National Roundup

Montana
Felon poses with gun on Facebook, returned to jail

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A convicted felon has been sentenced to a year in federal prison after his probation officer saw a picture of him holding guns on a sporting goods company’s Facebook page, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Brandon Richmond Turner, 29, of Missoula had been sentenced for a felony in Lake County in January 2017 and was prohibited from possessing firearms, prosecutors said.

His probation officer saw the image in June 2019. Turner admitted he retrieved his rifle and a pistol from a friend, who had agreed to keep his guns after he was convicted.

Turner pleaded guilty in December to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula.

California
State puts jury trials on hold over virus fears

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In an unprecedented order, California’s chief justice on Monday suspended all superior court jury trials for 60 days because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“The world, country, and state face a life-threatening pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus,” Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said in her order, which impacts all 58 superior courts.

Local courts can, however, choose to conduct some business — just not jury trials.

The courts are considered essential services that are exempt from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order that shut many government offices as well as most commercial businesses.

But the social distancing procedures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus — such as limiting gatherings — are difficult under usual court conditions, Cantil-Sakauye said.

“Court proceedings require gatherings of court staff, litigants, attorneys, witnesses, and juries, well in excess of the numbers allowed for gathering under current executive and health orders,” she said in her order.

Even if the courts could meet the requirements, school closures mean that many court employees and others can’t make court because they are watching their children, the chief justice said.

“These restrictions have also made it nearly impossible for courts to assemble juries,” she said.

Under her order, all civil and criminal jury trials will be suspended for 60 days unless there is “good cause shown” for an earlier trial. Trials also may be held via remote technology when appropriate.

“A suspension of a right, such as the right to a speedy trial, can only be delayed by good cause,” Peter Allen, a court system spokesman, said in an email. “The chief justice is basically saying the pandemic itself is good cause unless a local judge finds good cause not to follow this order based on local circumstances.”

The courts also are allowed to adopt any rules immediately to address the impact of the virus.

Courts around the state already were struggling to handle the risks of the coronavirus, with some suspending trials for a month and others shutting down completely.

Los Angeles County, which has the nation’s busiest court system, closed entirely for three days last week and nearly 400 courtrooms remain closed. For the rest, Presiding Judge Kevin Brazile suspended all civil and criminal trials for a month, although he allowed arraignments, some sentencing and other hearings.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has asked that prosecutors consider a defendant’s risk of being exposed to COVID-19 when seeking a bail amount.

With thousands of cases being handled each year, Lacey told the Los Angeles Times  that her office will focus on prosecuting violent felons.

“It’s inevitable that some cases are going to be lost. They’re going to be dismissed, not filed, because we’re going to have to prioritize, right?” Lacey told the paper. “You’ll see prosecutors looking to settle cases more because we just can’t accept this volume that we’re looking at … but I think the important cases won’t be lost.”

Colorado
State abolishes death penalty

DENVER (AP) — Colorado became the 22nd U.S. state Monday to abolish the death penalty after Gov. Jared Polis signed a repeal bill into law.

Polis also commuted the sentences of all three men on Colorado’s death row to life without possibility of parole.

Colorado’s Democrat-controlled Legislature passed repeal legislation this year after picking up the support of some Republican lawmakers. The vote wasn’t strictly along party lines; some Democrats opposed the initiative on personal or religious grounds.

Colorado has rarely used the death penalty in recent decades. Its last execution was in 1997, and the one before that in 1967. But eliminating it proved tough for repeal supporters: Since 2009, it took six legislative efforts before the 2020 legislation was passed.

The law applies to offenses charged starting July 1.

Polis had previously suggested he would consider clemency for the three men on Colorado’s death row. The three cases played a prominent role in the death penalty debate over the years.

Nathan Dunlap was sentenced to die for the shooting deaths of four young employees of a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora in 1993. Then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, now a Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat, delayed indefinitely Dunlap’s execution in 2013.

Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens were on death row for the 2005 ambush slayings of Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe. Marshall-Fields and Wolfe were slain to prevent them from testifying in a separate murder case against Owens.

Marshall-Fields’ mother, Democratic state Sen. Rhonda Fields, passionately defended the death penalty each time lawmakers debated repeal.

In a statement, Polis said that “the commutations of these despicable and guilty individuals are consistent with the abolition of the death penalty in the State of Colorado, and consistent with the recognition that the death penalty cannot be, and never has been, administered equitably in the State of Colorado.”

Opponents insisted that the death penalty compelled countless defendants to seek plea deals to solve or close cases. They also said it should be up to voters to decide whether to repeal.

In Colorado’s last execution in 1997, Gary Lee Davis was put to death by lethal injection for the 1986 kidnapping, rape and murder of a neighbor, Virginia May.

New Hampshire was the last state to repeal the death penalty in 2019. Several Western states also have moved to abolish capital punishment or put it on hold.

Wyoming’s Legislature came close last year, and another initiative there this year had 26 Republican sponsors. Washington state lawmakers are trying to remove the death penalty from state law. In 2019, New Mexico’s Supreme Court set aside the death penalty for the final two inmates awaiting execution after the state’s 2009 repeal.