Court Digest

Pennsylvania
Court blocks effort to make power plants pay for greenhouse gas emissions
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania cannot enforce a regulation to make power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, a state court ruled Wednesday, dealing another setback to the centerpiece of former Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to fight global warming.

The Commonwealth Court last year temporarily blocked Pennsylvania from becoming the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program, and the new ruling makes that decision permanent.

The ruling is a victory for Republican lawmakers and coal-related interests that argued that the carbon-pricing plan amounted to a tax, and therefore would have required legislative approval. They also argued that Wolf, a Democrat, had sought to get around legislative opposition by unconstitutionally imposing the requirement through a regulation.

The court agreed in a 4-1 decision.

It would be up to Wolf’s successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, to decide whether to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Shapiro’s administration had no immediate comment on the ruling, and Shapiro hasn’t said publicly if he would follow through on it.

Republican lawmakers hailed the decision and urged Shapiro not to appeal it. Critics had said the pricing plan would raise electricity bills, hurt in-state energy producers and drive new power generation to other states while doing little to fight climate change.

Opponents also included natural gas-related interests in the nation’s No. 2 gas state, industrial and commercial power users and labor unions whose members work on pipelines and at power plants and refineries.

The regulation written by Wolf’s administration had authorized Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Backers of the plan had called it the biggest step ever taken in Pennsylvania to fight climate change and said it would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars a year to promote climate-friendly energy sources and cut electricity bills through energy conservation programs.

The plan’s supporters included environmental advocates as well as solar, wind and nuclear power producers.


New Hampshire
Trial starts for man charged with attempted murder during wedding
NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — A man accused of shooting and wounding a New Hampshire bishop and the bride at a church wedding ceremony in 2019 fired at the couple just as they were being pronounced husband and wife, a prosecutor told a jury Tuesday.

“With just a few shots, the defendant turned marriage into mayhem,” prosecutor Seth Dobieski said of Dale Holloway, who’s accused of two counts of attempted murder and assault charges.

Dobieski said the October 2019 shootings happened nearly two weeks after Holloway’s stepfather, a pastor at the church, was killed by the son of the groom. The son was later sentenced to prison. A separate celebration of life ceremony for the pastor had been planned at the church for later that day.

Holloway, 41, is already serving 7 1/2 to 15 years in state prison for assaulting his lawyer. He’s acting as his own attorney in the wedding shooting trial in Nashua. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and has told a judge that he plans to use an insanity defense.

“You have heard both the judge and state say that I don’t have to prove my innocence,” Holloway said. “That I am innocent until proven guilty of these charges. But I can and I will present the actual, factual truth just because I am not guilty of these charges.”

Stanley Choate, the bishop, was shot in the chest at the New England Pentecostal Ministries in Pelham. The bride, Claire McMullen, was shot in the arm.

Authorities said the groom, Mark Castiglione, is the father of a man who was charged with killing Holloway’s stepfather.

Brandon Castiglione was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 42 years in prison earlier this year for fatally shooting Holloway’s stepfather, Luis Garcia, inside his home. Garcia was a pastor at New England Pentecostal Ministries. There was no clear motive for the shooting.

Alabama
Newspaper publisher and reporter arrested and accused of revealing grand jury information
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A smalltown newspaper publisher and reporter in Alabama were arrested after authorities accused them of publishing an article that revealed information about a grand jury investigation involving the local school system.

Court records show Sherry Digmon, an owner of the Atmore News and a member of the local school board, and reporter Donald Fletcher were both arrested, along with a bookkeeper at the school system.

Digmon was also arrested Wednesday on a separate charge of violating state ethics law. The indictment accused her of using her school board position for personal gain and improperly soliciting a thing of value by selling $2,500 worth of advertisements to the school system. Alabama ethics law prohibits public officials from soliciting money and valuables, although it makes an exception for normal business dealings.

District Attorney Steve Billy, the prosecutor in both cases, did not return an telephone message and an email Wednesday seeking comment.

The court documents don’t say specifically what information about a grand jury investigation the paper is accused of publishing. On Oct. 25, the paper published article saying the school system had received a subpoena seeking information about bonuses paid from pandemic relief funds. Another piece said authorities seized the phones of school board members, including Digmon, who voted against renewing the school superintendent’s contract.

Dennis Bailey, general counsel for the Alabama Press Association, said Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the First Amendment gives, “the news media a right to publish truthful information on matters of public concern, even if unlawfully acquired, provided the publisher did not participate in the unlawful conduct.”

“I do not know all the facts here, but based upon what I have seen so far, it is my opinion reporters who receive and publish unsolicited tips about the actual issuance and service of a grand jury subpoena do not violate Alabama grand jury secrecy laws unless they coerced someone to provide the information,” Bailey wrote in an email.

In over 40 years of handling media law matters, Bailey said he had “never seen a reporter arrested for publishing truthful information about the existence of a grand jury subpoena.”

One of the articles published said the school system’s bookkeeper and financial officer had received a subpoena to provide information about COVID-era bonuses paid to employees.
Another cited an unnamed source saying Billy aimed to prove school board members had violated the state Open Meetings Act.

Court records also show impeachment papers were filed against Digmon on Monday to try to remove her from her public position.

Tennessee
State to pay fired vaccine chief $150K to settle federal lawsuit
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The state of Tennessee has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a federal lawsuit by its former vaccine leader over her firing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The agreement in the case brought by Michelle Fiscus includes provisions that limit what each of the parties can say about each other, according to a copy provided by the Tennessee Department of Health in response to a public records request.

The current and former health commissioners, and the state’s chief medical officer agreed that they will not “disparage” Fiscus.

Fiscus, meanwhile, must reply “no comment” if she is asked about the lawsuit, negotiations and the settlement. Additionally, Fiscus or anyone on her behalf can’t “disparage” the defendants, the Tennessee Department of Health, the governor or his administration, or other former or current state officials and workers about her firing.

Both the Department of Health and Fiscus declined to comment on the settlement.

Fiscus was fired in the summer of 2021 amid outrage among some GOP lawmakers over state outreach for COVID-19 vaccinations to minors. Some lawmakers even threatened to dissolve the Health Department because of such marketing.

In the days after Fiscus was fired, the health department released a firing recommendation letter that claimed she should be removed because of complaints about her leadership approach and her handling of a letter explaining vaccination rights of minors for COVID-19 shots, another source of backlash from GOP lawmakers. The Department of Health released her personnel file, including the firing recommendation letter, in response to public records requests from news outlets.

Fiscus countered with a point-by-point rebuttal to the letter, and released years of performance reviews deeming her work “outstanding.” She spent time speaking in national media outlets in rebuttal to a firing she argues was political appeasement for Republican lawmakers.

She sued in September 2021, saying the firing recommendation letter attacked her character for honesty and morality, falsely casting her as “a rogue political operative pursuing her own agenda and as a self-dealing grifter of the public purse.”

Her lawsuit also delved into claims about a muzzle that was mailed to her. A publicized Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security investigation indicated the package was sent from an Amazon account using a credit card, both in her name. But the lawsuit said facts were omitted from the state’s report on the investigation, including that the credit card used to buy the muzzle had been lost and canceled for over a year.

Fiscus has since moved out of Tennessee.

In response to the backlash about the state’s policy on the vaccination rights of minors, a law passed in 2021 began largely requiring written consent from a parent or legal guardian to a minor who wants the COVID-19 vaccine. Lawmakers this year broadened the law to apply to any vaccine for minors, requiring “informed consent” of a parent or legal guardian beforehand.

Those are among several laws passed by Tennessee Republican lawmakers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that restrict vaccination or masking rules.


Japan
Nippon Steel drops patent lawsuit against Toyota in name of partnership
TOKYO (AP) — Nippon Steel Corp. has dropped its lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. over a patent for a technology used in electric motors, saying wrangling among Japanese companies was not beneficial to keep the nation competitive.

Toyota and Nippon Steel see their partnership as critical in the Japanese auto industry.

Japan’s top steelmaker said in a statement Thursday that such internal disputes were not fitting for a period of uncertainty and rapid change toward “carbon neutrality,” referring to the recent rush to develop electric vehicles.

The lawsuit over intellectual property demanding compensation for damages totaling 20 billion yen ($133 million) was filed in Tokyo District Court in October 2021.

Tokyo-based Nippon Steel said it is still suing Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., or Baosteel, a Chinese steelmaker that produces and supplies the steel that it alleges violates the patent.

The lawsuit against Toyota, Japan’s biggest automaker, was related to steel sheets used in electric vehicle motors and manufactured by Baosteel.