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Tag: Juries

  • Advocates raise alarms after Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan found guilty of obstruction

    MADISON, Wis. — Defenders of a Wisconsin judge found guilty of felony obstruction for helping a Mexican immigrant evade federal officers raised alarms Friday about judicial independence and said they hope the conviction will be overturned on appeal.

    A jury found Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan guilty on Thursday night after a four-day trial and six hours of deliberation. The jury found her not guilty of a misdemeanor concealment charge. No sentencing date had been set as of Friday morning. She could be sentenced to a maximum five years in prison.

    The verdict was a victory for President Donald Trump, whose administration filed the charges against Dugan and touted her arrest earlier this year, posting photos of her being led away in handcuffs.

    U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche praised the verdict on X, saying nobody is above the law, even judges.

    The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration is trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.

    U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel, a former Republican Wisconsin attorney general and judge, denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully.

    “Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”

    Dugan’s defense attorney told the jury in closing arguments that the “top levels of government” were involved in bringing charges against Dugan. But prosecutors argued Dugan put her personal beliefs above the law.

    “You don’t have to agree with immigration enforcement policy to see this was wrong,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka told the jury in closing arguments. “You just have to agree the law applies equally to everyone.”

    Dugan did not testify. Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters.

    Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later said he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.

    Dugan’s attorneys were expected to appeal the verdict.

    A coalition of 13 advocacy groups, including Common Cause Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters Wisconsin, said “higher courts must carefully review the serious constitutional questions this case raises about due process, judicial authority, and federal overreach.”

    Dugan was suspended as a judge after she was charged and the Wisconsin Constitution bars convicted felons from holding office. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which oversees disciplining of judges in the state, did not respond to a request Friday for information about what happens next in Dugan’s case.

    On April 18, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

    Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and after they had left led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.

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  • Jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $40M to 2 cancer patients who used talcum powders

    A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer.

    The giant health care company said it would appeal the jury’s liability verdict and compensatory damages.

    The verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body power was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling powder made with talc worldwide in 2023.

    In October, another California jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.

    In the latest case, the jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. “The only thing they did was be loyal to Johnson & Johnson as a customer for only 50 years,’’ said their attorney, Daniel Robinson of the Robinson Calcagnie law firm in Newport Beach, California. “That loyalty was a one-way street.’’

    Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement that the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing Friday’s verdict.

    Haas called the jury’s findings “irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.”

    Johnson & Johnson replaced the talc in its baby powder sold in most of North America with cornstarch in 2020 after sales declined.

    In April, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied J&J’s plan to pay $9 billion to settle ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancer litiation claims based on talc-related products.

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  • Fugees rapper sentenced to prison over illegal donations to Obama campaign

    WASHINGTON — Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

    Michel, 52, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.

    In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

    Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

    “His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.

    Defense attorney Peter Zeidenberg said his client’s 14-year sentence is “completely disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will appeal his conviction and sentence, according to his lawyer.

    Zeidenberg had recommended a three-year prison sentence. A life sentence would be an “absurdly high” punishment for Michel given that it is typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders, Michel’s attorneys said in a court filing.

    “The Government’s position is one that would cause Inspector Javert to recoil and, if anything, simply illustrates just how easily the Guidelines can be manipulated to produce absurd results, and how poorly equipped they are, at least on this occasion, to determine a fair and just sentence,” they wrote.

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  • Federal jury awards $80 million to estate of NY man wrongfully convicted of murder

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal jury awarded $80 million Wednesday to the estate of a Buffalo man whose conviction in a 1976 murder was overturned after he spent nearly a quarter century in prison.

    Darryl Boyd, one of the group of Black teenagers arrested for the murder of William Crawford sometimes called the Buffalo Five, filed the lawsuit in 2022 seeking damages and alleging Buffalo Police investigators and Erie County prosecutors had failed to disclose more than a dozen pieces of evidence that pointed to other suspects. The lawsuit also alleged investigators coerced witnesses to give false statements pointing to Boyd, and that prosecutors committed summation misconduct — making inappropriate or false comments in their closing arguments.

    “If not for the misdeeds of Defendants, Mr. Boyd would not have been prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned in violation of his constitutional rights, and would not have spent 45 years asserting his innocence and fighting for his liberty in connection with a crime that he did not commit,” Boyd’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

    A spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county extends its sympathy to Boyd’s family, but he believes the $80 million award is egregious and the county plans to appeal.

    After a two-and-a-half week trial, the federal jury in the Western District of New York took about an hour to return the massive verdict — billed by attorneys as one of the largest monetary awards for a wrongful conviction case in the U.S.

    After Boyd was released from prison, he spent another two decades on parole before his conviction was vacated by a judge in 2021. The county opted not to retry Boyd or John Walker Jr., whose conviction in the case was also vacated.

    A third man convicted in the killing, Darren Gibson, was released from prison in 2008 and died a year later. One of the other teens was acquitted at trial, and the fifth teen testified against the others, which Boyd’s attorneys said newly released case files show was coerced.

    Both Boyd and Walker had settled their case against the city of Buffalo for about $4.7 million each. Walker won a $28 million verdict against the county earlier this year, which the county has appealed.

    “He lost his whole adult life to this wrongful conviction. The jury heard just how many years he was suffering in maximum security prison. All the terrible things you assume happen in prison, happened in prison,” said Ross Firsenbaum, an attorney with WilmerHale, one of three firms representing Boyd’s estate.

    Firsenbaum said being released on parole was just as hard for Boyd who suffered from PTSD, anxiety and other ailments. He struggled to keep or get jobs because of the conviction and eventually began self-medicating and developed a substance abuse addiction.

    Boyd was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and died in 2023 before the trial could be held. His mother and son attended the trial every day, Firsenbaum said.

    “The (county) argued his substance use was the cause of his problems, not the 27 or so years he spent wrongfully in prison,” Firsenbaum said. “And that’s offensive. And the jury recognized that and responded with this verdict.”

    He added that the attorneys had proven there was a pattern and practice of misconduct at the time of the convictions, not just a misdeed by one employee.

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  • Jurors to hear closing arguments in Ohio trial of officer charged in killing

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Closing arguments in the murder trial of an Ohio officer charged in the shooting death of a pregnant Black mother killed in a supermarket parking lot after being accused of shoplifting are set for Wednesday.

    Prosecutors have told jurors that 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young wasn’t a threat to anyone at the time she was shot. Defense attorneys for Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb have emphasized that Young’s vehicle carried deadly force when she accelerated it near the 31-year-old officer, rendering his use of force within the standard of being “objectively reasonable.”

    Grubb is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault in connection with Young’s death on Aug. 24, 2023. He faces up to life in prison. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Young, no relation to Ta’Kiya, dropped four of 10 counts against him Tuesday that related to the death of Young’s unborn daughter, agreeing with his attorneys that prosecutors failed to present proof that Grubb knew Young was pregnant when he shot her.

    The prosecution and defense both rested Tuesday after a roughly two-week trial. Jurors were shown the bodycam footage of the shooting on the first day of testimony, with testimony following over the trial’s course including from a use-of-force expert, an accident reconstructionist, the officer who responded to the scene with Grubb and a police policy expert.

    They never heard from Grubb, whose side of the story was contained in a written statement read into the record by a special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

    Sean Walton, an attorney representing Young’s family, Nadine Young, Ta’Kiya’s grandmother, and an aunt, Michelle White, said they expected Grubb to take the stand.

    “It is curious that he did not testify. But the video speaks for itself and if he wants the video to speak for him, then so be it,” Walton said.

    Young and White appeared emotionally tired while taking questions from reporters Tuesday. White said that the verdict will allow the family “to finally be able to start the healing process.” At various times, Nadine held back tears while talking about the toll of the trial.

    “I just gotta hold on to God and just know, God, he’s in control,” Nadine said.

    In the body camera footage, the officer said he observed Young arguing with his fellow officer and positioned himself in front of her vehicle to provide backup and to protect other people in the parking lot. He said he drew his gun after he heard Young fail to comply with his partner’s commands. When she drove toward him, he said in the statement, he felt her car hit his legs and shins and begin to lift his body off the ground.

    Grubb and another officer approached Young’s car outside a Kroger in suburban Columbus about a report that she was suspected of stealing alcohol from the store. She partially lowered her window, and the other officer ordered her out. Instead, she rolled her car forward toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet through her windshield into her chest, video footage showed.

    The video showed an officer at the driver’s side window telling Young she was accused of shoplifting and ordering her out of the car. Young protested, and both officers cursed at her and yelled at her to get out. Young could be heard asking them, “Are you going to shoot me?”

    Then she turned the steering wheel to the right, the car rolled slowly forward and Grubb fired his gun, footage showed. Moments later, after the car came to a stop against the building, they broke the driver’s side window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was mortally wounded. Young and her unborn daughter were subsequently pronounced dead at a hospital.

    A full-time officer with the township since 2019, Grubb was placed paid administrative leave after the shooting.

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  • Actor Danny Masterson asks for rape convictions to be tossed over lawyer errors

    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson filed a petition Monday for his two rape convictions and long prison sentence to be thrown out, saying that his trial lawyer failed to call key witnesses and introduce essential evidence that might have exonerated him.

    The petition for habeas corpus filed with California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal argues that lawyer Philip Cohen did not represent Masterson properly at the 2023 retrial that ended with the actor being convicted of raping two women at his Los Angeles home in 2003. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

    The petition also argues that the trial judge demonstrated a bias against the Church of Scientology, allowing an “unconstitutional intrusion” into the church’s doctrine and a misinterpretation of its scripture.

    Masterson is a member of the church, whose practices were a major issue at his trial, and the women are former members.

    The petition says that Cohen spoke to only two of the 20 potential witnesses brought to his attention by his co-counsel and an investigator. It says the witnesses included some who would have testified that the women spoke favorably of the sexual relationships they had with Masterson. And they included psychological and pharmacological experts who would have testified about the effects of alcohol and drugs on memory.

    The court filing says there was “unexpected and unreasonable failure of trial counsel to present any of the mountain of exculpatory evidence” that had been amassed by Masterson’s pretrial attorney Shawn Holley, and the result was a violation of his constitutional rights.

    Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo declined to delay Masterson’s first trial to accommodate Holley’s representation of former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer against his own allegations of sexual misconduct. Cohen then took over as lead attorney.

    Masterson’s first trial ended in a mistrial with a jury unable to reach consensus on any of three rape counts against him. He was promptly retried, and a jury found him guilty of two counts while failing to reach a verdict on the third.

    Cohen did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the petition, nor did an attorney for the women.

    “The unfairness of the second Masterson trial was the result of prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias, and the failure of defense counsel to present exculpatory evidence,” Eric Multhaup, the attorney who filed the petition for Masterson, said in a statement. “The jury heard only half the story – the prosecution’s side. Danny deserves a new trial where the jury can hear his side as well.”

    The petition says Olmedo erred in allowing the prosecution to negatively cast the Church of Scientology as a force of intimidation. It alleges that Cohen also did not present available evidence that would countered the portrayal.

    Masterson’s new motion is separate from his main appeal to the same court, a process that is pending.

    Masterson, 49, is serving his sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. He will not be eligible for parole for more than 20 years.

    Masterson starred with Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace in “That ’70s Show” from 1998 until 2006. He had reunited with Kutcher on the 2016 Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but was written off the show when the Los Angeles Police Department investigation was revealed the following year.

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  • Alleged plot to bribe a juror with $100,000 upends former heavyweight boxer’s NYC drug trial

    NEW YORK — Three men were arrested Monday for allegedly trying to pay up to $100,000 in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of a former heavyweight boxer, leading a judge to abruptly dismiss the jury as it was about to hear opening statements.

    John Marzulli, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, said an anonymous jury will be chosen when the trial of Goran Gogic resumes in a month.

    Gogic, of Montenegro, was set to stand trial for allegedly conspiring to smuggle 20 tons (18.1 metric tons) of cocaine to Europe from Colombia through U.S. ports using commercial cargo ships. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Law enforcement officials have described Gogic as a “major drug trafficker” and said he operated on a “mammoth scale.”

    A former heavyweight boxer, Gogic fought professionally in Germany from 2001 to 2012, compiling a 21-4-2 record, according to boxing website Sport & Note. He was listed as 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters) and weighed in at anywhere from 227 pounds (103 kilograms) to 250 pounds (113 kilograms).

    In a criminal complaint in Brooklyn federal court, an FBI agent wrote that the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday.

    According to the court papers, one of the men charged in the plot — Mustafa Fteja — already knew a juror described in the complaint as “John Doe #1” and called him multiple times on his cellphone Thursday before the juror agreed to meet him in Staten Island.

    During the meeting, which took place Thursday, Fteja told the juror that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him to return a not guilty verdict, the complaint said.

    Two days later, Fteja told the juror during a second meeting that they were willing to pay him between $50,000 and $100,000 to corrupt the trial, the complaint said.

    It was not immediately clear who will represent Fteja and two others accused in the alleged jury tampering scheme when they appear in court later Monday.

    According to the complaint, investigators secured several recorded conversations of the defendants planning the juror corruption plot as the men spoke in Albanian and English.

    At his trial, Gogic is charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.

    According to prosecutors, Gogic and his co-conspirators worked with the ships’ crew members to smuggle cocaine in shipping containers, hoisting loads of the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo vessels along their route, including near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

    Three shipments were intercepted by U.S. law enforcement agents, prosecutors said, including 1,437 kilograms (3,168 pounds) of cocaine aboard the MSC Carlotta at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February 2019 and 17,956 kilograms (39,586 pounds) of cocaine — with a street value of over $1 billion — aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019.

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  • Harvey Weinstein prosecutors say defense’s jury misconduct claims are ‘implausible’

    NEW YORK — Prosecutors urged a judge on Wednesday to reject Harvey Weinstein ’s claims that his June sexual assault conviction was marred by threats and bullying among jurors.

    The disgraced movie mogul’s lawyers submitted sworn affidavits last month from two jurors who said they regretted voting to convict Weinstein and only did so because others on the panel bullied them during five contentious days of deliberations.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office said the jurors’ claims were “inconsistent and implausible” and that they provided no legal basis for Weinstein’s lawyers to challenge his conviction.

    One juror who claimed in an affidavit that he observed “threats” and “intimidation” had told the judge during deliberations that he only saw “playground stuff,” prosecutors said. Immediately after the trial ended, the same juror told reporters, “it’s not like a fight was going to break out. No, obviously not.”

    Weinstein’s bid to overturn his first-degree criminal sex act conviction “utterly fails, on both the law and the facts, to meet the standard necessary to set aside the guilty verdict,” prosecutors Matthew Colangelo, Nicole Blumberg, Shannon Lucey and Becky Mangold wrote.

    They cited a centuries-old rule that the U.S. Supreme Court has said gives “substantial protection to verdict finality” and assures that once a trial is over, jurors won’t be “harassed or annoyed by litigants seeking to challenge the verdict.”

    Judge Curtis Farber said he’ll rule on Dec. 22.

    Prosecutors said they declined to interview any jurors before responding to the defense’s claims because doing so would “cause the very harms” the centuries-old rule was meant to avoid.

    Weinstein’s defense team, led by attorney Arthur Aidala, argued in court papers last month that the verdict was marred by “threats, intimidation, and extraneous bias,” and that Farber failed to properly deal with it at the time.

    The two jurors said in their affidavits that they felt overwhelmed and intimidated by others on the panel who wanted to convict Weinstein on the criminal sex act charge, which accused him of forcing oral sex on TV and film production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006.

    One of the jurors said she was screamed at in the jury room and told, “we have to get rid of you.” The other juror said anyone who doubted Weinstein’s guilt was grilled by other jurors and that if he could have voted by secret ballot, “I would have returned a not guilty verdict on all three charges.”

    “I regret the verdict,” that juror said. “Without the intimidation from other jurors, I believe that the jury would have hung on the Miriam Haley charge.”

    Weinstein, 73, was acquitted on a second criminal sex act charge involving a different woman, Polish psychotherapist and former model Kaja Sokola. The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

    It was the second time the Oscar-winning producer was tried on some of the charges. His 2020 conviction, a watershed moment for the # MeToo movement, was overturned last year. In addition to seeking to overturn his June conviction, Weinstein’s lawyers are also fighting to avoid yet another retrial on the undecided count.

    Weinstein denies all of the charges. The first-degree criminal sex act conviction carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison, while the unresolved third-degree rape charge is punishable by up to four years — less than he already has served.

    The Oscar-winning producer has been behind bars since his initial conviction in 2020, and he later also was sentenced to prison in a separate California case, which he is appealing.

    Some of what the two jurors said in their affidavits echoed acrimony that spilled into public view during deliberations.

    As jurors weighed charges for five days, one juror asked to be excused because he felt another was being treated unfairly. Later, the foreperson complained that other jurors were pushing people to change their minds and that a juror yelled at him for sticking to his opinion and suggested the foreperson would “see me outside.”

    When jurors came forward with concerns, Farber was strict about respecting the sanctity of deliberations and cautioned them not to discuss the content or tenor of jury room discussions, transcripts show.

    As deliberations were on, Farber reminded jurors that “tension and conflict” is normal in the deliberative process.

    In their affidavits, the two jurors said they didn’t feel the judge was willing to listen to their concerns.

    When jurors were asked if they agreed with the guilty verdict, one of the jurors noted in her affidavit that she paused “to try and indicate my discomfort in the verdict.”

    Afterward, when Farber spoke with jurors, she said she told him, “the deliberations were unprofessional.”

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  • Jury convicts activist who took chickens from Purdue plant

    SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Jurors on Wednesday found animal activist Zoe Rosenberg guilty of trespassing and conspiracy for taking four chickens from a Northern California processing plant, said a spokesperson for a group representing her.

    Rosenberg, 23, did not deny taking the animals but said she was rescuing them from a cruel situation. She faces more than five years in prison. Rosenberg and her attorneys had said they would appeal if she was found guilty, said Lauren Gazzola, spokesperson for Animal Activist Legal Defense Project.

    “Sonoma County spent over six weeks and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to protect a multi-billion-dollar corporation from the rescue of four chickens worth less than $25,” Chris Carraway, Rosenberg’s attorney, said in a statement.

    Rosenberg, an activist with Direct Action Everywhere, removed the chickens from Petaluma Poultry in 2023. The company supplies chickens to Perdue Farms, one of the country’s largest poultry providers for major grocery chains.

    Her attorneys argued the case wasn’t about whether she took the chickens — her organization filmed and released footage — but why she did it. Prosecutors, meanwhile, said she engaged in illegal behavior regardless of her motivation.

    She was on trial for two misdemeanor counts of trespassing, a misdemeanor count of tampering with a vehicle and a felony conspiracy charge.

    The trial unfolded in Sonoma County, where agriculture is a major industry. The co-founder of Direct Action Everywhere was convicted two years ago for his role in factory farm protests in Petaluma.

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  • Jury deliberations start in trial of Illinois deputy who killed Sonya Massey

    PEORIA, Ill. — An Illinois jury has begun deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of a sheriff’s deputy who shot Sonya Massey, a Black woman in her home who had called 911 for help and was later killed because of the way she was handling a pan of hot water.

    The eight-woman, four-man jury received the case just after 11:30 a.m. Tuesday. Jurors must decide whether Sean Grayson, 31, is guilty of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Massey in her Springfield home. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison. They also have been given the option of considering second-degree murder, which carries a term of four to 20 years.

    Grayson and another deputy answered Massey’s emergency call reporting a prowler outside the 36-year-old woman’s home early on the morning of July 6, 2024.

    In closing arguments, prosecutors characterized Grayson as “an angry man with a gun” whose impatience with Massey, who was suffering a mental health episode, inflamed his temper.

    Defense attorneys argued that when Massey retrieved a pot of steaming water from the stove, Grayson gave clear commands to drop it. They said he only fired when she said, “ I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” and, in the ensuing confusion, picked up the pan again and acted as if she would throw it and scald him.

    Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes. The accompanying publicity, protests and legal action over the incident prompted Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield, 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, to Peoria, an hour’s drive north of the capital city, because of pre-trial publicity.

    In an unusual step for a defendant in a murder case, Grayson testified in his own defense. Grayson said he considered using a Taser to subdue her but was afraid it wouldn’t work given his distance from Massey and the counter separating them. He said he determined that Massey was a threat and drew his 9 mm pistol only after she uttered her “rebuke” twice — although prosecutors pointed out that was because he didn’t hear her the first time and asked her to repeat it.

    Second-degree murder applies when there is a “serious provocation” which causes “a reasonable person to become impassioned or if an incident can be characterized as ”imperfect self-defense,” in which defendants believe their actions are justified even if that belief is unreasonable.

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  • Jury awards more than $40 million to family of man who died in privately-run jail

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal jury found a private company running a Louisiana jail liable for the 2015 death of a man who died of head injuries he received while in custody, and awarded the family more than $40 million in damages.

    Attorneys representing Erie Moore Sr.’s family say they believe the verdict handed down this week in the Western District of Louisiana is among the highest ever jury awards for an in-custody death in the U.S.

    “For the past 10 years, my sisters and I have been tormented knowing he is not resting easy,” said his son, Erie Moore Jr. “This trial has shined light where there was darkness. It has brought our family truth, justice, and peace.”

    Moore was a 57-year-old mill worker father of three with no criminal history who was arrested on Oct. 12, 2015, for disturbing the peace at a doughnut shop in Monroe, Louisiana.

    Moore became “agitated and noncompliant” while being taken into custody at Richwood Correctional Center, according to court filings. His attorney, Max Schoening, says Moore was “mentally unwell” at the time he was taken into custody.

    Schoening says guards pepper-sprayed him at least eight times during the 36 hours he was in jail.

    Court records, including footage from jail security cameras submitted as evidence and viewed by The Associated Press, show Moore being brought down forcefully by several guards. Other footage shows the guards picking up Moore by his legs and handcuffed hands when one of the guards stumbled, and Moore’s head lands on the ground.

    Moore was then brought to a secluded area of the jail without security cameras. He was kept there, out of sight, for nearly two hours, during which no one called for medical attention, court records show.

    “The jury found the guards continued to use excessive force against Mr. Moore in the camera-less area,” Schoening said. “When sheriffs from another law enforcement agency arrived to pick him up to transport him to another jail they found him unconscious and completely unresponsive.”

    When Moore eventually arrived at the hospital hours he was already in a coma and died about a month later, court records show. The Ouachita Parish coroner ruled Moore’s death a homicide due to the head injuries.

    A federal jury found three guards liable for negligence, battery and excessive force. The jury also found LaSalle Management Co., which runs Richwood Correctional Center, liable for causing the death of Moore due to the negligence of at least one of its guards.

    No one has been criminally charged in Moore’s death, Schoening added.

    The jury ordered LaSalle and Richwood to pay $23.25 million in punitive damages and $19.5 million in compensation to Moore’s three adult children.

    “This is the largest compensatory damage award I have ever heard of,” said Jay Aronson, a Carnegie Mellon University professor and author of “Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do about It.”

    The city of Monroe contracted the Richwood Correctional Center facility for its jail from 2001 to 2019. LaSalle, which is part of the same business enterprise as Richwood Correctional Center, operates detention facilities across Louisiana and Texas, court filings show.

    The Richwood Correctional Center now serves as a federal immigration detention site. Last year, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency stated that LaSalle is an “important part of ICE’s detention system.”

    LaSalle did not respond to requests for comment sent to its attorneys or a spokesperson. The City of Monroe declined to comment.

    “Erie Moore Sr.’s life was a gift to his family and community. LaSalle Management Co. ended it with utter indifference,” Schoening said. “It is a testament to his children’s love, courage, and resilience that, in the face of enormous obstacles, they obtained justice for their father and a historic victory for civil rights in this country.”

    ___

    Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Alabama to execute man for 1993 murder in state’s latest nitrogen gas execution

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama inmate convicted of killing a man over a drug debt was set to be executed Thursday evening in the state’s latest death sentence carried out with nitrogen gas.

    Anthony Boyd, 54, was sentenced to death for his role in killing Gregory Huguley in Talladega County more than 30 years ago. Prosecutors said Huguley was doused in gasoline and set on fire after he didn’t pay for $200 worth of cocaine.

    Lawyers for Boyd were unsuccessfully in their attempts to have courts give additional scrutiny to the execution method to be used when his sentence is carried out Thursday evening at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama. They argued it was unconstitutionally cruel.

    The method that Alabama began using last year uses a gas mask strapped over the inmate’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the person to die from lack of oxygen.

    Nationally, the method has now been used in seven executions: six times in Alabama and once in Louisiana.

    A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence for his part in the killing of Huguley, whose burned body was found Aug. 1, 1993, in a rural Talladega County ballfield. Prosecutors said Boyd was one of four men who kidnapped Huguley the prior evening.

    Boyd was convicted after a prosecution witness, testifying as part of a plea deal, said Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire.

    Boyd has maintained his innocence.

    “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing,” Boyd said by telephone during an Oct. 8 news conference organized by supporters.

    Defense lawyers said he was at a party on the night that Huguley was killed and that the plea deal testimony is unreliable. Boyd’s supporters placed multiple billboards across the state urging Alabama to halt the execution.

    Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in an earlier statement said that Boyd’s case has been litigated for three decades and, “he has yet to provide evidence to show the jury got it wrong.”

    Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is chairman of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.

    Shawn Ingram, the man prosecutors accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder. He is also on death row.

    Earlier this month, a federal judge refused to stop Boyd’s execution. His lawyers had argued that execution by nitrogen gas violates the Eighth Amendment because inmates are subjected to “conscious suffocation” and feel the pain and terror of being deprived of oxygen.

    Boyd’s lawyers pointed to witnesses descriptions of inmates shaking and appearing to gasp during nitrogen executions. The state has maintained the method is constitutional and the movements are largely involuntary because of oxygen deprivation. The judge rejected Boyd’s request.

    The Rev. Jeff Hood, who was the spiritual adviser at the first nitrogen execution, will serve as Boyd’s spiritual adviser. Hood, who has also witnessed multiple lethal injections, said that the nitrogen execution was “most viscerally horrible by far.”

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  • What to know about the murder trial of a sheriff deputy who killed Sonya Massey

    SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The murder trial of an Illinois sheriff’s deputy charged with killing Sonya Massey, a Black woman shot in her home last year after calling police for help, is set to begin Monday.

    Sean Grayson, 31, responding to a call about a suspected prowler, fired on the 36-year-old Massey in her Springfield home early on July 6, 2024, after confronting her about how she was handling a pan of hot water Grayson had ordered removed from her stove.

    Jurors will report Monday and the trial could continue into next week.

    Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes and it prompted a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

    Here’s what to know about the charges.

    In addition to first-degree murder, Grayson is charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.

    Widespread attention on Grayson’s shooting of Massey prompted Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield, 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. Jurors will instead come from Peoria and surrounding areas, an hour’s drive north, and will hear the case in their local courthouse.

    Grayson, who is white, faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

    After Grayson and another deputy checked the area around Massey’s house, body camera video shows Grayson knocked on her door to report they had found nothing suspicious. He entered the house to obtain details for a report, noticed a pan on the stove and ordered its removal. Massey picked it up.

    She laughingly asked Grayson why he was backing away; he said he was trying to avoid the “hot, steaming water.” Massey responded, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson wrote in an incident report, “I interpreted this to mean she was going to kill me.”

    According to body camera video, Grayson pulled his 9 mm pistol and yelled at Massey to drop the pot. She apologized then put the pan down and ducked behind a counter, but in the confusion, as Grayson yelled, it appears she picked it up again. Grayson fired three times, hitting Massey once just below the left eye.

    Massey, a single mother of two teenagers who had a strong religious faith, was beset by mental health problems. When she answered Grayson’s knock minutes before the shooting, she said, “Don’t hurt me,” and then, as she was questioned and Grayson asked her if she was all right, she repeatedly said, “Please God.”

    Earlier that same week, Sonya Massey had admitted herself to a 30-day inpatient mental health program in St. Louis but returned two days later without explanation.

    County records indicate that in the days leading up to the shooting, three 911 calls were made by Massey or on her behalf. In one, her mother, Donna Massey, told authorities her daughter was suffering a “mental breakdown.” Donna Massey also told the dispatcher, “I don’t want you guys to hurt her.”

    Grayson was not aware of the calls or Massey’s background. County officials have since said there’s no practical way to determine and communicate such information for police responding to emergency calls.

    Grayson was arrested 11 days after killing Massey and fired from the sheriff’s department.

    As his background was scrutinized, Massey’s family and others questioned why Grayson, who had been a Sangamon County deputy sheriff for 14 months, had been hired at all.

    In his early 20s, he was ejected from the Army for a drunken-driving arrest in which he had a weapon in his car. He was convicted of a DUI again within the year.

    Before joining the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, Grayson had four policing jobs in six years — the first three of which were part-time.

    There was no indication Grayson had been fired from any job, but evaluations from past employers documented concerns about him. One department reported that while Grayson worked hard and had a good attitude, he struggled with report writing, was “not great with evidence — left items laying around office” and was “a bragger.”

    Jack Campbell, the Sangamon County sheriff, was forced to retire six weeks after the shooting. He insisted though that none of Grayson’s issues disqualified him from working as a deputy.

    State law enforcement authorities had certified Grayson to serve in each of his previous jobs, but Campbell required him to attend the 16-week police academy training course nonetheless.

    In August, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law requiring that prospective police officers permit the release of all personal and employment background records to any law enforcement agency considering hiring them. Legislative sponsors of the measure acknowledged it doesn’t prevent candidates with checkered paths from being hired but provides greater transparency.

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  • St. Louis sheriff jailed over accusation he meddled in an investigation

    The sheriff in Missouri’s most populous county was jailed Tuesday and faced mounting calls to resign just 10 months into the job over accusations that he ordered deputies to handcuff the jail chief and then meddled with an investigation.

    Federal Judge John Bodenhausen ordered the bond revoked for 28-year-old Alfred Montgomery, the sheriff of St. Louis, after the prosecution argued in court filings that there was a serious risk he would “attempt to threaten, injure or intimidate” witnesses or jurors.

    St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer issued a statement Tuesday calling for Montgomery to resign and describing the situation as “absurd.” Days earlier, the Missouri attorney general’s office tried and failed yet again to oust Montgomery.

    But he has no plans to step down, said David Mason, a retired city judge who now works as an attorney for the sheriff’s department.

    Montgomery has been at the center of controversy since he was sworn into office in January after narrowly beating out an incumbent in the Democratic primary. The Missouri attorney general first demanded his resignation in June, accusing him of refusing to transport detainees for medical care, misspending and nepotism.

    But just as his legal team disproved the nepotism claim, he was indicted in August on a federal misdemeanor alleging that he deprived the acting commissioner of St. Louis City Justice Center of her rights by ordering her to be handcuffed.

    The county’s sheriff’s office does not run the jail, although it does transport people being detained there, so the jail official denied the sheriff’s request to gain access to a detainee who had made sexual misconduct claims against one of his deputies.

    Five additional felony charges, alleging witness retaliation and tampering, were added this month.

    Montgomery’s attorney Justin Gelfand said that any adverse employment action that was taken against employees stemmed from misconduct, and not based on information provided to law enforcement. He said he planned to appeal.

    __

    This story has been updated to remove references to ‘St. Louis County.’

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  • Matriarch sentenced to life in prison for hired killing of her ex-son-in-law

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Donna Adelson, the matriarch of a wealthy South Florida family who was convicted in the hired killing of her former son-in-law, was sentenced Monday to life in prison for her role in the 2014 murder-for-hire of Daniel Markel.

    A prominent Florida State University law professor, Markel was locked in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, Adelson’s daughter, when he was gunned down in 2014 at his home in Tallahassee.

    Adelson, 75, was found guilty last month of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation after a weekslong trial. She was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the murder charge, with an additional 30 years for the other two counts, to be served consecutively. Adelson has pledged to appeal.

    In an emotional statement ahead of the sentencing in a Tallahassee courtroom, Adelson swore she was innocent and cast her trial as a miscarriage of justice, overseen by a jury she said was unduly swayed by years of negative media coverage.

    “What happened to Danny is unforgivable. But I am an innocent woman convicted of this terrible crime without evidence,” Adelson said.

    “I’ve always respected the law. I’ve never gotten a parking ticket, But I’m going to prison for a murder I did not commit,” she added.

    Circuit Judge Stephen Everett interrupted Adelson multiple times, warning her the statements showed what he termed an “utter lack of remorse” for the crime.

    Shackled and dressed in a purple jail jumpsuit, Adelson stood attentively while Everett handed down the sentence. “You certainly can choose to deny your involvement and maintain innocence. The court finds the evidence in this case is clear,” Everett said.

    The case had captivated people in Florida for more than a decade amid sordid details of a messy divorce, tensions with wealthy in-laws and custody fights leading to the killing.

    Adelson was the fifth person sentenced for what prosecutors say was a plot to kill Markel. Among those already serving a life sentence for the killing is Adelson’s son, Charles Adelson.

    At trial, prosecutors had painted Donna Adelson as the calculated and controlling matriarch of an affluent South Florida family with the means and motive to orchestrate the killing of the ex-son-in-law she “hated.”

    Defense attorneys insisted the state didn’t have sufficient evidence to link the aging grandmother to the murder plot, instead emphasizing the roles played by others and casting suspicion on two of Adelson’s adult children. Wendi Adelson denied involvement in the killing and has not been charged.

    ___

    Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Google’s Play Store shake-up looms after court refuses to delay overhaul of monopoly

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to protect Google from a year-old order requiring a major makeover of its Android app store that’s designed to unleash more competition against a system that a jury declared an illegal monopoly.

    The rebuff delivered in a one-sentence decision by the Supreme Court means Google will soon have to start an overhaul of its Play Store for the apps running on the Android software that powers most smartphones that compete against Apple’s iPhone in the U.S.

    Among other changes, U.S. District Judge James Donato last October ordered Google to give its competitors access to its entire inventory of Android apps and also make those alternative options available to download from the Play Store.

    In a filing last month, Google told the U.S. Supreme Court that Donato’s order would expose the Play Store’s more than 100 million U.S. users to “enormous security and safety risks by enabling stores that stock malicious, deceptive, or pirated content to proliferate.”

    Google also said it faced an Oct. 22 deadline to begin complying with the judge’s order if the Supreme Court didn’t grant its request for a stay. The Mountain View, California, company was seeking the protection while pursuing a last-ditch attempt to overturn the December 2023 jury verdict that condemned the Play Store as an abusive monopoly.

    In a statement, Google said it will continue its fight in the Supreme Court while submitting to what it believes is a problematic order. “The changes ordered by the U.S. District Court will jeopardize users’ ability to safely download apps,” Google warned.

    Google had been insulated from the order while trying to overturn it and the monopoly verdict, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that attempt in a decision issued two months ago.

    In its filing with the Supreme Court, Google argued it was being unfairly turned into a supplier and distributor for would-be rivals.

    Donato concluded the digital walls shielding the Play Store from competition needed to be torn down to counteract a pattern of abusive behavior. The conduct had enabled Google to to reap billions of dollars in annual profits, primarily from its exclusive control of a payment processing system that collected a 15-30% fee on in-app transactions.

    Those commissions were the focal point of an antitrust lawsuit that video game maker Epic Games filed against Google in 2020, setting up a month-long trial in San Francisco federal court that culminated in the jury’s monopoly verdict.

    Epic, the maker of the Fortnite game, lost a similar antitrust case targeting Apple’s iPhone app store. Even though U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rodgers concluded the iPhone app store wasn’t an illegal monopoly, she ordered Apple to begin allowing links to alternative payment systems as part of a shake-up that resulted in the company being held in civil contempt of court earlier this year.

    In a post, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney applauded the Supreme Court for clearing the way for consumers to choose alternative app payment choices “without fees, scare screens, and friction.”

    Although the Play Store changes will likely dent Google’s profit, the company makes most of its money from a digital ad network that’s anchored by its dominant search engine — the pillars of an internet empire that has been under attack on other legal fronts.

    As part of cases brought by the U.S. Justice Department, both Google’s search engine and parts of its advertising technology were declared illegal monopolies, too.

    A federal judge in the search engine case earlier this year rejected a proposed break-up outlined by the Justice Department i n a decision that was widely seen as a reprieve for Google. The government is now seeking to break up Google in the advertising technology case during proceedings that are scheduled to wrap up with closing arguments on Nov. 17 in Alexandria, Virginia.

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  • Google’s Play Store shake-up looms after Supreme Court refuses to delay overhaul of the monopoly

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to protect Google from a year-old order requiring a major makeover of its Android app store that’s designed to unleash more competition against a system that a jury declared an illegal monopoly.

    The rebuff delivered in a one-sentence decision by the Supreme Court means Google will soon have to start an overhaul of its Play Store for the apps running on the Android software that powers most smartphones that compete against Apple’s iPhone in the U.S.

    Among other changes, U.S. District Judge James Donato last October ordered Google to give its competitors access to its entire inventory of Android apps and also make those alternative options available to download from the Play Store.

    In a filing last month, Google told the U.S. Supreme Court that Donato’s order would expose the Play Store’s more than 100 million U.S. users to “enormous security and safety risks by enabling stores that stock malicious, deceptive, or pirated content to proliferate.”

    Google also said it faced an Oct. 22 deadline to begin complying with the judge’s order if the Supreme Court didn’t grant its request for a stay. The Mountain View, California, company was seeking the protection while pursuing a last-ditch attempt to overturn the December 2023 jury verdict that condemned the Play Store as an abusive monopoly.

    In a statement, Google said it will continue its fight in the Supreme Court while submitting to what it believes is a problematic order. “The changes ordered by the U.S. District Court will jeopardize users’ ability to safely download apps,” Google warned.

    Google had been insulated from the order while trying to overturn it and the monopoly verdict, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that attempt in a decision issued two months ago.

    In its filing with the Supreme Court, Google argued it was being unfairly turned into a supplier and distributor for would-be rivals.

    Donato concluded the digital walls shielding the Play Store from competition needed to be torn down to counteract a pattern of abusive behavior. The conduct had enabled Google to to reap billions of dollars in annual profits, primarily from its exclusive control of a payment processing system that collected a 15-30% fee on in-app transactions.

    Those commissions were the focal point of an antitrust lawsuit that video game maker Epic Games filed against Google in 2020, setting up a month-long trial in San Francisco federal court that culminated in the jury’s monopoly verdict.

    Epic, the maker of the Fortnite game, lost a similar antitrust case targeting Apple’s iPhone app store. Even though U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rodgers concluded the iPhone app store wasn’t an illegal monopoly, she ordered Apple to begin allowing links to alternative payment systems as part of a shake-up that resulted in the company being held in civil contempt of court earlier this year.

    In a post, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney applauded the Supreme Court for clearing the way for consumers to choose alternative app payment choices “without fees, scare screens, and friction.”

    Although the Play Store changes will likely dent Google’s profit, the company makes most of its money from a digital ad network that’s anchored by its dominant search engine — the pillars of an internet empire that has been under attack on other legal fronts.

    As part of cases brought by the U.S. Justice Department, both Google’s search engine and parts of its advertising technology were declared illegal monopolies, too.

    A federal judge in the search engine case earlier this year rejected a proposed break-up outlined by the Justice Department i n a decision that was widely seen as a reprieve for Google. The government is now seeking to break up Google in the advertising technology case during proceedings that are scheduled to wrap up with closing arguments on Nov. 17 in Alexandria, Virginia.

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  • Judge denies request by ex-detective convicted in Breonna Taylor raid to delay prison

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A former Louisville police detective convicted of using excessive force during the deadly Breonna Taylor raid is expected to report to prison this week, after a judge denied his bid to remain free while he appeals the sentence.

    Brett Hankison became the first officer involved in the raid to be convicted on criminal charges when a jury found him guilty of using excessive force in November. He was sentenced to 33 months in prison in July but quickly filed an appeal asking a judge to let him remain free on bond.

    U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings on Monday denied Hankison’s bond request. He is scheduled to report to prison on Thursday. Jennings wrote in her ruling that Hankison “failed to demonstrate a substantial question of law or fact material to his appeal justifying bond.”

    Hankison drew his handgun and fired 10 shots into the windows of Taylor’s apartment the night of the deadly raid, but didn’t hit anyone. Some of his shots flew into a neighboring apartment, nearly striking two people inside.

    Jennings said during Hankison’s sentencing that she was “startled” that no one was injured by Hankison’s shots. Hankison’s first federal trial on excessive force charges ended in a mistrial in 2023, and he was acquitted of state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022.

    Ahead of his sentencing, the U.S. Justice Department asked that Hankison be given no prison time.

    Jennings expressed disappointment with the request, saying the Justice Department was treating Hankison’s actions as “an inconsequential crime.”

    Two other officers shot Taylor as they returned fire, after Taylor’s boyfriend opened fire when police broke down the door. Hankison was behind the officers and when the shooting started, he ran to the side of the apartment and fired through the windows.

    Hankison said at trial he was trying to protect his fellow officers, who he believed were coming under fire from someone inside with a rifle.

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  • Jury deadlocks again in trial of officer charged with sexually abusing inmates at California prison

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal jury has deadlocked for the second time in a trial of a former correctional officer charged with sexually abusing four inmates at a now-closed federal women’s prison in California.

    Prosecutors said Darrell Wayne Smith, who worked at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, assaulted the women in their cells and in the prison’s laundry room between 2019 and 2021. He faced 14 counts related to sexual abuse.

    Jurors, who had been deliberating since Sept. 18, could not reach a unanimous verdict and deadlocked on Wednesday, KTVU-TV reported. In March, Smith faced similar charges in a trial that also ended with a deadlock.

    Defense attorneys at both trials argued there was no DNA, no forensic evidence, no surveillance video and no diaries to prove what the government was alleging.

    Michelle Lo, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, thanked the jury for their service but would not comment on whether prosecutors would retry Smith for a third time.

    An Associated Press investigation in 2022 revealed a culture of abuse and cover-up that had persisted for years at FCI Dublin, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Oakland. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the federal Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems at the prison, which was eventually closed last year.

    In a statement Thursday, the California Coalition for Women Prisoners expressed disappointment at a lack of a verdict in Smith’s case. But the advocacy group pointed out that nine other FCI Dublin correctional officers all have either pleaded guilty to or been convicted by juries of various sex crimes.

    The prison’s former warden, Ray Garcia, was convicted in late 2022 of molesting inmates and forcing them to pose naked in their cells. He was sentenced to serve six years in prison.

    “We will channel our outrage by growing the movement to address the root causes of this systemic violence and bring survivors home from the abusive Bureau of Prisons,” said Emily Shapiro, an advocate with the coalition.

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  • Man accused of 8 fatal shootings in Phoenix area faces jury verdict following murder trial

    FILE – Cleophus Cooksey Jr., accused of killing eight people over a three-week span in late 2017, listens during his trial in Maricopa County Superior Court, May 5, 2025, in Phoenix, Ariz. (Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool, File )

    The Associated Press

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