Court Digest

California
Agency strips bargaining powers of immigration judges’ union
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal labor authority Tuesday ruled to strip the collective bargaining powers of a national union representing more than 450 U.S. immigration judges that has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s policies.

The Federal Labor Relations Authority sided with the U.S. Justice Department in saying that immigration judges hold a position akin to management and therefore do not have a right to collective bargaining.

The independent agency of the U.S. government governs labor relations between the federal government and its employees.

Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, called the decision retaliation.

The union has been a major voice for more independence from the Justice Department, which oversees U.S. immigration courts.

While immigration judges wear black robes and preside over non-jury proceedings, they are considered federal attorneys with the Justice Department and can be removed from their positions by the U.S. Attorney General.

In contrast, federal judges who oversee criminal and civil matters are more autonomous because they are appointed for life and work for the independent judicial system.

The union’s leaders have been outspoken critics of a broken immigration court system with a backlog that has ballooned to more than 1.2 million cases under President Donald Trump. It has also resisted a mandate from the administration requiring immigration judges to complete 700 cases annually to meet job performance standards.

Four months ago, the union filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department over a new policy that prohibited them from speaking publicly about immigration law or even court policies. Judges who violate the policy can face reprimands or be suspended or removed.

The judges under previous administrations were allowed to speak in their personal capacities on issues relating to immigration if they made it clear that they were not speaking on behalf of the Justice Department or the court system.

The union vowed to fight Tuesday’s decision, which can be appealed to federal circuit courts.

The labor relations authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press nor did the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency under the Justice Department that runs the courts.

Tabbador said the union will continue to support immigration judges and pointed out in a letter Tuesday to its members that they still have protections as federal government employees.

But she told AP “it’s a profound impact. It’s unprecedented. We anticipate the agency is going to fully attempt to muzzle judges from being able to speak publicly.”

Kansas
Judge rules for veterans sexually abused at hospital
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge has awarded damages to two veterans who say they were sexually abused by a former physician assistant at a VA hospital in Kansas.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled in separate decisions Monday that hospital personnel should have “fairly foreseen” the wrongful conduct by physician assistant Mark Wisner, KCUR-FM reported.

Multiple patients had complained about Wisner’s conduct at the Dwight D. Eisenhower VA Medical Center in Leavenworth, Kansas, during the years when Wisner treated both veterans.

Wisner is serving a 16-year prison sentence after he was convicted of aggravated sexual battery and aggravated criminal sodomy in 2017.

Crabtree awarded more than $538,000 to one veteran and more than $1.5 million to the other after they sued the government for medical malpractice alleging they were subjected to unnecessary genital exams while they were patients.

“Obviously, the way the VA treated them was horrible. But also the way the Department of Justice has treated them throughout this litigation has just been inhumane,” said Danny Thomas, the attorney for the two men.

The government never disputed that Wisner sexually molested the veterans, but argued it shouldn’t be held accountable for his conduct because it was outside the scope of his employment.

The U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

More than 80 veterans at the Leavenworth VA settled last year for $7 million. Seven more cases remain to be tried.

Maine
Conviction, life sentence upheld in killing of deputy
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The murder conviction of a man who fatally shot a deputy before stealing his police vehicle and triggering a massive manhunt was upheld by the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected John Williams’ argument that his confession should’ve been suppressed and that the maximum sentence of life in prison imposed by the judge was excessive.

The defense contended Williams was sleep-deprived, experiencing drug withdrawal and fearful after being beaten by police officers when he confessed to killing Cpl. Eugene Cole in April 2018.

Cole, 61, was the first law enforcement officer to be killed in the line of duty in nearly 30 years in Maine.

In its ruling, the court wrote that drug withdrawal does not automatically render a confession involuntary. It also said Williams was roughed up by arresting officers before being interviewed at a police station.

“We conclude that the trial court did not err in determining that under the totality of the circumstances, the inappropriate force used during Williams’s arrest did not render involuntary his later confession and other statements to the detective,” Justice Thomas Humphrey wrote.

The court also concluded that a demonstration for jurors of how Cole was shot at close range was relevant and that the judge did not abuse his discretion in imposing the maximum penalty.

California
Golden State Killer arrives in prison to start life sentence
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A former police officer who eluded authorities for years as the Golden State Killer arrived in state prison Tuesday to begin serving multiple life sentences for rapes and murders that terrorized much of California in the 1970s and 1980s.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, arrived at North Kern State Prison, a reception center in the Central Valley about 140 miles (225 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.

Officials there will decide his permanent prison destination based on his security, medical, psychiatric and program needs, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges that spanned much of California between 1975 and 1986. The plea deal spared him the death penalty.

He admitted victimizing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties, though some of the crimes were too old to be formally charged.

DeAngelo’s rapes and eventual murders followed the same pattern. He would tie up couples he surprised while they slept, then assault the woman as the man lay helpless. He would place dishes on the man’s back, warning that he would kill them both if the dishes rattled.

He was sentenced in August after an extraordinary four-day hearing with emotional testimony from many of his victims or their survivors.

DeAngelo eluded capture for four decades before he was finally unmasked in 2018 with a pioneering use of DNA tracing.

West Virginia
Whitey Bulger’s family: Prison system did not protect him
BRUCETON MILLS, W.Va. (AP) — Family members of Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger Jr. have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and 30 unnamed employees of the prison system for failing to protect Bulger, who was beaten to death at a West Virginia prison.

The family filed the lawsuit against the prison system last week, two years after Bulger, 89, was killed at United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, a federal prison in West Virginia’s Preston County. Bulger died the same day that he was transferred there from another prison.

The lawsuit said the prison system failed to protect Bulger by moving him to Hazelton, a prison with constant inmate violence, news outlets reported.

The family also alleges the prison system was aware that Bulger was labeled a “snitch,” and that he was perhaps the most well-known inmate to be incarcerated since Al Capone, but yet did not do enough to shield him from the other inmates.

The Bureau of Federal Prisons did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Bulger was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American organized crime operation that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in  South Boston. He was also an FBI informant who snitched on the New England mob, his gang’s main rival, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was a top national priority for the FBI.

He became one of the nation’s most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in late 1994. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California. He was later convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 murders  and other crimes.

Bulger was moved to the West Virginia prison after being initially housed in Florida and in Tuscon, Arizona, two prisons known for protecting inmates who may be at risk because of their crimes, according to the lawsuit.

“Predictably, within hours of his placement in general population at Hazelton, inmates believed to be from New England and who are alleged to have Mafia ties or loyalties, killed James Bulger Jr. utilizing methods that included the use of a lock in a sock-type weapon,” the lawsuit reads.

According to the Bulger family, no information has been received about an investigation into Bulger’s death or his transfer to Hazelton.

The family is seeking damages for Bulger’s physical and emotional pain and suffering, as well as for wrongful death.


New York
June retrial date set for ex-CIA software engineer in leak case
NEW YORK (AP) — The retrial of a former CIA software engineer charged with leaking secrets to WikiLeaks in an espionage case will begin June 7, a judge said Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty set the date for Joshua Schulte over the objections of a defense lawyer who said it would be impossible to properly prepare for a trial that started before August.

Earlier this year, a jury deadlocked on the most serious espionage charges alleging that Schulte stole a massive trove of the agency’s hacking tools and gave it to the organization that publishes news leaks.

After the retrial, Schulte, 32, also faces child pornography charges at a separate trial.

Schulte, who remains incarcerated at a federal lockup next to the Manhattan federal courthouse, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Schulte worked as a coder at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where some of the CIA’s digital sleuths design computer code to spy on foreign adversaries.

The same jury that deadlocked on the most serious charges also convicted him of contempt of court and making false statements.

Prosecutors have argued that Schulte was a disgruntled employee who pulled off the largest leak of classified information in CIA history as an act of revenge.

Schulte, originally from Lubbock, Texas, was blamed for the theft after a year-long investigation that commenced when the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks published the so-called Vault 7 leak in 2017.

By the time he was arrested, Schulte had left the agency after falling out with colleagues and supervisors and was living in New York City.

Defense attorney Sabrina Shroff told jurors at Schulte’s first trial that investigators could not be sure who took the data because the CIA network in question “was the farthest thing from being secure.”
“Hundreds of people had access to it,” she said. “Hundreds of people could have stolen it.”