Missouri
Court: Jackson County judges can’t hear Strickland arguments
LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — All judges in the 16th Judicial District based in Jackson County will be prohibited from presiding over an evidentiary hearing that could determine whether a Kansas City man would be exonerated in a triple murder committed more than 40 years ago, a Missouri Supreme Court justice ordered Thursday.
The ruling came in the case of Kevin Strickland, 62, who was scheduled to have an evidentiary hearing next week to determine if he would be freed, after Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker announced in May that new evidence indicated he did not commit the murders.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt argued in a petition filed Thursday with the state Supreme Court that Judge Kevin Harrell and all judges in the 16th Judicial District, which includes a large portion of Kansas City, were biased in favor of Strickland. He cited a letter from the circuit’s presiding judge that said he agrees that Strickland was wrongfully convicted.
Schmitt, a Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate, has said he believes Strickland is guilty.
Earlier this month, Harrell rejected a motion from Schmitt that he recuse himself and all other 16th Circuit judges. A Missouri appeals court rejected Schmitt’s arguments last week.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Wilson wrote in a brief ruling that Harrell had not shown any disqualifying bias in previous hearings in Strickland’s case.
“Nevertheless, to avoid even the appearance of partiality or impropriety, this Court finds it necessary to prohibit (Harrell) and all other judges in the 16th Judicial Circuit
from presiding over (Strickland’s hearing),” Wilson wrote.
Wilson appointed senior Judge James Welsh to preside over the hearing. Welsh was named a senior judge after serving on the Western District of the Missouri Court of Appeals and in Clay County courts. He retired in 2018.
The ruling was likely to delay the evidentiary hearing, which was scheduled to be held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Jared Bustamante, a spokesman for Peters-Baker’s office, said she would have no comment on Thursday’s ruling.
An Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for Schmitt, said the attorney general also would not comment on the decision.
Peters Baker and Strickland’s attorneys have argued that evidence used to convict him in 1979 has been disproved or recanted. Prosecutors said the only person to identify Strickland as the shooter later recanted and two men who were convicted have said Strickland was not with them when John Walker, 20; Sherrie Black, 22; and 21-year-old Larry Ingram, were killed.
Under a new state law that took effect in August, Peters Baker filed a motion asking a judge to hold the evidentiary hearing to determine if Strickland should be freed.
Ohio
DeWine’s son won’t recuse himself from redistricting cases
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine said Thursday that he will not recuse himself from cases involving new state legislative maps approved by his father, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
“There is no basis for me to do so,” the justice told The Columbus Dispatch in a text message. His decision was first reported by Spectrum News.
DeWine, also a Republican, explained that his father was just one of seven members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission that okayed the maps of Ohio House and Ohio Senate districts. That means the governor’s influence was “considerably less” in crafting the maps than it would be over a state department.
Three separate lawsuits have been filed in the Ohio Supreme Court over the maps, which cleared the Republican-controlled redistricting panel along party lines. The Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to disqualify themselves from any case in which their impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.”
Democrats accused the DeWine family of bending the rules for political gain.
“Even though Justice DeWine has recused himself before on cases involving his father, they’re deciding to play by a different set of rules now that the political future of our state is at stake,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Matt Keyes.
Georgia
Prisoner gets life without parole in guard killings
EATONTON, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia prisoner found guilty of murder in the 2017 killings of two guards on a transport bus was sentenced Wednesday to serve life in prison without parole.
After taking only a few hours last week to convict Donnie Rowe of malice murder and other crimes, jurors could not agree on whether he should be sentenced to death, news outlets reported. Putnam County Superior Court Chief Judge Brenda Trammell then sentenced Rowe to serve life in prison without parole. A death sentence requires a unanimous jury.
The jury included seven women and five men who had been brought to Eatonton from Grady County, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south, because of pretrial publicity. They deliberated for three hours Tuesday and five hours Wednesday, according to news outlets.
Rowe and fellow prisoner Ricky Dubose were accused of fatally shooting Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue while escaping from a prison transfer bus southeast of Atlanta in June 2017. They were arrested in Tennessee a few days later.
Dubose is to be tried separately and also faces the death penalty.
Security cameras on the bus recorded the violent escape while roughly 30 other prisoners witnessed the killings from the back of the bus.
Rowe’s defense attorneys had argued he didn’t know Dubose would kill the guards and should be spared a death sentence. District Attorney Wright Barksdale had argued that Rowe hatched the escape plot and the crime took both men to complete.
In addition to the security video, jurors got a firsthand look in the courthouse parking lot of the bus where the slayings occurred. They also heard from the man whose car the inmates stole right after fleeing the bus, as well as a homeowner in Rutherford County, Tennessee, who grabbed a pistol and called 911 after seeing Rowe and Dubose walking toward his house. He testified that the exhausted fugitives laid down and surrendered.
Rowe did not testify. His defense attorneys played the jury audio and video of Dubose saying he was the one who shot both officers. The defense lawyers then rested their case.
Rowe was already serving a sentence of life without parole for an armed robbery conviction when the guards were slain four years ago.
New York
Amazon settles with outspoken workers it fired last year
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is settling with two former tech workers who accused the retail giant of illegally firing them last year for speaking out against the company.
The former employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, publicly criticized the company and pushed Amazon to better protect warehouse workers from COVID-19. They also wanted Amazon to do more to reduce its impact on climate change.
Cunningham and Costa said the settlement means Amazon will have to pay them lost wages and put up notices saying the company can’t fire workers for organizing and exercising their rights.
“This is a win for protecting workers rights, and shows that we were right to stand up for each other, for justice, and for our world,” Cunningham and Costa said in a statement.
In settling, Amazon also avoids a potentially lengthy hearing before the National Labor Relations Board. Amazon said in a statement Thursday that it welcomes “the resolution of this matter.”
The former employees, who were user-experience designers at Amazon in Seattle, were the two most prominent voices among a group of workers who wanted the company to take more steps to combat climate change and stop doing business with oil and gas companies. They held protests and spoke to the media about their concerns.
Last year, as COVID-19 spread in the U.S., Cunningham and Costa were fired after helping to plan a call between Amazon warehouse and office workers to talk about unsafe conditions in the online shopping giant’s warehouses, where people worked throughout the pandemic to pack and ship online orders.
At the time Amazon said it fired them for violating internal policies, not because they talked publicly about working conditions or sustainability.
Shortly after, an Amazon executive quit in protest, saying he couldn’t stand by as whistleblowers were silenced.
South Carolina
Teen gets 6 years for street race that killed 2
YORK, S.C. (AP) — A teen has been ordered to serve six years in prison for killing two people in a crash that prosecutors said happened during an illegal street race.
Justin Rafael Valdez, 19, pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of reckless homicide in the Feb. 20 wreck in Rock Hill that killed a chiropractor and his wife, The Herald of Rock Hill reported.
Valdez and his lawyers said he was not street racing, but did say he was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic before the head-on wreck on a Saturday evening on state Highway 161 — one of Rock Hill’s busiest roads.
Valdez was driving at 95 mph (153 kph) just seconds before the wreck and witnesses and surveillance video showed he was racing someone who has not been identified, prosecutors said.
“The roads are not a NASCAR course. The end result is going to be fatal, said 16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett, who said Valdez had other speeding tickets in just a few years of driving.
The crash killed Donald and Teresa Hewetson, whose family asked the judge to sentence Valdez to the maximum of 20 years. Judge Brian Gibbons agreed to the maximum 20 years, but suspended the sentence to six years behind bars as long as Valdez completes three years of probation.
A passenger in Valdez’s car also was injured.
Valdez apologized to the family of the husband and wife he killed and his lawyers asked for mercy because he made a thoughtless mistake.
“What we have here is a young man who for two or three minutes out of his life, made a terrible mistake,” defense attorney Montrio Belton said. “This is a caring, Christian young man.”
New York
Teachers turn to U.S. Supreme Court over NYC vaccine mandate
NEW YORK (AP) — A group of teachers asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday for an emergency injunction blocking implementation of New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public schools staff.
The city has given its roughly 148,000 school employees until 5 p.m. Friday to get at least their first vaccine shot, or face suspension without pay when schools open on Monday.
An original deadline earlier this week was delayed by a legal challenge. A federal appeals panel decided Monday that the nation’s largest school district could go ahead with the mandate.
An email was sent to City Hall seeking comment.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he is confident courts will uphold the city’s efforts to exclude unvaccinated staff from school buildings, where they might infect co-workers or children too young to get the shots.
The battle over the safety of city classrooms is occurring as the state of New York is sparring in court with opponents of its vaccine mandate for workers at hospitals and nursing homes.
Courts allowed the mandate to go forward, but a federal judge in central New York has temporarily barred employers from enforcing it against people who have religious objections to getting the shots. Only a small slice of health care workers have sought a religious exemption.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued an order Thursday that the stay on enforcement against people with religious objections will remain in effect until an appeal is resolved. It scheduled arguments for Oct. 14.
More than 15,000 nursing home patients have died in New York during the pandemic. Health officials have said many of those patients were probably infected by nursing home staff before vaccines became available.
Ohio
Jury recommends life for man convicted in deadly arson fires
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — A jury recommended Friday that a man convicted of killing nine people in separate arson fires in his Akron neighborhood should be sentenced to life in prison instead of the death penalty.
Stanley Ford, 62, was found guilty Sept. 21 on 26 of the 29 counts against him, including aggravated murder and aggravated arson. A judge will make the final decision on his sentence, but a hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Summit County prosecutors said Ford killed a couple in 2016 and two adults and five children in 2017. They used surveillance video footage, security alarm records and the testimony of neighbors to show Ford was responsible.
Prosecutors said Ford set the fires because of disputes with his neighbors. Ford has maintained his innocence, and his attorney argued at trial that Ford could not be identified in the surveillance videos and added that other potential suspects were identified.
Ford's initial trial began in March 2020. After a week of testimony and several delays, Summit County Judge Christine Croce declared a mistrial the following June at the request of Ford's attorneys, who cited concerns about Ford's ability to get a fair trial during the coronavirus pandemic.
