Court Digest

North Carolina
Former state Supreme Court chief justice joins Raleigh law firm
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The first Black woman to serve as chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court has become a partner in the law firm McGuireWoods.

The firm said in a statement on Monday that Cheri Beasley will work in the firm’s Raleigh office in its litigation and appellate groups.

Beasley recently stepped down from the court, which she joined in 2012 after serving on state trial and appellate benches. Last summer, she publicly called out racial disparities in the nation’s judicial system.

“Cheri Beasley is a distinguished jurist who has dedicated her career to ensuring our justice system works for everyone,” said McGuireWoods Managing Partner J. Tracy Walker IV. “Her leadership, wisdom, and experience will be tremendous assets for our appellate and litigation practices and our clients.”

North Dakota
Judge dismisses latest pipeline protest lawsuit
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge in North Dakota has thrown out another lawsuit alleging officers used excessive force during the Dakota Access Pipeline protest in 2017.

The lawsuit by Eric Poemoceah is the second such lawsuit to be dismissed in recent weeks. The complaint, filed last April, said the Oklahoma man was tackled while running from law enforcement and suffered a broken pelvis.

The complaint names Morton County, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney, Bismarck Police Officer Benjamin Swenson, Highway Patrol Lt. Thomas Iverson and others. It seeks unspecified monetary damages, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

Poemoceah further alleges officers ignored his injury and that they retaliated against him for exercising his rights by videotaping protest activities.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor said last week in dismissing the lawsuit that Poemoceah knew the officers were at the protest site to enforce an evacuation order, admitted that he advanced on the officers before fleeing, and failed to show that Morton County had unconstitutional policies in place.

Last month, Traynor threw out the lawsuit of an Arizona man, Marcus Mitchell, who claimed officers injured him and violated his civil rights in January 2017.


Tennessee
US appeals court upholds tossing of 3 Pilot convictions
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a bid by prosecutors to restore the tossed convictions for the former president of Pilot Flying J and two of his former employees related to a rebate scheme to cheat trucking companies out of millions of dollars.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel last week declined the request to reconsider the court’s earlier ruling that jurors should not have heard recordings of racist language by the former president, Mark Hazelwood, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

U.S. Attorney Doug Overbey declined comment on the latest ruling, the newspaper said.

The panel’s split decision in October vacated convictions for Hazelwood, who received the harshest prison sentence at 12½ years, and two others. The panel ordered the case to be sent back to a lower court for a new trial, ruling further that it would not be necessary to assign the case to a different judge.

At trial, the jury heard secret recordings of Hazelwood using racial slurs and profanely criticizing his board of directors and his boss’s football team and fans. Hazelwood later apologized for his language.

The majority wrote that the racist recordings were wrongly admitted on the “theory that if the defendant was reckless enough to use language that could risk public outrage against the company, he was a ‘bad businessman,’ and as a bad businessman, he was also reckless enough to commit fraud.”

Hazelwood was convicted in 2018 of conspiracy, wire fraud and witness tampering. Former company Vice President Scott “Scooter” Wombold was convicted of wire fraud and sentenced to six years in prison, and former account representative Heather Jones was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and sentenced to more than 2 ½ years.

Fourteen former Pilot Flying J employees pleaded guilty earlier.

Pilot Flying J is controlled by the family of Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. The Haslams have not been charged with any wrongdoing. The former governor has not been involved with the company in recent years.

The company earlier agreed to pay an $85 million settlement to defrauded customers and a $92 million penalty to the government.

New York
In case of judge who shoved cop, few clues on discipline
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — As a state commission considers the case of a state Supreme Court judge who shoved a police officer during a confrontation in June, previous cases involving encounters between judges and police provide few clues on potential discipline.

Supreme Court Judge Mark Grisanti’s confrontation with police occurred after a dispute with neighbors over parking in Grisanti’s neighborhood and was captured on video. The shirtless judge is heard telling officers that Mayor Byron Brown is a friend, and that he has relatives on the police force.

The expletive-filled video shows the 56-year-old Grisanti shouting at the officer who is subduing his wife before he, too, is grabbed by police officers.

“Keep your hands off of a cop,” one of them tells him.

“You better get off my (expletive) wife,” Grisanti yells. “My daughter and my son are both Buffalo police officers ... I’ll call them right now.”

In July, the Erie County district attorney’s office declined to file charges. Police Capt. Jeff Rinaldo told WKBW-TV at the time that it was the officers’ decision not to charge Grisanti because he “didn’t tackle anyone. He didn’t punch him. He gave him like a shoulder shove.”

The Buffalo News reported  that seven New York state judges have been disciplined over the past decade for encounters with police, but that none of the cases involved physical contact directed at officers.

One of the seven was removed from the bench and two others resigned. Four were publicly reprimanded but were allowed to keep their jobs.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct will determine whether and how Grisanti is to be disciplined. If it considers Grisanti’s actions to constitute ethical misconduct, he could face a range of punishments including a public sanction or removal from the bench. No action would be taken if no misconduct is found.

Attorney Terrence Connors, who represents Grisanti in the misconduct probe, told The News that Grisanti is “an effective, hard-working judge with an unblemished record,” who should be allowed to keep his job.

“I just hope that these few minutes, out of Mark Grisanti’s entire life, do not destroy the career of a very diligent and productive judge,” Connors told the newspaper.

Grisanti, a former state senator who was appointed to a judgeship by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2015, is currently recused from hearing any cases involving Buffalo police.


Illinois
High court to rule on dispute over cannabis-license
CHICAGO (AP) — The stage is set for a decisive legal battle in Illinois’ highest court between a large, well-established company and a far smaller upstart over a cannabis-growing license potentially worth millions.

The long-running case between Curative Health Cultivation LLC and Medponics Illinois LLC is expected to be heard by the Illinois Supreme Court early in 2021, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Aurora-based Curative — owned by New York-based Columbia Care, one of the world’s largest cannabis operators — was granted the coveted license in 2015, then lost it after a lower-court ruled against it, before managing to get that ruling reversed on appeal.

Medponics, which wants to set up operations in Zion, hopes that the high court will side with it, clearing the way for it to secure the license. It would use it to launch a large-scale cannabis business that would include a hydroponics greenhouse in Zion, just north of Chicago near the Wisconsin border.

The city of Zion has backed Medponics bid for the license, with expectations that a land-lease deal with the company could generate some $1.5 million in new revenue for the cash-strapped city that was hit hard financially by the closure of a major nuclear plant in 1998.

“This is just the right thing to do ... to award the license to them,” said the city’s administrator, David Knabel.

Many city leaders in Aurora, a suburb just west of Chicago, have been equally vocal in their support for Curative’s claims to the license.

The license in question, which is among the last of its kind to be disputed in court, would enable the production of large amounts of marijuana for medical and recreational uses, making it more lucrative than more recent and restrictive permits, according to the Tribune.

Retail cannabis sales in Illinois were expected to top $1 billion for 2020, and the kind of large-scale operation envisioned by the holder of the contested license could be valued at around $100 million, financial analyst Matt Karnes, of Greenwave Advisors in New York City, estimated.

The legal issues in the case are complex. They are focused on the vetting process of the companies who vied for such licenses some five years ago. Medponics said that, while Curative did receive the highest rating of the companies considered, it should have been disqualified because its operations would be too close to an area zoned exclusively for residential purposes.

The lower court judge, Michael Fusz, agreed with Medponics in a lawsuit it filed in 2017, saying in his written ruling that Illinois’ agriculture department didn’t properly apply state law in picking Curative.

“The award of the license to Curative is therefore clearly erroneous; the Court has the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made,” Fusz wrote.

But the judge also said his ruling wouldn’t necessarily mean the license should go to Medponics, which garnered the fifth highest score during the vetting. He said the department should reevaluate and rescore the applicants. A state appeals court then partially overturned that ruling, reinstating the license, concluding that the zoning issue wasn’t as clear cut as the lower court found.

According to the Tribune, even if the Illinois Supreme Court rules against Curative, it will likely still be up to the state to decide if Medponics or some other company ultimately gets that license.


Connecticut
Aquarium agrees to delay beluga whale delivery amid lawsuit
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut aquarium has agreed to delay its acquisition of five beluga whales for research amid a lawsuit by an animal rights group trying to stop the delivery.

Mystic Aquarium will not import the whales before March 31 to allow time for a judge to decide the lawsuit and avoid an effort by Friends of Animals to obtain a preliminary injunction to stop the delivery, according to documents filed in federal court in Hartford on Dec. 23.

Friends of Animals, based in Darien, Connecticut, filed the lawsuit in September, saying the five belugas would be harmed by the trip from their current home in Canada and by being torn from long-term relationships with others of their species.

The suit was filed against Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which approved the research permit that allows Mystic Aquarium to import the belugas from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

“This is a great result for the belugas because it means that they won’t be removed from their current situation and transported to Mystic until the court has the opportunity to determine whether the permit that the government issued complies with the law,” Stephen Hernick, a lawyer for Friends of Animals, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Mystic Aquarium is already home to three beluga whales, which are known for their white color and vocal sounds. In Mystic, they live in a 750,000-gallon outdoor habitat that the aquarium calls the largest in the U.S.

Aquarium officials say the permit is the first of its kind and will allow them to conduct noninvasive research that is vital to help boost endangered and depleted beluga whale populations. They have not said when the whales were originally scheduled for delivery.

Friends of Animals claims the permit violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Protection Act because government officials did not adequately address the potential harm to the belugas of being moved to Mystic.

The aquarium defends the research and says the beluga habitat there will provide a safe, healthy and spacious environment for the five new whales.