Court Digest

California
Prosecutors again seek death for Scott Peterson
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Northern California prosecutors said Friday they will again seek the death penalty for Scott Peterson in the slaying of his pregnant wife and unborn son nearly 19 years ago, even as a county judge considers throwing out his underlying conviction because of a tainted juror.

Stanislaus County Assistant District Attorney Dave Harris announced that it is prosecutors’ intention to retry the penalty phase of the case, spokesman John Goold said after a court hearing. He said prosecutors otherwise won’t comment or discuss the decision.

Peterson, 47, wearing a buzz haircut and a mask, appeared remotely in the Modesto courtroom from San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco, home to the state’s death row.

District Attorney Birgit Fladager acted after the California Supreme Court in August overturned Peterson’s 2005 death sentence in a case that attracted worldwide attention.

The state’s high court upheld his conviction in that ruling. But the same justices in October ordered a new hearing in San Mateo Superior Court to determine whether his underlying murder conviction must also be tossed out if a juror committed “prejudicial misconduct.”

Pat Harris, who assisted in Peterson’s original trial, will represent him at the new proceedings.

Peterson was convicted in San Mateo Superior Court after his trial was moved from Stanislaus County due to the massive pre-trial publicity that followed the Christmas Eve 2002 disappearance of 27-year-old Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant with their unborn son, Connor.

Investigators say Peterson took the bodies from their Modesto home and dumped them from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where they surfaced months later.

The Supreme Court said his death sentence could not stand because potential jurors were improperly dismissed from the jury pool after saying they personally disagreed with the death penalty but would be willing to follow the law and impose it.

In the second ruling, it ordered a San Mateo judge to decide whether the conviction itself must be overturned because one juror failed to disclose that she had sought a restraining order in 2000 against her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.

The juror said in seeking the order that she feared for her unborn child.

The San Mateo judge will have to decide if that was juror misconduct, and if so if it was so prejudicial that a new trial is warranted.

Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder of his wife and second-degree murder of his unborn son. Peterson was arrested after Amber Frey, a massage therapist living in Fresno, told police that they began dating a month before his wife’s death, but that he had told her his wife was dead.

California has not executed anyone since 2006 because of legal challenges, and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has a moratorium on executions for as long as he is governor.

New Mexico
Lawsuit: County failed to monitor suicidal inmate
SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico county that held an inmate struggling with drug addiction failed to properly monitor him before he took his own life, according to a wrongful death lawsuit.

The lawsuit involving Fernando Rodriguez filed last week in U.S. District Court alleges that Grants County correctional officers ignored crucial signs about the inmate’s mental health and left him alone in solitary confinement without proper checkups, though he was on suicide watch.

Rodriguez was arrested in September 2018 following a physical altercation connected to drug use, court documents said.

Correctional officers didn’t document that he had “needle marks” on his body and didn’t correctly classify him as having a drug addiction, the lawsuit said. Court documents said his drug use had been previously reported to the Grants County Sheriff’s Department.

The lawsuit said Rodriguez was placed in solitary confinement under a suicide watch. But court documents say guards neglected to watch him for three hours and the camera in the cell didn’t work, attorneys for Rodriguez said.

Officials said a corrections officer later found Rodriguez dead from an apparent suicide.

Grants County Manager Charlene Webb said the county had no comment.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

New Mexico counties in recent years have been targets of lawsuits involving alleged mistreatment of inmates, some with mental health challenges.

In 2013, Doña Ana County reached a $15.5 million settlement in a case involving a man who was held in solitary confinement for two years without a trial. The inmate, Stephen Slevin, took out his own tooth during his confinement, according to the lawsuit. It was one of the largest prisoner civil rights awards in U.S. history.

Last year, the Doña Ana County Detention Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico, faced another lawsuit again. An attorney for Susan Hylton sued the county over allegations she was placed in solitary confinement after she requested to report sexual and physical abuse. Hylton made the request after correctional officers ordered her to strip during a search for drugs, the lawsuit said.

Doña Ana County spokeswoman Kelly Jameson said the county does not comment on pending litigation.

Tennessee
Judge dismisses lawsuit over Graceland expansion plans
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elvis Presley Enterprises against the city of Memphis over a delay in approval for expansion plans at Graceland.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Mays dismissed the complaint Thursday, saying the company had suffered “no immediate injury,” The Commercial Appeal reported.

The lawsuit alleged legal retaliation when the city’s Land Use Control Board delayed consideration of the expansion plan. The plan includes a 6,200-seat arena, which Memphis officials believe would violate a non-compete agreement with the Memphis Grizzlies, who play at FedExForum.

The Land Use Control Board deferred action on the plan due to litigation over whether tax incentives could be used for the arena. That legal dispute remains pending.

Mays’ order said Elvis Presley Enterprises could resubmit its application without arena plans.

Mississippi
DA could bring case in 2017 shooting by police
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi prosecutor said he might seek charges against two police officers in a 2017 shooting that wounded a man they were chasing.

Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens said Thursday that he is reviewing the case after the Clarion Ledger obtained video that appeared to show Jackson police shooting the fleeing man in the back.

Owens said he had not seen the video until the newspaper brought it to his attention. He said the footage contradicts statements made by officers.

On Oct. 27, 2017, Jackson Police Department officers Codey Smith and Kenneth Short were investigating reports of a shooting and approached Devon Modacure as a possible suspect. The officers said that when they tried to pat him down, Modacure ran and pointed a handgun at them.

Modcure’s family obtained video from a nearby home and provided it to an attorney who represented him, the newspaper reported. The video shows a man running down a sidewalk with officers in pursuit. An officer can be seen pointing his gun at Modacure as Modacure’s back is turned.

Modacure disappears from the video frame but is picked up by an additional camera that faces a carport. Modacure collapses as the two officers catch up to him. Medical records confirmed he was shot in the back.

Owens told the newspaper the video “contradicts” officers’ statement but “there is some gray there about what happened.”

Federal court records show that in June 2019, Modacure pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. He received a three-year sentence, and he is now 26 and in a federal prison in Alabama. The Clarion Ledger reported that the federal charges were unrelated to the 2017 case in Jackson.

In 2018, a Hinds County grand jury declined to indict Smith and Short. Owens, who became district attorney this year, said prosecutors at the time did not have the video of the shooting.

Owens said his office would bring a case before a grand jury in coming months.

“If the officers are found to have culpability and there was no justification for the use of their firearms, the case will be presented as aggravated assault,” Owens said.

The Clarion Ledger reported that Jackson Police Department spokesman did not respond to a question about Smith’s employment, and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said Short no longer works as a Jackson police officer.

Florida
Teen sues school district over his Trump elephant
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A high school student is suing his central Florida school district after his parking pass was revoked when he refused to remove a large elephant statue painted to promote President Donald Trump from the bed of his pickup truck.

Tyler Maxwell, 18, told Fox 35 in Orlando that his grandfather gave him the elephant, which he bought from an old car dealership before the 2016 presidential election. He helped his father paint it as a red, white and blue Trump display four years ago.

Now that he’s old enough to drive, and vote, Maxwell said he put the elephant in his truck and parked it in the student lot at Spruce Creek High School on Sept. 14.

“I’ve been pretty excited for the last four years to be able to vote,” Maxwell said.

Some 20 minutes into his first class, Maxwell said he was summoned to the principal’s office.

“I was told to I had to go ahead and take it off campus,” Maxwell said.

He told the television station that his father then drove to the school and asked for a reason in writing why his son could not leave the Trump elephant in his truck. He didn’t get an answer in writing, so the son returned with the elephant to school the next day.

“Tuesday morning, my parking pass was taken away,” Tyler said.

He then left school and switched to distance learning. His family hired an attorney who filed a federal lawsuit, accusing the school district of violating his freedom of speech.

“It’s a freedom of speech case. The question is should a student have to give up his free speech right when he drives onto school property. The answer to that is no and the school just needs to realize that,” said Tyler’s attorney, Jacob Heubert.

Volusia County Public Schools said in a statement that the school board has an obligation to provide neutral campuses.

“We allow political expression by students in the form of a T-shirt or a bumpersticker,” the statement said. “But large signage is a different situation. A passerby could interpret a large sign in a school parking lot to be an endorsement by the school district ... We don’t allow our parking lots to be used for political statements.”