Court Digest

New Mexico
Education lawsuit demands internet for students
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Lawyers representing New Mexico students say the state’s attempts to provide internet access and learning devices to children is “woefully insufficient.”

With in-person learning banned by state officials until mid-January and plans for hybrid learning scrapped for the vast majority of students earlier this year, the inability to access remote classes has been a challenge for many rural and low-income students, particularly Native American children living on tribal lands.

“We were hopeful children could return to in-person learning in early fall, but that didn’t happen,” said Maria Archuleta with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which has been involved in the case. “Access to technology was essential before the pandemic and will be when the pandemic is over. Right now, it is absolutely necessary. Beyond critical. Kids simply can’t do without it.”

Education officials across the state’s 89 school districts have purchased tens of thousands of laptops and worked with the governor and the Public Education Department to provide Wi-Fi hotspots in many areas during the pandemic.

But thousands of children are still offline, and an untold number have limited internet connectivity that doesn’t allow them to upload or download video. Some students have relied on their parent’s cell phone hotspots, which can run out of data or can’t be left at home when the parent goes to work.

In a motion filed Tuesday, lawyers have asked state District Judge Matthew Wilson to order the state to connect more children to online learning by immediately identifying students who lacks laptops or tablets and providing internet vouchers for at-risk households.

Around 9% of New Mexico students don’t live on the broadband grid, Archuleta said.

The motion also seeks to force the state to provide Wi-Fi hotspots immediately while it works to lay fiber optic cable to reach students’ homes.

Separate lawsuits over the adequacy of New Mexico’s education system were originally filed against then-Gov. Susana Martinez in 2014 and went to trial in 2017. The center’s lawyers work as part of the team litigating the case, which merged the long-standing concerns of Native Americans, English language learners, the emotionally and physically disabled and low-income students.

The case also is supported by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The center estimates that around 80% of New Mexico’s children are represented by the suit.

The right to an “adequate” education is guaranteed in New Mexico’s constitution, but the state hasn’t met that standard, according to the courts. The plaintiffs marked a key victory in 2018 when a judge ruled the state’s education system was in violation of the constitution.

Earlier this year, Wilson rejected Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s request to dismiss the suit, saying the state hadn’t complied with the court’s order to fix the education system.

Florida
Pastor who fought alcohol charged with child porn
MILTON, Fla. (AP) — A Florida pastor who crusaded against alcohol sales on Sundays is now facing child pornography charges, state investigators say.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported William Dalton Milam, 62, was arrested Monday on two counts of promoting sexual performance of a child and 25 counts of possession of child pornography.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday if Milam has a lawyer.

The Pensacola News Journal  reports Milam is pastor at the Olivet Baptist Church in Milton and was an outspoken critic of the consumption of alcohol. He delivered a sermon there last Sunday.

FDLE said agents received a tip about Milam from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which led them to a computer address traced to Milam’s home.
Authorities say a search warrant led agents to multiple devices containing child pornography, some depicting children as young as 3 engaged in sex acts.

Milam vocally opposed a 2016 campaign by Santa Rosa County cities to change local ordinances to allow the sale of liquor on Sundays.

California
Appeals court sends ‘Leaving Neverland’ fight to arbitration
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a lawsuit filed by the Michael Jackson estate over an HBO documentary about two of the late pop star’s sex abuse accusers can go forward in private arbitration.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with two lower courts and ruled in favor of the Jackson estate in its decision on “Leaving Neverland.”

Unless there are further appeals, the case will go to a private arbitrator, which the Jackson estate argued was required by the 1992 contract at the center of the lawsuit.

That means the proceedings will be largely shielded from public view, though Jackson attorneys said in court filings that they would like for them to be as open as possible and sought private arbitration because it was the only way available to sue under the contract.

The decades-old agreement to put a Jackson concert on HBO required that the cable channel not disparage Jackson, which the lawsuit says it did by airing the molestation allegations of Wade Robson and James Safechuck in “Leaving Neverland.”

“In the court’s own words, HBO ‘agreed that it would not make any disparaging remarks concerning Jackson,’” estate attorneys Howard Weitzman and Jonathan Steinsapir said in a statement. “It’s time for HBO to answer for its violation of its obligations to Michael Jackson.”

HBO had argued that the provision was no longer valid because both sides had performed their parts of the agreement. HBO has also more generally defended “Leaving Neverland” as a valid and important piece of documentary journalism.

HBO representative Karen Jones did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the decision.

Jackson’s estate and family have said the documentary’s allegations are false and came from two men who previously told authorities they were not molested.

In separate cases, Safechuck and Robson sued two corporations created by Jackson over their allegations.

Safechuck’s lawsuit was dismissed last month.

“Leaving Neverland” director Dan Reed has been filming the hearings in those cases for a follow-up documentary.

Jackson died in 2009 at age 50.

Tennessee
Federal judge again rules against state in abortion case
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge who earlier this year struck down Tennessee’s 48-hour waiting period for abortions as unconstitutional has ruled against the state again. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman refused on Monday to put his earlier order on hold while the state appeals to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Freidman ruled in October that Tennessee’s waiting period law serves no legitimate purpose while placing a substantial burden on women who seek abortions in Tennessee. The 2015 law required women to make two trips to an abortion clinic, first for mandatory counseling and then for the abortion at least 48 hours later.

Directors of Tennessee abortion clinics testified during the 2019 trial that the waiting period posed logistical challenges for patients and clinics that could actually delay abortions by weeks. At times, women were no longer eligible for medication abortions because their pregnancies were too far along and they had to get surgical abortions instead, which have greater risks of complications. A few women were pushed beyond the time when they could receive an abortion altogether.

A motion filed last month by state Attorney General Herbert Slatery in the U.S. District Court in Nashville asked Friedman to keep the law in place during the appeal. It argued that Friedman should have weighed the benefits of the restriction against the burdens it places on patients.

In his opinion Monday, Friedman stated that the outcome would have been the same. “With or without such a balancing test, the Tennessee statute constitutes a ‘substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion’ and, thus, an undue burden,” he wrote.

Tennessee also argued that the statute is not a burden for a “large fraction” of the people it affects.

“This is incorrect,” Friedman wrote, noting that he found in his October ruling that the restriction “’burdens the majority of abortion patients with significant, and often insurmountable, logistical and financial hurdles.’”

Before the law was struck down, Tennessee was one of 13 states that required in-person counseling and then a waiting period before a woman could get an abortion, necessitating two separate trips to the facility, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

Massachusetts
Former mayor’s aide pleads guilty in public corruption case
FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) — The ex-chief of staff to a former Massachusetts mayor has pleaded guilty to extortion, bribery and other charges in a federal public corruption case.

WPRI-TV reports Genoveva Andrade changed her plea to guilty on Monday during a court hearing conducted remotely in the case against former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II.

The station said the plea deal reached with prosecutors would allow her to avoid prison time if approved by a federal judge.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock said he’d take the agreement under consideration. Andrade, 49, of Somerset, will be sentenced in April.

Correia’s trial had been slated to start in February, but has been pushed back several times because of the pandemic.

Prosecutors allege Correia extorted $600,000 from marijuana vendors seeking to do business in the city, and bilked nearly $300,000 from investors in his smartphone app company.

Andrade is facing six counts for allegedly aiding Correia in the marijuana scheme. Prosecutors say Andrade also agreed to kick back to Correia half her salary in order to retain her job.

Both had repeatedly denied the allegations, saying they were politically motivated.

New York
Judge won’t let  defendant move border wall trial
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge refused Monday to move a criminal trial from New York to Colorado for a businessman charged with teaming up with a former chief strategist for President Donald Trump in a southern border wall fundraising scam.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan turned down Timothy Shea’s request, saying letting Shea face trial where he lives would be an unreasonable burden on the court system and on others involved in the trial, including victims of the alleged scheme.

She said a venue change would force two separate trials since Shea was not joined in his request by three other co-defendants, including ex-Trump strategist Steve Bannon.
All four are charged in a scheme to rip off investors nationwide by deceiving them about how they would spend $25 million raised for the “We Build The Wall” campaign. They’ve all pleaded not guilty.

Last month, Shea asked to move his trial to Colorado, saying a New York trial would be a burden since he has no ties to the city.

The judge also rejected a request to lift a freeze on bank accounts, including some that hold money raised in the campaign. She said the subject can be addressed after a trial.

Shea has been free on bail since his summer arrest.

An indictment alleged that Shea let co-defendants including Bannon move money through a shell company he controlled so that they could hide how donations were spent.

Bannon and two other defendants allegedly promised donors no money would be diverted, but the indictment said Bannon diverted over a million dollars, paying salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself.

Shea’s lawyer, John Meringolo, said in an email: “We respect the Court’s decision.”

In court papers, Meringolo had noted that Shea has long lived in Castle Rock, Colorado, where he owns a fledgling energy drink company called Winning Energy. The company’s cans feature a cartoon superhero image of Trump and claim to contain “12 oz. of liberal tears.”