National Roundup

Arkansas
Judge approves $29.1M payout for cigarette suit
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A Pulaski County Circuit judge approved paying $29.1 million from a lawsuit settlement fund to more than 21,000 Marlboro Lights users and their attorneys.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the $45 million settlement fund was set up to end a 13-year-old lawsuit alleging that Philip Morris USA and parent company Altria Group misled smokers in Arkansas by advertising Marlboro Lights and Ultra-Lights were safer than regular cigarettes.

Anyone in the state who bought the Lights brands between November 1971 and June 2010 was entitled to a share of the money regardless of whether they ever resided in Arkansas. About $18.1 million will go to more than 13,000 applicants. The judge also approved a payment of $10 million to the lawyers who have been working on the case since 2003.

New York
JPMorgan settles discrimination suit over mortgages
NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase will pay $55 million to settle federal charges that independent brokers working for the bank discriminated against minorities seeking home mortgages during the housing crisis.

While the settlement is not a big financial dent to the giant bank, the cases illustrate the depth of the mortgage quagmire that has trailed the financial sector for a decade.

A federal suit filed in Manhattan Wednesday accused JPMorgan Chase & Co. of charging black and Hispanic borrowers higher interest rates and fees for mortgages from 2006 to at least 2009. The lawsuit alleges that discrimination cost at least 53,000 minority borrowers tens of millions in higher interest payments and fees, in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

The New York bank denied wrongdoing, but says it’s agreed to settle the claims.

“We’ve agreed to settle these legacy allegations that relate to pricing set by independent brokers,” said JPMorgan spokeswoman Elizabeth Seymour, adding that the brokers were using a model similar to “a model all the banks had in 2006 to 2009.”

While JPMorgan said those involved were independent brokers working under contract for the bank, federal prosecutors said that Chase maintained ultimate control and was “directly and extensively involved” in setting up the deals.

“Chase could have, but failed, to better monitor its wholesale brokers to discourage discrimination against borrowers based on race or national origin,” the lawsuit said.

New York
Woman, 85, whose corpse was left in bags had been strangled
NEW YORK (AP) — An investigation has determined that an 85-year-old New York City woman was strangled before her corpse was placed in plastic bags and left inside her home for five months.

The medical examiner’s office says Erika Kraus-Breslin died of “homicidal asphyxia, including neck compression.”

Kraus-Breslin’s grandson Christopher Fuhrer was arrested in October on improper burial and other charges. Police say he told them he wrapped her body in bags and used air fresheners and a fan to mask the smell of decomposition.
Police said that the death didn’t appear to be suspicious. No one has been charged with killing her.

Authorities say Fuhrer feared he’d become homeless after she died.

Fuhrer’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request Wednesday for comment on the case.

Illinois
Mother charged after daughter, 5, shoots herself
CHICAGO (AP) — Police say a 5-year-old Chicago girl is in serious condition after she shot herself in the abdomen with a handgun that she found in her mother’s purse.

Chicago police said Wednesday that the girl’s mother, 22-year-old Larrinita Starks, has been charged with child endangerment.

The shooting happened Tuesday night in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the city’s West Side. Police say the girl got the gun from her mother’s purse in a bedroom.

Starks is due in court March 16. She does not have a listed phone number and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police say the injured girl is in serious condition. Her grandmother, Oretha Miller, says the child is stable and recovering.

Massachusetts
Compromise ordered in cases tainted by drug lab scandal
BOSTON (AP) — The highest court in Massachusetts on Wednesday rejected a proposal to dismiss 24,000 drug convictions because of misconduct by a former state drug lab chemist, but ordered prosecutors to throw out cases clearly tainted by the scandal.

Massachusetts courts have been struggling since 2012 to deal with the fallout after authorities discovered Annie Dookhan tampered with evidence and falsified thousands of tests in criminal cases. Dookhan served a three-year prison term for the crimes.

Defendants still are waiting to challenge their convictions.

The Supreme Judicial Court declined to order the wholesale dismissal of cases sought by public defenders and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. The court also rejected a recommendation from prosecutors that it take no new action.

Instead, the high court crafted a three-phase system of dealing with the cases.

First, the court ordered prosecutors to dismiss all Dookhan cases they “would not or could not reprosecute if a new trial were ordered.” Second, the court said defendants whose cases aren’t dismissed should get new notice that their cases were affected by Dookhan’s behavior. Finally, the court ordered the state’s public defender agency to assign lawyers to all poor Dookhan defendants who want to try to retract their pleas or get new trials.

The court acknowledged that the new protocol will “substantially burden” prosecutors, public defenders and the courts.

“But we also recognize that Dookhan’s misconduct at the Hinton lab has substantially burdened the due process rights of many thousands of defendants whose convictions rested on her tainted drug analysis and who, even if they have served their sentences, continue to suffer the collateral consequences arising from those convictions,” Chief Justice Ralph Gants wrote for the court in the 6-1 ruling.

The court said the three-phase system preserves the rights of defendants through case-by-case decisions, respects the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and maintains the fairness of the criminal justice system “in the wake of a laboratory scandal of unprecedented magnitude.”

Public defenders had asked the court to order a dismissal of all cases in which Dookhan played a role in testing drugs. Prosecutors, however, argued that judges should continue to decide challenged cases one-by-one.