Court Digest

Hawaii
Ex-psychiatric patient arrested in nurse’s fatal stabbing
HONOLULU (AP) — A former patient at a Hawaii psychiatric hospital has been arrested in the stabbing death of a 29-year-old nurse at the facility, officials said.

Paramedics responded to the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe on Monday where the nurse, a 29-year-old man with multiple stab wounds, was pronounced dead.

State Health Director Dr. Kenneth Fink identified the nurse as Justin Bautista and said he had worked at the hospital for four years.

Honolulu police said a 25-year-old former patient was arrested in the death.

According to the Hawaii Depart­ment of Health, the patient was discharged from the hospital in August and was participating in a community transition program that allowed him to leave the site briefly during the day.

That made him no longer a hospital patient, even though he was still on the campus, Dr. Kenneth Luke, the hospital administrator, said at a news conference.

No information was immediately available Tuesday on what the patient used to stab the nurse.

Luke called the stabbing an “unanticipated and unprovoked” incident.

A police arrest log identified the suspect as Tommy Kekoa Carvalho. Police said he was in custody Tuesday, but had not been charged.

The hospital primarily houses patients with significant mental health issues who have been ordered there by the courts after committing crimes. Courts may also order people to stay at the facility while they wait to be evaluated for their mental fitness to stand trial.

Luke said the patient appeared ready for discharge in August and noted that courts issue permission for patients to transition back into the community.

Luke added that it would a be a “double tragedy” if the death were to lead to patients remaining institutionalized longer.

“We can not let this get in the way of appropriate transitions,” he said, noting that a safety review of the facility is underway.

Nevada
8 students arrested on murder charges in fatal beating of classmate
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Eight high school students in Las Vegas between the ages of 13 and 17 have been arrested on suspicion of murder in the fatal beating of a classmate, authorities announced Tuesday at a news conference.

Las Vegas police homicide Lt. Jason Johansson said investigators were still working to identify two more students believed to have participated in the Nov. 1 fight that he said was over a pair of wireless headphones and a vape pen.

Johansson said the local FBI office assisted with the arrests Tuesday morning of the eight students. The two outstanding students will also face murder charges, he said.

Authorities did not identify the students because they are juveniles. Johansson said he and his team are working with the local district attorney’s office to determine if they will be charged with murder as adults.

Johansson said the 17-year-old victim, Jonathan Lewis Jr., remained hospitalized with severe “head trauma” and other injuries until his death about a week after the fight. The coroner’s office in Las Vegas ruled the beating a homicide.

The fight, Johansson said, had been prearranged after the headphones and vape pen were stolen from the victim’s friend.

Johansson said investigators believe that the victim originally wasn’t supposed to be involved in the fight but had accompanied his friend to a nearby alleyway, where the brawl was scheduled to take place after classes ended for the day at Rancho High School in eastern Las Vegas.

After his death, the victim’s father, Jonathan Lewis Sr., said his son was attacked while standing up “for one of his smaller friends,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

In the alley, the 10 students “immediately swarm him, pull him to the ground and begin kicking, punching and stomping on him,” Johansson said.

After the fight, he said a “citizen” in the area found the victim badly beaten and unconscious in the alleyway and carried him back to campus, where school staff called 911.

Minnesota
Chauvin makes bid to overturn federal conviction in murder of George Floyd
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin is making another attempt to overturn his federal civil rights conviction in the 2020 murder of George Floyd, saying new evidence shows that he didn’t cause Floyd’s death.

In a motion filed in federal court Monday, Chauvin said he never would have pleaded guilty to the charge in 2021 if he had known about the theories of a Kansas pathologist with whom he began corresponding in February. Chauvin is asking the judge who presided over his trial to throw out his conviction and order a new trial, or at least an evidentiary hearing.

Floyd, who was Black, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.”
Floyd’s death touched off protests worldwide, some of which turned violent, and forced a national reckoning with police brutality and racism.

Chauvin, who is serving a 21-year sentence at a federal prison in Arizona, filed the request without a lawyer. He says Dr. William Schaetzel, of Topeka, Kansas, told him that he believes Floyd died not from asphyxia from Chauvin’s actions, but from complications of a rare tumor called a paraganglioma that can cause a fatal surge of adrenaline. The pathologist did not examine Floyd’s body but reviewed autopsy reports.

“I can’t go to my grave with what I know,” Schaetzel told The Associated Press by phone on Monday, explaining why he reached out to Chauvin. He went on to say, “I just want the truth.”

Chauvin further alleges that Schaetzel reached out to his trial attorney, Eric Nelson, in 2021, as well as the judge and prosecution in his state-court murder trial, but that Nelson never told him about the pathologist or his ideas. He also alleges that Nelson failed to challenge the constitutionality of the federal charge.

But Chauvin claims in his motion that no jury would have convicted him if it had heard the pathologist’s evidence

Nelson declined to comment Monday.

When Chauvin pleaded guilty to the federal charge in December 2021, he waived his rights to appeal except on the basis of a claim of ineffective counsel.

A federal appeals court has rejected Chauvin’s requests for a rehearing twice. He’s still waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether it will hear his appeal of his state court murder conviction.

Three other former officers who were at the scene received lesser state and federal sentences for their roles in Floyd’s death.

Mississippi
State Supreme Court hears appeal of man convicted of killing 8 in 2017
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in the appeal of a man convicted in the 2017 killings of eight people, including a sheriff’s deputy and members of his estranged wife’s family.

Defense attorneys for Willie Cory Godbolt said prosecutors introduced evidence of prior acts of violence by Godbolt toward his wife, Sheena May, which they contend was prejudicial, WAPT-TV reported.

Greg Spore, an attorney with the State Defender’s Office, also argued that the trial judge did not allow the charges to be broken up into separate trials even though they occurred in three different locations, the television station said. Spore argued that there was prejudice trying 12 counts in one trial.

“Separate trials would have tempered the amount of violence heard here,” Spore said.

Associate Justice James D. Maxwell II asked if the trial judge found that the killings were a spree.

“A shooting spree over several hours where he went house, to house, to house?” Maxwell asked.

Later, Chief Justice Mike Randolph asked Spore about how many times each victim was shot, which was multiple times.

“I’ve been on this court 20 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people shot this many times, ever,” Randolph said

A Pike County jury convicted Godbolt in February 2020 on four counts of murder, which carry a sentence of life in prison and four counts of capital murder — a killing committed along with another felony, which carries a death sentence.

The rampage happened on Memorial Day weekend in Brook­haven and Bogue Chitto. It happened after May refused to turn over their children to him. She and her daughter had moved out of the home she shared with Godbolt and they escaped the subsequent shootings.
Lincoln County Deputy William Durr, along with May’s mother, aunt and sister, were killed.

Godbolt continued on to two other locations, killing four more people.

Godbolt is currently being held on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He did not appear in court during Tuesday’s hearing.

Attorney Allison Hartman, with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, asked the court to affirm Godbolt’s convictions and sentences. She told the justices that Godbolt’s wife was a victim of the 2017 shootings, because her family members and best friend were killed. She also laid out the events of the night, which she argued were “inherently related,” with no way to separate them.

The justices took the case under advisement and said the court would issue a ruling at a later date.

Wisconsin
Jury convicts woman of fatally poisoning her friend’s water with eye drops
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury on Tuesday convicted a Wisconsin woman of fatally poisoning her beautician friend’s water with eye drops and stealing nearly $300,000 from her.

Jessy Kurczewski, 39, of Frank­lin, told investigators she gave Lynn Hernan a water bottle filled with six bottles of Visine in 2018, according to a criminal complaint. A Waukesha County jury found her guilty Tuesday of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of theft in connection with Hernan’s death, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Kurczewski’s attorneys did not speak with reporters following the verdict.

Hernan was found dead in her Pewaukee condo in October 2018 with crushed medication on her chest. According to a criminal complaint, Kurczewski called police and said her friend wasn’t conscious or breathing. Kurczewski said she was a family friend and had been checking on Hernan daily. She had said there was a possibility Hernan was suicidal.

The Waukesha County medical examiner ruled Hernan’s death a homicide after discovering tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in Visine, in Hernan’s system.

When investigators told Kurczewski that Hernan was poisoned and the scene was staged to look like a suicide, she said it was what Hernan wanted and she must have staged her own suicide, according to the complaint. Kurczewski later told investigators she brought Hernan a water bottle loaded with six bottles’ worth of Visine, according to the complaint.

Detectives also eventually concluded Kurczewski stole $290,000 from Hernan.

Kurczewski is set to be sentenced Dec. 7. The homicide charge carries a mandatory life sentence. The theft charges each carry a maximum five years in prison.