National Roundup

Minnesota
Medical device maker settles suit for $4.4M
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Medtronic has agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the federal government accusing the company of selling medical devices made in China and Malaysia to the U.S. military.
Federal law requires that devices sold to the military be manufactured in the U.S. or its international trading partners. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger alleged Medtronic, which recently moved its headquarters from Fridley, bought spinal surgery devices in China and relabeled them to indicate they had been manufactured in Memphis, Tennessee.
Medtronic spokeswoman Cindy Resman said in a statement the company “makes no admission that any of its activities were improper or unlawful.” Resman says the majority of Medtronic’s products are manufactured in the U.S. or its trading partners, such as Mexico or Ireland.

New York
Sex abuse suit settled against elite prep school
HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) — An elite New York City prep school has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against it in New Jersey.
Plaintiff attorney Rosemarie Arnold confirmed with the Wall Street Journal that the settlement with the Horace Mann School had been reached. However, she declined to provide specifics.
The school wouldn’t comment.
Arnold represented a man who was in his 50s when he claimed a now-deceased music teacher had sexually abused him in the 1970s.
Nearly three dozen alumni have alleged they were abused, but they couldn’t sue under New York’s statute of limitations.
New Jersey’s limits are less restrictive.
Horace Mann publicly apologized for the abuse in 2013 and said it had reached settlements with nearly everyone, even though the school said they had no legal claim.

Pennsylvania
Ex-drug dealer loses job after trial testimony
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A police corruption trial in Philadelphia is far from over, but already one trial witness has been handed a losing verdict.
Witness Robert Kushner lost his varsity coaching job at a private academy after testifying this week about his years selling marijuana.
Kushner, 32, is one of more than a dozen former drug dealers testifying for the federal government about allegations of police wrongdoing. He told jurors Tuesday that some of the undercover officers on trial had stolen $81,000 in cash and 7 pounds of marijuana from him during a 2007 arrest.
That history came as news to officials at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in suburban Bryn Mawr.
Kushner had passed a background check when he was hired to coach basketball in 2010, head of school Sharon Levin told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Kushner testified that the 2007 charges were expunged as part of a probationary sentence. On cross-examination, he acknowledged that he was arrested again in 2011 and sentenced to four years of probation. He also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in 2008.
Kushner told the newspaper that he never meant to deceive the school, where he worked as a seasonal employee. And he believes he is innocent of the 2011 charges.
“All of the stuff that happened in 2007, that was eight years ago and was a bad phase of my life that I’ve moved past and never really looked back,” Kushner said Wednesday. “I’m very sorry, and I want the best for the kids.”
He also coaches in a Narberth summer league, where director Dan Kazanicka described him as an excellent coach who is good with kids.
Lawyers for the six former drug squad officers accused of racketeering have said the government case is based on 19 lying drug dealers and a rogue ex-cop.

Alabama
Man freed after nearly 30 years on death row
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A man who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row was freed Friday after a decades-long fight to prove his innocence.
Ray Hinton, 58, was released in the morning from the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham. He hugged tearful family members as he walked out and was embraced by his sister, Darlene Gardner, who said “Thank you Lord, thank you Jesus” as she hugged him.
“I shouldn’t have sat on death row for 30 years,” Hinton told reporters. “All they had to do was test the gun.”
Hinton was convicted of the 1985 murders of two Birmingham fast-food restaurant managers. Crime scene bullets were the only evidence that linked Hinton to the crime. However, prosecutors said this week that modern forensic methods did not show the fatal bullets came from a revolver in Hinton’s home, or even from the same gun.
Hinton said he would continue to pray for the victims’ families, as this was a miscarriage of justice for them as well.
“They had every intention of executing me for something I didn’t do,” Hinton said.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Hinton had inadequate counsel and sent the case back for a second trial. Prosecutors had been preparing for a retrial but moved to dismiss the case following the testing on the bullets.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that Hinton had “constitutionally deficient” representation at his initial trial. Hinton’s defense lawyer wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to try to rebut the prosecution testimony about the bullets. The lawyer hired the only person willing to take the job at that price, even though he had concerns about the expert’s credentials. At the time, jurors chuckled as the defense expert struggled to answer questions on cross-examination.
Bryan Stevenson, Hinton’s attorney and director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, said he pressed the state for years to re-test the gun, and for years officials refused. He said the case was emblematic of problems with the justice system.
Stevenson has said Hinton was convicted based on bad science because he didn’t have the money to prove his innocence at trial.
“He was convicted because he was poor,” Stevenson, who first took on the case 16 years ago, said Friday.