Court Digest

North Carolina
Supreme Court orders removal of Ruffin portrait
RALEIGH, NC — The North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered the removal of a portrait of Thomas Ruffin — a former chief justice and a slave owner who wrote an opinion holding that slave owners had “absolute power” over their slaves— from its prominent place in the state’s most prominent courtroom.

The Dec. 22 order directs that the portrait, which has loomed over the courtroom directly behind the chief justice’s seat for decades and dwarfs the portraits of other justices, be replaced by the Supreme Court Seal of North Carolina.

“It is important that our courtroom spaces convey the highest ideals of justice and that people who come before our Court feel comfortable knowing that they will be treated fairly.” North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley said in a statement. “The Court’s decision to remove the Ruffin portrait is a tremendous reflection of the progress that has been made since the time Chief Justice Ruffin served on the Court.”

The decision comes more than two years after the Supreme Court formed a task force to study whether the portrait should stay or go. The 15-member task force submitted its initial findings this summer and published an official report on Dec. 14.

The task force recommended that the portrait be removed and placed in storage at the North Carolina Museum of History or North Carolina Museum of Art and replaced with the seal. Ruffin’s portrait and others that hang at the Supreme Court have been owned by the history museum since 1999.

The task force also recommended that a smaller portrait of Ruffin be commissioned and hung beside the seal and reduce the size of all future portraits that are hung in the courtroom and halls of the Supreme Court. The order doesn’t address those recommendations.

Ruffin was chief justice from 1833 to 1852. He wrote in a 1829 decision, State v. Mann, that slave owners were allowed to use almost any means necessary to discipline and control slaves because a master needed to have absolute power to ensure a slave gave absolute submission.

Ruffin was also a slave trafficker who once beat a woman named “Bridget,” a slave that he had sold, for coming onto his property without permission. A few years later, during his tenure on the Supreme Court, Ruffin severely beat an enslaved woman belonging to an acquaintance of Ruffin’s, because she “gave him “a look of insolent audacity.” The report also notes that a neighbor challenged Ruffin’s “evil and barbarous treatment” of another slave.

Bree Newsome-Bass, a member of the task force, recommended in the report that all portraits should be removed. She said that while the task force’s work has been concentrated on the “life sized portrait as a venerated figure of the Confederacy,” Ruffin’s portrait began the tradition of hanging portraits of former justices in the courtroom.

“The maintenance of this tradition, while I appreciate its sentimental value to those who’ve served on the Supreme Court and their families, has little to do with the people of the state of North Carolina, the furtherance of justice or any effort to present the Court as a neutral arbiter on matters that come before it,” Newsome-Bass wrote. “None of the portraits therefore can truly be considered neutral images because, unlike the seal of the Supreme Court with its depiction of blind justice and its inscription “suum cuique tribuere”, each portrait is representative of that justice’s tenure, the decisions they made while on the bench and how they or their loved ones chose to commemorate their tenure in portraiture.”

New Mexico
AG: Records related to government contract work are public
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico attorney general’s office says autopsy reports done by a state-run office for a tribal entity or the federal government are subject to open record laws because the work is carried out in part using state funds and resources.

The written opinion was issued earlier this month. It stemmed from a request from the Rio Grande Sun newspaper for autopsy reports done by the state Office of the Medical Investigator under contract for the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal agencies over a two year period starting in January 2017.

The newspaper filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office in 2019 after being denied the records.

Assistant Attorney General John Kreienkamp wrote in the opinion that if such records were off limits, that would allow all other government agencies to perform contractual services either for other government entities or private ones and then decline to provide any information about those services to the public on the basis of a narrow interpretation of “public business.”

While the opinion isn’t legally binding, the attorney general’s office said the Office of the Medical Investigator has pledged to take remedial action, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

The Office of the Medical Investigator said in a statement that it appreciated the attorney general’s clarification and that it was committed to transparency.

Montana
Man charged with beating, killing his wife
KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — A Kalispell man is charged with causing fatal injuries to his wife while officers continue to investigate the reported suicide of his father, who was a potential witness.

Bradley Jay Hillious, 34, made an initial appearance in Justice Court Monday on a charge of deliberate homicide in the death of his wife, Amanda Hillious, 33. He did not enter a plea and was appointed a public defender. Justice of the Peace Paul Sullivan retained his bail at the $750,000 set in his arrest warrant.

Deputies were called to the Hillious residence in Kalispell on the morning of Dec. 15. Officers said Bradley Hillious and his father, Scott Hillious, were also at the residence along with Amanda’s four children ages 1, 3, 5 and 11.

Bradley Hillious reported that Amanda had fallen down the stairs, but later acknowledged a physical altercation between himself and his wife, court records said. Scott Hillious had told investigators that his son was in his own bedroom when Amanda Hillious reportedly fell.

Amanda Hillious died on Dec. 19 of blunt force trauma injuries associated with neck compression, court records said.

Two days later, her 11-year-old son told investigators he saw Bradley Hillious punching and hitting his mother and heard her scream to “call 911.” The 5-year-old reported he heard his mom scream, “stop Brad,” court records said.

On Dec. 24, deputies called to ask Bradley and Scott Hillious to come to the sheriff’s office for further interviews. Bradley said he wanted to talk to an attorney first, court records said. A short time later, Bradley Hillious contacted the sheriff’s office to report that his father had killed himself, court records said.

Bradley told investigators his father told him: “’I can’t do this anymore, I’m not going to jail’,” before taking his own life. Scott Hillious’ death is still under investigation, Flathead County Sheriff Scott Heino said.

Bradley Hillious is scheduled to enter a plea to a deliberate homicide charge in District Court on Jan. 7.

Oregon
Man serving 50-years for HIV sex assaults dies in prison
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A man convicted of sexually abusing multiple people while he knew he was infected with HIV died at the Oregon State Penitentiary.

The state Department of Corrections said Monday that 59-year-old Andrew Lee Boyer died Sunday. His earliest release date was August 2048.

He was convicted in 1998 in Yamhill County of sodomy and sex abuse involving four boys ages 12 to 18, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Court records show Boyer was additionally convicted of two counts of attempted aggravated murder for the sexual assault of two of his victims while knowing he was infected with HIV.

During his sentencing hearing, Judge John Hitchcock sentenced Boyer to 50 years, saying the man’s conduct had sunk to as “low a level in society as one could imagine,” according to news media accounts at the time.

Prosecutors said Boyer selected victims who would be less likely to raise an alarm, enticing them with alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana, press accounts said.

The agency doesn’t release the cause or manner of inmate deaths. But it’s unlikely he died from the coronavirus because the state released Boyer’s name and generally does not name inmates who have died after testing positive for COVID-19.

Colorado
Grand jury indicts crime group known as ‘The Family’
DENVER (AP) — A grand jury indicted 12 people who were part of a group known as “The Family” on charges of committing a series of crimes, some at gunpoint, to fuel their methamphetamine addiction, the Denver district attorney announced Monday.

Members of the group are accused of stealing the identities of more than 240 victims and taking more than $550,000 in vehicles. They also are accused of stealing and selling weapons, bicycles, sports memorabilia, jewelry, electronics, money and other items between April 2019 and October 2020, according to a news release by Denver District Attorney Beth McCann.

Sarah Marie Lore, 38, was known as the “street mom” and controlled other members of the group through violence, prosecutors said. She is accused of negotiating deals in person and over Facebook to buy and sell stolen items. The other members were known as “street sons,” “brothers” and “sisters,” prosecutors said.

Lore’s lawyer, Melissa Roth, declined to comment.

The group shared money, property, food, clothing and living quarters, prosecutors say.

The 12 defendants have been variously charged with violating Colorado’s Organized Crime Control Act, identity theft, kidnapping, burglary, theft, criminal extortion and assault. Additional details on the crimes weren’t immediately available.

Oregon
Lawsuit seeks reports on dams’ structural integrity
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An environmental group in Oregon has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not providing information about the structural integrity of Willamette River dams south of Portland.

The lawsuit, filed by Willamette Riverkeeper, stems from the Corps releasing a plan in January calling for restrictions on water levels behind Hills Creek and Lookout Point dams near Oakridge, Springfield and Eugene, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

The plan said higher water levels could increase the risk of dam failure and refers to reports on the dams.

Willamette Riverkeeper filed a public records request in March for the reports and other safety and risk assessments, but the group has yet to receive the requested information or a timeline on when it would be delivered.

“I think it begged the question for us at the very least to say, ‘What does the Corps know about the structural integrity of these 13 large dams in the Willamette River system?’” Willamette Riverkeeper Executive Director Travis Williams said. “There’s a lot that we should be able to know about all those dams, most of which have significant reservoirs behind them.”

Williams argued that if the dams need repairs, the work could open the door to adding fish passage for salmon and other environmental and conservation efforts.

The group also sued the Corps over what it calls a failure to protect threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead in its management of the dams. The dams were built for flood control, irrigation and hydropower, and none have fish ladders to help the fish maneuver around them.

“There could be opportunities if we’re looking 10, 15 years down the road to both improve the condition of a project if it has issues and make it have less of an impact on our river system,” Williams said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

Illinois
Judge rules against pot grower applicants seeking licenses
CHICAGO (AP) — An effort by the Illinois Craft Cannabis Association to force Gov. J.B. Pritzker to award grower licenses to its more than three dozen member has been rebuffed by a Cook County judge.

By law, 40 grower licenses were to be issued by July 1, but Pritzker hasn’t issued them. He initially cited the COVID-19 pandemic for delays in reviewing applications.

The Chicago Tribune  reports that in a ruling issued on Christmas Eve, Judge Allen Walker said the governor’s initial reason for delaying the licenses was insufficient. But Walker also wrote Pritzker has since clarified that the delay was necessary because the Illinois Department of Agriculture is now concentrating on oversight of meat and livestock facilities and the food supply chain due to the pandemic.

Craft grower association spokesman Paul Magelli says the group is considering an appeal.

In addition to the craft grower licenses, the Pritzker administration has delayed the issuance of infuser and transporter licenses, and licenses for 75 new recreational marijuana retail stores, which were to be awarded May 1.

Successful and unsuccessful applicants say the delay is costing them thousands of dollars to keep their business groups intact.