Mississippi
Ex-sheriff heads to federal prison for 2-1/2 years
Former Hinds County interim sheriff Marshand Crisler has been sentenced to 2-1/2 years in federal prison for soliciting and accepting bribes during his unsuccessful 2021 campaign.
U.S. District Court Judge Tom Lee sentenced him last week for the two counts he was convicted of in November. Crisler received concurrent sentences of 30 months in custody of the Bureau of Prisons, followed by three years of supervision and an order to pay a $15,000 fine, according to court records.
Crisler faced up to 10 years in prison. He remained out on bond until his sentencing.
The court recommended Crisler to be assigned to the nearest facility to Jackson. Nearby federal facilities are in Yazoo City, Aliceville, Alabama, central Louisiana and Memphis.
Crisler was charged with soliciting and accepting $9,500 worth of bribes during his 2021 campaign for Hinds County sheriff in exchange for favors from a man with previous felony convictions and giving ammunition the man can’t possess as a felon.
The jury heard from several witnesses, including Crisler himself and Tonarri Moore, the man with past felonies and pending state and federal charges who the FBI recruited as an informant.
Parts of recorded conversations between the men, which Moore made for investigators, were played in court.
During several meetings in Jackson and around Hinds County in 2021, Crisler said he would tell Moore about investigations involving him, move Moore’s cousin to a safer part of the Hinds County jail, give him a job with the sheriff’s office and give him freedom to have a gun despite prohibitions on Moore having one.
Crisler was found guilty after a three-day trial in Jackson. The jury took about two hours to reach a unanimous verdict for both charges .
In November after the verdict, his attorney, John Colette, told reporters his client and family were disappointed in the decision and Crisler planned to appeal.
Crisler was indicted in April 2023 – the same year he ran again for Hinds County sheriff. He lost in a runoff election to Tyree Jones, the incumbent Crisler faced two years earlier.
Washington
High court: Seattle officers who attended Jan. 6 rally cannot stay anonymous
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle police officers who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally and protests at the U.S. Capitol can be identified in public court records, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The ruling says the officers haven’t shown that the public release of their names violates their right to privacy, The Seattle Times reported.
Four officers who attended events in the nation’s capital on the day of the insurrection claimed they are protected under the state’s public records law. Using pseudonyms, they sued over whether an investigation into their activities should be made public. The officers say they did nothing wrong and that revealing their names would violate their privacy.
“We conclude they have not met that burden because they have not shown they have a privacy right in public records about their attendance at a highly public event,” wrote Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis for the majority opinion.
The majority concluded that allowing the case to go forward using pseudonyms is tantamount to sealing a courtroom, which requires specific findings and justification.
When then-Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz learned that six of his officers traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, he ordered the Office of Police Accountability to investigate whether they had violated any laws or department policies.
The investigation found that married officers Caitlin and Alexander Everett crossed barriers set up by the Capitol police and were next to the Capitol Building, in violation of the law, prompting Diaz to fire the pair. Investigators said three other officers had not violated policies and the fourth case was ruled “inconclusive.”
Sam Sueoka, a law student at the time, filed a Public Records Act request for the OPA investigation. The officers, filing under the pseudonym John Doe 1-5, filed a request for a preliminary injunction to stop their release.
Tennessee
Inmate on death row says he is on hunger strike over medical care and other issues
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row prisoner declared a hunger strike on Wednesday, saying he was protesting issues with medical care, the quality of the food, and individual padlocks installed on cell doors that he says are a safety hazard.
Howard Willis was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murders eight years earlier of newlyweds Adam Chrismer, 17, and Samantha Leming Chrismer, 16, of Chickamauga, Georgia. A friend, Darlene Kimbrough, spoke to him on Wednesday afternoon and confirmed that Willis had started a hunger strike and delivered a statement to prison officials.
Michael Rimmer, another death row inmate who acts as a helper to sick and disabled inmates like Willis, was given a copy of the statement. He read it over the phone to Kimbrough, who recorded it. Willis’ attorneys said they were aware of the statement.
In the statement, the 73-year-old Willis complained of a nurse at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution who he said was causing so many problems with medications that “prisoners will not take needed medications from her, because she gives the wrong medications.” He also said the nurse had “harassed and openly maligned” him.
“He’s been sick with untreated medical issues for some time now,” Rimmer added, speaking of Willis. “We think he may have had a slight stroke while he was asleep, and his cognitive abilities have been greatly hindered,”
Willis said he is also protesting the installation of padlocks on the cell doors in death row along with key-operated gates on cages that surround each door.
Willis pointed to a 1985 ruling in federal court that addressed similar issues in Tennessee at the time. The judge in that case ruled that the lack of a central locking system and absence of fire drills were “serious safety problems” which he ordered the state to address.
Willis also is protesting the quality of the food, which makes his hunger strike “’not so difficult’,” Rimmer said Willis wrote.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately have a comment on Wednesday afternoon.
Willis was forced to act as his own lawyer during his original trial and has been seeking a new trial, claiming multiple violations of his constitutional rights. On Jan. 22, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals denied his petition. His attorneys are currently considering next steps.
“In the time that we have represented Mr. Willis we have become aware that inmates are struggling to receive a basic level of medical care,” attorney Josh Hedrick said in an email. “We hope that Mr. Willis’s concerns are heard soon.”
Maine
Judge sides with gun advocates and pauses Maine gun law enacted in wake of Lewiston mass shooting
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday put a hold on a new three-day waiting period for gun purchases in Maine after reviewing a lawsuit filed against the rule by gun rights groups.
Maine’s new gun rule took effect in August and was one of several gun control measures the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed after an Army reservist killed 18 people in Lewiston in October 2023 in the deadliest shooting in state history. Gun rights advocates challenged the waiting period law and asked for it to be paused pending the outcome of their case.
The gun advocates contend the law violates their 2nd Amendment rights. Federal judge Lance Walker wrote that the act “employs no standard at all to justify disarming individuals,” and that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of individuals who contend it is illegal to require a person who passed a background check to wait 72 hours before completing a gun purchase. Maine’s attorney general has said he intends to defend the law and that waiting periods have been upheld in other parts of the country.
Similar laws exist in about a dozen other states. Gun control advocates in Maine trumpeted the law as way to provide a cooling-off period for people intending to use a gun to do harm to others or themselves.
Australia
Tennessee man sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife during their Fiji honeymoon
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man from Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife during their honeymoon in Fiji in 2022, a court official said on Friday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, will have to serve at least 18 years in prison before he can be considered for release, a Fiji High Court registry official in Lautoka said.
Dawson was convicted in December of murdering his wife, Christe Chen, who was then 36, at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago two days after the newlyweds arrived in the South Pacific nation. He then fled by kayak to a nearby island.
He was sentenced by Justice Riyaz Hamza on Wednesday.
Hamza told Dawson he had shown disregard for Chen’s right to life and her personal liberty.
“Your conduct after the incident was appalling. Having inflicted serious and life-threatening injuries to the deceased you fled the scene of the crime, leaving the deceased alone and helpless,” Hamza said, according to The Fiji Times newspaper.
Chen’s body was discovered in the couple’s room by resort staff with multiple blunt trauma wounds to her head after the couple was heard arguing and did not appear at breakfast or lunch the next day.
Dawson pleaded not guilty to the charge and was tried over eight days.
His lawyer Anil Prasad told the court that prosecutors had failed provide sufficient evidence to convict Dawson, the Fijian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Prasad said that while the prosecution alleged that Dawson was planning to flee Fiji, authorities failed to acknowledge that many of the couple’s personal belongings remained at the resort.
Prasad also said Dawson had no injuries to suggest he had been involved in a physical altercation with his wife.
But the judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else had committed the crime.
Under Fijian law, prisoners can apply for parole after serving a minimum term set by a court, although the parole board is currently unstaffed. Critics argue the lack of an effective parole option is a cause of prison overcrowding.
David Naylor, an Australian National University expert on Pacific law and regulation who has lectured in Fiji, said that after serving 18 years in prison, Dawson could apply to the national Mercy Commission to be released with a pardon from the Fijian president.
He could also apply for his life sentence to be reduced to a fixed term, which would set a release date, Naylor said.
Dawson worked in the information technology department at Youth Villages, a nonprofit child welfare and support organization based in Memphis. An online records search showed no criminal arrests for Dawson in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.
The Turtle Island resort, where the pair stayed, is an exclusive and remote 500-acre island that accommodates only 14 couples at a time. Yasawa is a group of about 20 volcanic islands in the west of Fiji, a nation of 930,000 people.
Ex-sheriff heads to federal prison for 2-1/2 years
Former Hinds County interim sheriff Marshand Crisler has been sentenced to 2-1/2 years in federal prison for soliciting and accepting bribes during his unsuccessful 2021 campaign.
U.S. District Court Judge Tom Lee sentenced him last week for the two counts he was convicted of in November. Crisler received concurrent sentences of 30 months in custody of the Bureau of Prisons, followed by three years of supervision and an order to pay a $15,000 fine, according to court records.
Crisler faced up to 10 years in prison. He remained out on bond until his sentencing.
The court recommended Crisler to be assigned to the nearest facility to Jackson. Nearby federal facilities are in Yazoo City, Aliceville, Alabama, central Louisiana and Memphis.
Crisler was charged with soliciting and accepting $9,500 worth of bribes during his 2021 campaign for Hinds County sheriff in exchange for favors from a man with previous felony convictions and giving ammunition the man can’t possess as a felon.
The jury heard from several witnesses, including Crisler himself and Tonarri Moore, the man with past felonies and pending state and federal charges who the FBI recruited as an informant.
Parts of recorded conversations between the men, which Moore made for investigators, were played in court.
During several meetings in Jackson and around Hinds County in 2021, Crisler said he would tell Moore about investigations involving him, move Moore’s cousin to a safer part of the Hinds County jail, give him a job with the sheriff’s office and give him freedom to have a gun despite prohibitions on Moore having one.
Crisler was found guilty after a three-day trial in Jackson. The jury took about two hours to reach a unanimous verdict for both charges .
In November after the verdict, his attorney, John Colette, told reporters his client and family were disappointed in the decision and Crisler planned to appeal.
Crisler was indicted in April 2023 – the same year he ran again for Hinds County sheriff. He lost in a runoff election to Tyree Jones, the incumbent Crisler faced two years earlier.
Washington
High court: Seattle officers who attended Jan. 6 rally cannot stay anonymous
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle police officers who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally and protests at the U.S. Capitol can be identified in public court records, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The ruling says the officers haven’t shown that the public release of their names violates their right to privacy, The Seattle Times reported.
Four officers who attended events in the nation’s capital on the day of the insurrection claimed they are protected under the state’s public records law. Using pseudonyms, they sued over whether an investigation into their activities should be made public. The officers say they did nothing wrong and that revealing their names would violate their privacy.
“We conclude they have not met that burden because they have not shown they have a privacy right in public records about their attendance at a highly public event,” wrote Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis for the majority opinion.
The majority concluded that allowing the case to go forward using pseudonyms is tantamount to sealing a courtroom, which requires specific findings and justification.
When then-Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz learned that six of his officers traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, he ordered the Office of Police Accountability to investigate whether they had violated any laws or department policies.
The investigation found that married officers Caitlin and Alexander Everett crossed barriers set up by the Capitol police and were next to the Capitol Building, in violation of the law, prompting Diaz to fire the pair. Investigators said three other officers had not violated policies and the fourth case was ruled “inconclusive.”
Sam Sueoka, a law student at the time, filed a Public Records Act request for the OPA investigation. The officers, filing under the pseudonym John Doe 1-5, filed a request for a preliminary injunction to stop their release.
Tennessee
Inmate on death row says he is on hunger strike over medical care and other issues
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row prisoner declared a hunger strike on Wednesday, saying he was protesting issues with medical care, the quality of the food, and individual padlocks installed on cell doors that he says are a safety hazard.
Howard Willis was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murders eight years earlier of newlyweds Adam Chrismer, 17, and Samantha Leming Chrismer, 16, of Chickamauga, Georgia. A friend, Darlene Kimbrough, spoke to him on Wednesday afternoon and confirmed that Willis had started a hunger strike and delivered a statement to prison officials.
Michael Rimmer, another death row inmate who acts as a helper to sick and disabled inmates like Willis, was given a copy of the statement. He read it over the phone to Kimbrough, who recorded it. Willis’ attorneys said they were aware of the statement.
In the statement, the 73-year-old Willis complained of a nurse at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution who he said was causing so many problems with medications that “prisoners will not take needed medications from her, because she gives the wrong medications.” He also said the nurse had “harassed and openly maligned” him.
“He’s been sick with untreated medical issues for some time now,” Rimmer added, speaking of Willis. “We think he may have had a slight stroke while he was asleep, and his cognitive abilities have been greatly hindered,”
Willis said he is also protesting the installation of padlocks on the cell doors in death row along with key-operated gates on cages that surround each door.
Willis pointed to a 1985 ruling in federal court that addressed similar issues in Tennessee at the time. The judge in that case ruled that the lack of a central locking system and absence of fire drills were “serious safety problems” which he ordered the state to address.
Willis also is protesting the quality of the food, which makes his hunger strike “’not so difficult’,” Rimmer said Willis wrote.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately have a comment on Wednesday afternoon.
Willis was forced to act as his own lawyer during his original trial and has been seeking a new trial, claiming multiple violations of his constitutional rights. On Jan. 22, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals denied his petition. His attorneys are currently considering next steps.
“In the time that we have represented Mr. Willis we have become aware that inmates are struggling to receive a basic level of medical care,” attorney Josh Hedrick said in an email. “We hope that Mr. Willis’s concerns are heard soon.”
Maine
Judge sides with gun advocates and pauses Maine gun law enacted in wake of Lewiston mass shooting
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday put a hold on a new three-day waiting period for gun purchases in Maine after reviewing a lawsuit filed against the rule by gun rights groups.
Maine’s new gun rule took effect in August and was one of several gun control measures the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed after an Army reservist killed 18 people in Lewiston in October 2023 in the deadliest shooting in state history. Gun rights advocates challenged the waiting period law and asked for it to be paused pending the outcome of their case.
The gun advocates contend the law violates their 2nd Amendment rights. Federal judge Lance Walker wrote that the act “employs no standard at all to justify disarming individuals,” and that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of individuals who contend it is illegal to require a person who passed a background check to wait 72 hours before completing a gun purchase. Maine’s attorney general has said he intends to defend the law and that waiting periods have been upheld in other parts of the country.
Similar laws exist in about a dozen other states. Gun control advocates in Maine trumpeted the law as way to provide a cooling-off period for people intending to use a gun to do harm to others or themselves.
Australia
Tennessee man sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife during their Fiji honeymoon
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man from Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife during their honeymoon in Fiji in 2022, a court official said on Friday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, will have to serve at least 18 years in prison before he can be considered for release, a Fiji High Court registry official in Lautoka said.
Dawson was convicted in December of murdering his wife, Christe Chen, who was then 36, at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago two days after the newlyweds arrived in the South Pacific nation. He then fled by kayak to a nearby island.
He was sentenced by Justice Riyaz Hamza on Wednesday.
Hamza told Dawson he had shown disregard for Chen’s right to life and her personal liberty.
“Your conduct after the incident was appalling. Having inflicted serious and life-threatening injuries to the deceased you fled the scene of the crime, leaving the deceased alone and helpless,” Hamza said, according to The Fiji Times newspaper.
Chen’s body was discovered in the couple’s room by resort staff with multiple blunt trauma wounds to her head after the couple was heard arguing and did not appear at breakfast or lunch the next day.
Dawson pleaded not guilty to the charge and was tried over eight days.
His lawyer Anil Prasad told the court that prosecutors had failed provide sufficient evidence to convict Dawson, the Fijian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Prasad said that while the prosecution alleged that Dawson was planning to flee Fiji, authorities failed to acknowledge that many of the couple’s personal belongings remained at the resort.
Prasad also said Dawson had no injuries to suggest he had been involved in a physical altercation with his wife.
But the judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else had committed the crime.
Under Fijian law, prisoners can apply for parole after serving a minimum term set by a court, although the parole board is currently unstaffed. Critics argue the lack of an effective parole option is a cause of prison overcrowding.
David Naylor, an Australian National University expert on Pacific law and regulation who has lectured in Fiji, said that after serving 18 years in prison, Dawson could apply to the national Mercy Commission to be released with a pardon from the Fijian president.
He could also apply for his life sentence to be reduced to a fixed term, which would set a release date, Naylor said.
Dawson worked in the information technology department at Youth Villages, a nonprofit child welfare and support organization based in Memphis. An online records search showed no criminal arrests for Dawson in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.
The Turtle Island resort, where the pair stayed, is an exclusive and remote 500-acre island that accommodates only 14 couples at a time. Yasawa is a group of about 20 volcanic islands in the west of Fiji, a nation of 930,000 people.
