Court Roundup

California: Oakland settles suit over fatal police shooting
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The city of Oakland will pay half a million dollars to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by the parents of a teenage boy shot to death by police officers.

Jose Luis Buenrostro was killed on March 2008. Police say gang unit officers shot the 15-year-old Buenrostro when he pointed a sawed-off riffle at them.

But in the U.S. District Court lawsuit settled Tuesday, the youth’s parents argue that Sgt. Randy Brandwood and Officers Eric Milina and Robert Roche stopped their son and shot him without cause.

Roche has been involved in two other fatal shootings.

The Buenrostro family’s attorney says the teenager had a weapon in his possession, but was raising his hands when he was killed. He claims the police overreacted.

Police say the teenager had ties to a gang.

Arkansas: Wyeth wins latest trial over drugs’ cancer risk
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal jury has sided with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in the latest lawsuit that accused the drugmaker of not disclosing a link between its hormone replacement therapy and a higher risk of breast cancer.

A Little Rock jury deliberated briefly Tuesday before siding with Wyeth, which argued that it adequately warned doctors and patients of the risks associated with its Prempro and Premarin drugs.

Margaret Wilson and her husband, Billy Wilson, sued the drugmaker after she developed breast cancer after taking Prempro for 41/2 years. The suit was one of thousands pending nationwide over the hormone replacement therapy.

Pfizer Inc. bought Wyeth for $68 billion in 2009.

New York: Court gets case of bystanders hit in NYPD shootout
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state’s top court is set to hear oral arguments in a negligence case against the New York Police Department from a 2005 shootout with a robbery suspect during which a mother, her toddler and another innocent bystander were shot.

The Court of Appeals is weighing whether to reinstate the lawsuit dismissed by a divided lower court.

Three Appellate Division justices found the five officers took appropriate measures to protect themselves and the public endangered by the fleeing felon, who was shot and killed by police.

However, two justices disagreed, finding an issue to be decided at trial: whether two officers violated police department guidelines and failed to first ascertain whether innocent people were “unnecessarily endangered.”

Pennsylvania: Secret Service agent sues police for harassment
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — The head of the Secret Service office in northeastern Pennsylvania claims state police harassed him because he ran a license plate that was traced to a state police captain.

The federal civil rights lawsuit filed Friday in Scranton claims Agent William Slavoski was intimidated by troopers after running a license plate at the request of a police detective who thought he was being stalked.

Slavoski’s suit says the plate turned out to be linked to a state police captain working in the department’s Bureau of Integrity and Professional Standards. Slavoski says state police retaliated by harassing him and limiting his access to police databanks for a year.

The suit names state police Commissioner Frank Pawlowski and other troopers. A phone message left for state police by the Associated Press was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Missouri: Four Amish elders plead guilty for not reporting abuse
MARSHFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Four elders of an Amish church in southwest Missouri have pleaded guilty to not reporting that a church member was committing child abuse.

Christian Schwartz, Jacob Schwartz, Emmanuel Eicher and Peter Eicher pleaded guilty Monday in Webster County Circuit Court. They were charged them with violating Missouri’s mandated reporter law, which requires teachers, medical professionals and others to report abuse to authorities.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that each man was ordered to pay a $300 fine and court costs.

Prosecutors said the men were aware for at least six months that Johnny Schwartz, a member of one of Webster County’s six Amish churches, was molesting two girls.

Schwartz was shunned by his church, but no one reported the abuse. He was arrested in October 2009 and is serving 20 years in prison.

Montana: Man charged with punching pregnant woman in face
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A 45-year-old man accused of punching his girlfriend so hard she needed reconstructive surgery has been charged in Billings with aggravated assault.

Clifton Anthony Hanson pleaded not guilty on Monday in District Court, where his bail was set at $20,000. Hanson, who is accused of hitting the woman June 2, 2009, left the state and was recently arrested on a warrant.

The woman told Billings police he grabbed her neck and pushed her stomach, knocking her on to a bed. She says she then punched him because she thought he was endangering her pregnancy.

Court records say Hanson responded by punching her in the face, fracturing her frontal sinus and requiring reconstruction with metal plates.

The Billings Gazette reports that Hanson initially told police the woman hit herself.

Illinois: Man ruled unfit to stand trial for shotgun murder
JERSEYVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A Jersey County judge has found a 45-year-old man unfit to stand trial on murder charges in the shotgun slaying of his father last year.

Defendant Mark Prough was arrested in July 2009 after a three-day manhunt seeking him as a person of interest in the death of his father.

The father, 70-year-old Dennis Prough, was found dead of a gunshot wound inside his burned rural home.

The (Alton) Telegraph reports that Mark Prough was brought to court Monday from the Jersey County Jail.

Circuit Court Judge Eric Pistorius ruled on Prough’s request to represent himself at trial, assisted by his public defender, Scott Schultz.

Pistorius then said a court-appointed psychiatrist believes Prough will probably not be fit to stand trial for at least a year.

Oklahoma: Trial to resentence man who killed trooper begins
LAWTON, Okla. (AP) — A Comanche County prosecutor wants a former firefighter convicted of killing an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper to get the death penalty again.

District Attorney Fred Smith argued Monday that capital punishment is appropriate for Ricky Malone because he killed Trooper Nik Green in December 2003 to avoid being arrested after Green caught him operating a meth lab in a car on a Cotton County road.

District Judge Mark Smith heard testimony in the resentencing trial for Malone. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his death sentence, ruling that prosecutors’ closing statements were improper and unfairly prejudicial.

Malone’s attorneys didn’t make an opening statement, but did question Malone’s ex-wife, Mary Beth Malone, about his mental state then.

She said he was depressed because their marriage had failed.

Calls to Fred Smith and Ricky Malone’s attorneys weren’t immediately returned Monday.