawfully after his resignation. Attorneys said Friday he kept a computer containing more than 100,000 university’s files on it.

Massachusetts
Man charged with killing officer faces trial
BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — The trial of a man charged with killing a Massachusetts police officer in 2018 is scheduled to get underway Monday with jury selection.

Thomas Latanowich, of Somerville, faces a murder charge in Barnstable Superior Court in the death of Yarmouth police Sgt. Sean Gannon.

Gannon, 32, the department’s K-9 officer, was killed in April 2018 while he and other officers were serving an arrest warrant for a possible probation violation at a Barnstable home. Gannon’s dog, Nero, was also shot, but survived.

Latanowich, described by prosecutors as a career criminal with a lengthy record, is also facing other charges, including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, firearm possession without a license and mistreating/interfering with a police dog.
He has pleaded not guilty and has been held without bail since his arrest.

Latanowich’s lawyer, Joseph Krowski, has previously argued that Latanowich acted in self-defense and was afraid for his life because the officers were the aggressors.

Krowski also unsuccessfully tried to get the trial moved off Cape Cod because extensive local media coverage of the case had created an “overwhelmingly negative community sentiment” toward his client, making it impossible to sit an impartial jury.

Washington
Allianz warns of risk, confirms US DOJ probe
The Allianz financial services company is warning that lawsuits brought by U.S. investors against the company could end up having a material impact on its future financial results.

The major German company made the disclosure Sunday, noting that it received a request from the U.S. Department of Justice for documents and information related to the company’s Structured Alpha Funds business, which is at the center of the investor lawsuits. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched its own probe into the matter last year.

In a statement, Munich-based Allianz SE said the Department of Justice’s request, plus “information available to Allianz as of today,” prompted the company’s management to conclude that there is “a relevant risk that the matters relating to the Structured Alpha Funds could materially impact future financial results of Allianz Group.”

The company noted that it can’t predict how much of a financial impact it could be facing at this point, given the uncertain outcome of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice investigations, and the litigation it faces.
In an interim report last year, the company disclosed that it was facing federal lawsuits brought by investors in the U.S. over losses in the Structured Alpha Funds during the stock market’s sharp downturn in the spring of 2020 as the pandemic battered the global economy and financial markets.

At the time, Allianz said the complaints were “legally and factually flawed.”

Allianz is one of the world’s biggest insurers and financial services companies. In May, the company said it had 2.432 billion euros ($2.89 billion) in total assets under management as of the end of the first quarter.


Maryland
Henrietta Lacks’ family hires prominent civil rights lawyer
BALTIMORE (AP) — The family of a Maryland woman who unwittingly spurred a research bonanza when her cancer cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951 has hired a prominent civil rights lawyer to seek compensation from pharmaceutical companies.

The relatives of Henrietta Lacks have hired Ben Crump, a Florida-based attorney who has represented the families of a number of Black people who have died at the hands of police and vigilantes in recent years. Those clients include the families of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin and Breonna Taylor.

The Baltimore Sun reported Thursday that a lawyer for the Lacks family said a legal team is investigating lawsuits against numerous potential defendants

Cells taken from Lacks have been widely used in biomedical research. The so-called HeLa cells became crucial for key developments in such areas as basic biology, understanding viruses and other germs, cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization and vaccine development.

She became famous in 2010 with publication of Rebecca Skloot’s best-selling book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”

As that book relates, Lacks was under anesthesia on an operating table at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore one day in 1951, undergoing treatment for cervical cancer. A researcher had been collecting cervical cancer cells to see if they would grow continuously in the lab. So the surgeon treating Lacks shaved a piece of tissue from her tumor for that project. Nobody had asked Lacks if she wanted to provide cells for the research. She died later that year.

Bioethicists have said taking cells without a patient’s permission was commonly done in those days.

Arizona
Ruling on malpractice case cites need for expert testimony
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona Supreme Court decision says medical malpractice lawsuits involving unclear causes of death or other injury can’t proceed without sufficient expert witness testimony providing guidance for jurors.

The court’s decision Friday stemmed from the 2012 death of a 4-year-old boy sent home from a surgery center after being monitored for an hour after a tonsillectomy and another procedure that included administration of general anesthesia.

Arizona law require that medical malpractice ‘plaintiffs provide testimony on what caused a death or injury unless a jury could make that determination from “readily apparent circumstances.”

In the case stemming from the boy’s death, an expert witness for his mother said a longer observation period was appropriate and might have prevented her son’s death, while the defendants argued that the exert witness didn’t cite a specific standard of care violation that resulted in the death.

With a dispute over whether an infection or an obstructed airway caused the boy’s death, it would have been improper to have jurors untrained in medicine “connect the dots” without adequate expert testimony to lay a foundation, the Supreme Court said.

The high court’s decision upheld a trial judge’s dismissal of the suit.

South Dakota
State Supreme Court allows excessive force lawsuit to proceed
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota Supreme Court is allowing a lawsuit to go forward alleging police officers used excessive force when arresting a Sioux Falls woman in 2016.

Nichole Boggs sued in Second Circuit Court for injuries she suffered when two police officers took her into custody while investigating a call for help at her apartment. When officers arrived they found an injured man, Boggs’ son, outside the apartment complex and determined he had been hurt in his mother’s apartment.

Boggs refused to let the officers into her apartment. Eventually another son came out of the apartment with injuries, so police entered the unit without a warrant or consent.

In its recently released opinion, Supreme Court justices agree that circumstances at the time created an exception to the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches.

But the Supreme Court did not agree that the police officers accused of excessive force are entitled to qualified immunity, which generally protects them from personal liability, South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported.

 The Supreme Court has upheld the circuit court’s refusal to summarily dismiss the claim of excessive force. But the high court says the lower court should have found the warrantless search to be legal.

In its opinion, justices agree with the circuit court’s finding that given the circumstances, a jury might find that the officers used excessive force.

The Supreme Court has returned the case to the Second Circuit, where the lawsuit will continue to settlement or trial.