Court Digest

Pennsylvania
DA drops 'vicious lies' defense, pleads guilty in sex case
A Pennsylvania district attorney who had cast the sex case against him as a pack of "vicious lies" pleaded guilty Friday to pressuring clients for sex when he was a defense attorney and then coercing them to keep quiet about it.

Bradford County District Attorney Chad Salsman admitted guilt and resigned from office three months after claiming he had "committed no crimes" and hinting he was the victim of a political smear by the state's top prosecutor.

Salsman, who took office a year ago, was charged Feb. 3 with sexually assaulting women who were his clients in criminal and child custody cases when he worked as a defense attorney. The accusers told a grand jury that he groped them, sought nude photos, and pressured or forced them into sexual acts, sometimes on his office desk.

He pleaded guilty to reduced charges of witness intimidation, promoting prostitution and obstruction of justice, according to the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. The prostitution charge is a felony that carries a maximum of 11 years in prison. Salsman will be sentenced July 9.

After Salsman was first charged, he emailed a statement from his Bradford County government address that cast the accusations as "vicious lies" and pledged to "vigorously defending myself against these false allegations." He added: "Anyone who knows me knows that the picture the Attorney General is painting is not Chad Salsman."

Salsman, a Republican, had also accused Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, of turning his case into a media spectacle, complaining about being handcuffed and "paraded in front of television cameras."

The attorney general's office said Friday that "despite Mr. Salsman's efforts to interfere in the investigation and his claims that the grand jury was politically motivated, today he is taking responsibility for his actions."

Salsman "pressured clients into prostitution for legal services and used his power as a private attorney, and then as district attorney, to repeatedly harass, coerce, and intimidate victims," the attorney's general's office said in a news release.

Indiana
Jury awards girl $96K for bounce house injuries
VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) — A jury has awarded nearly $96,000 in damages to a northwest Indiana girl who was injured in 2018 while playing in a bounce house at a local YMCA.

After a four-day trial in the civil case against Valparaiso Family YMCA, the Porter County jury awarded the girl $95,833 Thursday in compensatory damages.

The Valparaiso girl was 2 years old when she was injured in August 2018 while playing in an inflatable bounce house at the YMCA in the city about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Gary, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.

A lawsuit filed on her behalf alleged she suffered permanent and severe injuries that resulted in medical expenses, and alleged negligence and wanton conduct by the YMCA.

In their verdict, the jurors found ordinary negligence by the YMCA and decided that its actions did not amount to gross negligence, said Jennifer Diane Norris, an attorney for the YMCA.

Norris said Friday the YMCA admitted being responsible for the injuries the girl had suffered, so the case turned on the question of "the nature and extent of those damages as a result of her injuries."

She said the YMCA "believes the jury's decision was fair" and wishes the girl "the best in the future."

Attorney Kenneth J. Allen, whose office filed the lawsuit, said Friday he and the girl's family believe the "jury's verdict will result in changes being made, and for that both the family and I are gratified."

Idaho
State sets June execution date for Gerald Ross Pizzuto Jr.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho death row inmate Gerald Ross Pizzuto Jr. has been scheduled for execution by lethal injection on June 2.

A judge signed the death warrant for the terminally ill 65-year-old inmate on Wednesday.

The planned execution was first reported by The Marshall Project, a non-profit investigative newsroom that focuses on criminal justice issues, which said Pizzuto has been on hospice care with bladder tumors, diabetes and other serious medical issues for more than a year.

Pizzuto is one of eight people on Idaho's death row. He was sent there in 1986 after his murder conviction for the 1985 beating deaths of Berta Herndon, 58, and her nephew Del Herndon, 37, at a remote Idaho County cabin where they were prospecting.

Prosecutors said Pizzuto, armed with a .22 caliber rifle, tied the victims' wrists behind their backs and bound their legs to steal their money. He bludgeoned them both and shot Del Herndon.

In appeals, Pizzuto has argued that he is intellectually disabled and that federal law prohibits the execution of people with intellectual disabilities.

But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 upheld a lower court's ruling that Pizzuto failed to show he met the criteria to be considered intellectually disabled.

Idaho has executed three people since capital punishment was resumed nationwide in 1976.

Keith Eugene Wells was executed in 1994, Paul Ezra Rhodes was executed in 2011 and Richard Albert Leavitt was executed in 2012.

Pizzuto and another death row inmate, Thomas Eugene Creech, have sued the state over what they say is a lack of information in the Department of Correction's execution protocol.

Under the state's "Standard Operating Procedure" plan for executions, the correction director can revise the execution protocol at any time at his sole discretion.

Pizzuto's legal team has said that makes it impossible for them to determine how the lethal injection drugs and procedures might violate their constitutional rights.

It's become increasingly difficult for states to obtain the drugs commonly used in lethal injections.

Major pharmaceutical companies will no longer sell the drugs to prisons for executions, and some states — including Idaho — have turned to compounding pharmacies or purchasing the lethal injection drugs overseas. In both cases, the drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Pizzuto's attorneys have said, and can lead to botched executions.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in that case last month but has not issued a ruling.

Oregon
Ex-prosecutor settles for $87K in lawsuit over discrimination
BEND, Ore. (AP) — A former Deschutes County deputy district attorney who sued the county, alleging race and sexual discrimination has reached an $87,500 settlement with the county, District Attorney John Hummel announced Thursday.

A Portland attorney representing Jasmyn Troncoso, who was hired in 2019, filed the tort claim notice a year ago, alleging the discrimination began in the summer of 2019. She resigned in 2020 before the notice of intent to sue was filed.

Troncoso alleged her co-workers bullied her, told her she was unqualified and a drama queen, accused her of having affairs and ridiculed her for speaking Spanish.

The office hired an investigator who found one allegation was substantiated. The substantiated claim was that a mug with offensive language on it was on the desk of an employee. That employee was suspended for five days without pay as a result, according to a news release from Hummel's office.

"Because the mug was offensive, because Ms. Troncoso saw it when she worked in the office and was rightfully bothered by it, and because she experienced stress and discomfort as a result of observing the mug, the County chose to compensate her and take steps to ensure something like this never happens again," the news release says.

After the investigator's report was released, Troncoso expressed disappointment but not surprise at the findings and her lawyer, Matthew Ellis, disputed the independent nature of the investigation, calling it "hugely biased."

Texas
DA won't seek death for a man accused of 1974 killing of teen girl
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Prosecutors in Texas said Thursday that they wouldn't seek the death penalty for a 78-year-old man arrested last year and accused of the 1974 abduction and slaying of a teen girl.

The Tarrant County district attorney's office has submitted documents seeking life imprisonment without parole for Glen McCurley, arrested in September  on a capital murder charge in the slaying of 17-year-old Carla Walker.

District Attorney Sharen Wilson said they determined "justice would best be served" by a sentence ensuring McCurley "will spend the rest of his days in prison."

Walker's family supported the decision, she said.

Police had said the Fort Worth high school student was with her boyfriend in a car outside a bowling alley after a Valentine's Day dance on Feb. 17, 1974, when a man pistol-whipped the boy and abducted her.
Searchers found her sexually assaulted and strangled to death three days later near a lake near where she had been abducted, prosecutors said.

McCurley's attorney, Steve Miears, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "We are continuing our investigation of the case."

The case had gone unsolved for 46 years before investigators reopened it in 2019. Police linked it to McCurley through advancements in DNA technology.

McCurley is jailed on a $500,000 bond while awaiting trial.