National Roundup

Oregon
Longshore union can immediately appeal jury verdict damages
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Thursday that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union can immediately appeal a jury verdict that it was liable for damages and must pay millions of dollars to former Port of Portland Terminal 6 operator ICTSI Oregon Inc.

A federal jury in November awarded $93.6 million in damages to ICTSI Oregon. In March, however, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon decreased the amount to just over $19 million, finding the evidence at trial didn’t support the jury’s larger award, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

The judge gave ICTSI Oregon the choice of accepting the lower amount or holding a new trial on the damages. ICTSI rejected the lower amount, setting the stage for a new trial.

Simon on Thursday granted the union’s request to pause setting a new trial until its appeal is considered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A jury found that the union sabotaged shipping traffic and caused productivity to nosedive through years of labor slowdowns and stoppages at the port’s container terminal. The union’s workers were pressuring ICTSI Oregon to give them dockside jobs plugging in, unplugging and monitoring refrigerated containers, taking the so-called “reefer’’ jobs away from an electricians union.

The Philippine-owned ICTSI Oregon, which signed a 25-year lease in 2010 to operate Terminal 6, left the port in March 2017, idled by the labor strife it says the national longshore union and the local chapter encouraged. The company argued at trial that the union engaged in illegal labor practices over nearly five years and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to its business.

Mississippi
Man pleads to helping his brother charged in officer’s death
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man told a judge Thursday that he helped his brother try to evade investigators as his brother was being sought in the 2019 shooting death of a Biloxi police officer.

Davian Atkinson, 22, pleaded guilty to a charge of accessory after the fact to capital murder, news outlets reported. His brother, 20-year-old Darian Atkinson, is awaiting trial on a capital murder charge in the slaying of Officer Robert “Mac” McKeithen.

Davian Atkinson became the fifth person to plead to accessory-after-the-fact charges in the case. He said Thursday in Harrison County Circuit Court that he gave his brother a ride to Wiggins during the early hours of May 6, 2019. He also admitted knowing at that time that his brother was a suspect in the killing of a police officer, and that he was hoping to help his brother escape capture.

Circuit Judge Christopher Schmidt ruled last week that Darian Atkinson is mentally competent to stand trial. Defense attorney Theressia Lyons plans to argue insanity during the trial that is set to begin Sept. 20.
She said Darian Aktinson has a mental and emotional impairment that prevents him from fully understanding his actions the night McKeithen was shot.

Davian Atkinson and four other people who have pleaded guilty to accessory charges are set to be sentenced on Sept. 8. Davian Atkinson’s attorney, Michael Crosby, said he plans to submit letters to the judge from people attesting to his client’s character and lack of prior arrests.

Ohio
Parents settle lawsuit over son’s baptism
PAINESVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The parents of disabled Ohio teen have settled a lawsuit against a church and others over what they said was the boy’s forced baptism at a picnic in 2016, the parents’ attorneys said.

The confidential settlement on behalf of April and Gregg DeFibaugh and their son, identified as “V”, was agreed to earlier this year in Lake County outside Cleveland. It was announced Thursday by a spokesman for the group American Atheists.

The lawsuit claimed a man from a northeast Ohio Big Brothers Big Sisters group took the boy, then 11, to a Morning Star Friends Church picnic in August 2016 and told him he would stop taking him to minor league baseball games if he did not agree to be baptized.

The full immersion baptism traumatized the boy, causing anxiety and recurring nightmares about drowning, the lawsuit said.

“Although no settlement or verdict could undo the anguish their son suffered, the DeFibaughs are pleased with the outcome, said American Atheist attorney Geoffrey Blackwell in a statement.

An attorney for Big Brothers Big Sisters said Friday that the lawsuit found no fault with the group. Attorneys for the boy’s big brother, the church and a minister declined to comment, citing the confidential settlement terms.

Illinois
Another effort to free ex-professor accused of murder
CHICAGO (AP) — Lawyers for a former Northwestern University professor charged in the murder of his boyfriend argued Thursday he should be released on $1.5 million bail before trial.

Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns last month  denied Wyndham Lathem’s request to be released on $1 million so that the infectious disease expert can assist in the battle against the coronavirus.

Lathem is accused in the 2017 stabbing death of Trenton Cornell-Duranleau. Latham’s accomplice, Oxford University employee Andrew Warren, pleaded guilty last year in a deal that calls for him to testify against Lathem, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lathem, 45, has been held in Cook County Jail without bail since his arrest and lost his position as a professor at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.

The Chicago Sun-Times  reports Defense attorney Adam Sheppard told the judge if Lathem is released, a third-party custodian would rent an apartment for Lathem and check in with him multiple times a day while he helps in curbing the pandemic.

Sheppard said that while the man “isn’t somebody who’s in the bag for Dr. Lathem,” he “believes in Dr. Lathem’s ability and character to comply with the conditions of bond.

Assistant State’s Attorney Craig Engebretson said Lathem led authorities on a manhunt across the country before his arrest and remains a flight risk.

Burns did not rule on Lathem’s motion, setting a court date for June 12.