California
Serial killer on federal death row dies at Indiana hospital
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A convicted serial killer whose victims included two young boys died Sunday at a hospital in Indiana, authorities said.
Joseph Edward Duncan died at the medical center near United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, where he was on death row, according to a statement from
prosecutors in Riverside County, California.
Duncan, 58, had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Duncan was convicted of killing four members of a family from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 2005. He kidnapped two children, Dylan and Shasta Groene, from the family’s home and tortured them in Montana before killing the boy.
Shasta Groene was the only survivor of the rampage and was rescued when Duncan stopped at a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene and the staff recognized the girl.
Following that conviction, Duncan was extradited to Southern California to be tried for the death of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez of Riverside County in 1997. Duncan, who is from Tacoma, Washington, was linked by DNA to the killing. He pleaded guilty and received a sentence of life in prison.
“While I would’ve liked to witness his execution, knowing he is now standing before God being held accountable for what he has done, what he did to my son, and the horrible crimes he committed to others, that’s the real justice,” Anthony’s father, Ernesto Martinez, said in a statement provided by prosecutors.
In court filings earlier this year, attorneys disclosed that Duncan underwent brain surgery last October and was diagnosed with glioblastoma, stage 4 brain cancer. According to court records, he declined chemotherapy and radiation.
California
San Francisco ‘dope lawyer’ to the stars Brian Rohan dies
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Brian Rohan, who was known as San Francisco’s “dope lawyer” for 1960s counterculture clients like the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey, has died, according to a newspaper report Sunday. He was 84.
Rohan’s daughter, Kathleen Jolson, told the San Francisco Chronicle that her father died Tuesday at his home in the Bay Area city of Larkspur after a six-year battle with cancer.
After defending Kesey, author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for marijuana possession in 1965, Rohan became the go-to attorney for illegal drug charges, the Chronicle said.
Rohan co-founded the Haight Ashbury Legal Organization and the group recruited clients in part by setting up a table outside the Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury Street.
Thanks to his association with the Grateful Dead, Rohan also became a music lawyer. In 1966, he helped the band negotiate its first contract with Warner Bros. He also represented Janis Joplin, Santana and Jefferson Airplane.
His non-musician clients included Beat writer Neal Cassady and members of the Merry Pranksters, the communal travelers chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”
“Brian Rohan, though he is probably one of the most successful of the dope lawyers, hasn’t worn a suit in a year, his usual attire being faded corduroys and a T shirt,” the San Francisco Examiner wrote in a 1970 story. “He wears dark glasses at all times. ‘I can’t look people in the eye when I ask for all that money — I get it, and it’s insane.’”
Rohan spent his entire life on the West Coast, growing up in Washington before attending the University of Oregon and then University of California Hastings College of Law.
Rohan is survived by Jolson and sons Brian Rohan Jr., Chris Ray Rohan and Michael Lonan.
Jolson told the Chronicle he died in his sleep.
“He worked until the last day of his life, clutching his phone in one hand and his iPad in the other,” she said. “He fought for his clients, he fought for his friends, and he fought for what he thought was right.”
Pennsylvania
Prison guard sues AG Shapiro over scuttled prosecution
One of seven prison guards named in a highly publicized sexual abuse case three years ago filed a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, accusing him of malicious prosecution after the charges were ultimately dropped.
Shapiro and his office acted recklessly when they charged Lackawanna County Prison guard Paul Voglino with sexually assaulting a female inmate around 2002 or 2003, and should have known the accuser had fabricated her story in hopes of getting a financial payout, the lawsuit said.
Prosecutors quietly dropped the case against Voglino in August 2019, more than a year after filing it.
“The defendants ruined Paul Voglino’s life by filing scurrilous criminal charges against him when they knew the alleged victim had given law enforcement officers false information,” Voglino’s attorneys, Joseph D’Andrea and Timothy Hinton, said in a statement Monday. “The damage they caused Paul Voglino can never be repaired. We are seeking to hold the defendants accountable and force them to explain why they acted so outrageously.
The suit, filed in federal court Friday, accuses Shapiro, two subordinates and a state police trooper of violating Voglino’s civil rights. It seeks monetary damages.
An email seeking comment was sent to Shapiro’s office.
Shapiro traveled to Scranton for a news conference in February 2018 to announce the results of a grand jury probe into what he called a “persistent culture of abuse” that has plagued the scandal-ridden lockup for more than a decade. He said the abuse was widely known, broadly hinting at a cover-up.
Seven guards were charged, but only three of the cases resulted in convictions.
Two of the defendants were acquitted at trial, one case was dismissed, and prosecutors dropped charges against Voglino. Three other defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to reduced charges and received probation or fines.
State prosecutors had alleged a culture of sexual coercion and cover-up at the jail in Scranton. A grand jury that investigated the prison for a year said in 2018 that guards traded commissary items, food, cigarettes or extra phone time for sex.
