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5 former officers charged with federal civil rights violations
Court Watch |
2023/09/18 13:35
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Five former Memphis police officers were charged Tuesday with federal civil rights violations in the beating death of Tyre Nichols as they continue to fight second-degree murder charges in state courts arising from the killing.
Tadarrius Bean, Desmond Mills, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith were indicted in U.S. District Court in Memphis. The four-count indictment charges them with deprivation of rights under the color of law through excessive force and failure to intervene, and through deliberate indifference; conspiracy to witness tampering; and obstruction of justice through witness tampering.
The charges come nine months after the violent beating during a Jan. 7 traffic stop near Nichols’ Memphis home, in which they punched, kicked and slugged the 29-year-old with a baton as he yelled for his mother. Nichols died at a hospital three days later. The five former officers, all Black like Nichols, have pleaded not guilty to state charges of second-degree murder and other alleged offenses in the case.
“We all heard Mr. Nichols cry out for his mother and say ‘I’m just trying to go home,’” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement after the indictment. “Tyre Nichols should be alive today.”
U.S. Attorney Kevin Ritz in West Tennessee said at an afternoon news briefing that the state and federal cases are on separate tracks. Ritz declined to predict how quickly they would proceed.
Kristen Clarke, who leads the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division, said at the appearance that the five former officers used excessive force, failed to advise medical personnel about Nichols’ injuries and conspired to cover up their misconduct.
“In our country, no one is above the law,” she said, adding she met earlier Tuesday with Nichols’ mother and stepfather. Caught on police video, the Nichols beating was one in a string of violent encounters between police and Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and police reform in the U.S.
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said she was surprised that the federal charges “happened so quickly.” The investigation that led to the indictment was announced in the weeks after the Jan. 7 beating death. |
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Hawaii power utility takes responsibility for first fire on Maui
Court Watch |
2023/08/28 14:49
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Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged its power lines started a wildfire on Maui but faulted county firefighters for declaring the blaze contained and leaving the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby and become the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.
Hawaiian Electric Company released a statement Sunday night in response to Maui County’s lawsuit blaming the utility for failing to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. Hawaiian Electric called that complaint “factually and legally irresponsible,” and said its power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours before the second blaze started.
In its statement, the utility addressed the cause for the first time. It said the fire on the morning of Aug. 8 “appears to have been caused by power lines that fell in high winds.” The Associated Press reported Saturday that bare electrical wire that could spark on contact and leaning poles on Maui were the possible cause.
But Hawaiian Electric appeared to blame Maui County for most of the devastation — the fact that the fire appeared to reignite that afternoon and tore through downtown Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying 2,000 structures.
Neither a county spokesperson and nor its lawyers immediately responded to a request for comment early Monday about Hawaiian Electric’s statement.
The Maui County Fire Department responded to the morning fire, reported it was “100% contained,” left the scene and later declared it had been “extinguished,” Hawaiian Electric said.
Hawaiian Electric said its crews then went to the scene to make repairs and did not see fire, smoke or embers. The power to the area was off. Around 3 p.m., those crews saw a small fire in a nearby field and called 911.
Hawaiian Electric rejected the basis of the Maui County lawsuit, saying its power lines had been de-energized for more than six hours by that time, and the cause of the afternoon fire has not been determined. |
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Owner of Maryland Construction Company Pleads Guilty to Tax Evasion
Court Watch |
2023/08/10 12:43
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According to court documents, Jerry Lee Redman of Severn, Maryland, owned Redman Services Inc. (RSI), a paving and construction company.
For at least 2015 through 2018, Redman filed corporate income tax returns for RSI that underreported the business’s gross receipts. Redman caused customers to write checks to him personally, instead of to RSI, and then deposited those checks into his personal bank account.
Those payments were not reported as gross receipts on RSI’s corporate returns. During the same years, Redman also did not report other income that he received from RSI. Redman withdrew and caused others to withdraw funds from RSI’s business bank account to pay for his personal expenses, but Redman did not report those funds as income on his own tax returns. Some of the withdrawals for personal expenses were also falsely deducted as business expenses on RSI’s corporate returns. Redman’s conduct caused a loss to the IRS of approximately $666,113.
If convicted, Redman faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement. IRS-Criminal Investigation is investigating the case. |
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Biden and GOP rush to finalize debt ceiling deal, shore up support to prevent default
Court Watch |
2023/06/02 11:07
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A federal appeals court in a rare move overturned the death sentence of a man who was convicted of robbing and killing two people in Fresno in 1988, saying prosecutors knowingly presented false testimony from a key witness.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in its Wednesday ruling upheld Colin Dickey’s robbery conviction and said prosecutors could decide whether to retry him for murder. Dickey remains in prison.
“This is an exceptional case in which the prosecutor deliberately elicited, and then failed to correct, false and misleading testimony from the State’s star witness,” the court said in a ruling overturning Dickey’s 1991 death sentence.
The Fresno County prosecutor elicited the testimony from key witness Gene Buchanan, who told the jury he had not met with prosecutors or accepted any benefits from them. In fact, the court said, they had met a dozen times during the investigation, and the district attorney’s office had dismissed drug charges against him and helped him collect a $5,000 reward for implicating Dickey, one of his roommates.
Dickey was convicted in the murders of two neighbors, Marie Caton, 76, and Louis Freiri, 67, who were beaten and stabbed to death in November 1988 at Caton’s home in Fresno, where Freiri was a boarder, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Both Dickey and Buchanan lived with Caton’s grandson, Richard Cullumber, who according to witnesses was a drug user who frequently requested money from Caton. Five days after the attack, the court said, Cullumber fled police in a car, said he had “killed a woman,” was cornered after a high-speed chase and shot himself to death.
According to another roommate, Dickey said he had gone to Caton’s house with Cullumber to help him get the money but had nothing to do with the killings. But Buchanan testified that Dickey told him he was at the scene of the attacks, saw Freiri lying with his head slumped down, and decided that “if you kill one you might as well kill them both.”
Buchanan’s testimony “was the centerpiece of the state’s case” and without his dubious statements, “the state’s case against Dickey was weak” and lacked any direct evidence of intent to kill, Judge Morgan Christen said in the 3-0 ruling. |
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Nigeria court hears opposition’s presidential vote challenge
Court Watch |
2023/05/09 10:54
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A Nigerian court on Monday began its hearing on separate suits filed by the opposition to challenge the incumbent party’s victory in the country’s presidential election.
The presidential tribunal at the Court of Appeal in the capital, Abuja, heard the opening statements of lawyers representing opposition parties, which are the challenging the outcome of the February vote won by Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
As the court hearing began, armed security personnel blocked major access roads and prevented a handful of journalists and lawyers from entering the facility. Some protesters waved Nigerian flags and displayed placards, alleging that the electoral process was flawed.
“Why I am demonstrating is because of the anger and the pain I have as a Nigerian not allowed to express and enjoy the resources of the land,” said protester James Mike, who accused the Nigerian political class of pilfering the country’s wealth from huge mineral and crude oil resources.
Nigeria’s election commission declared Tinubu the winner of the election in a televised broadcast after he garnered 37% of the votes. But the two main opposition candidates rejected the result, questioning Tinubu’s qualification and alleging that results from the country’s 177,000 polling stations were tampered with.
Analysts and observers said that the voting on Feb. 25 was largely an improvement from Nigeria’s previous elections, but said that delays in uploading results might have given room for the figures to be tampered with.
In separate petitions, both second-place finisher Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and No. 3 finisher Peter Obi of the Labour Party argued that Nigeria’s electoral commission violated the provisions of the law in announcing the results of the election.
Obi has said he has evidence to show he tallied the majority votes in the election while Abubakar has asked the court to disqualify Tinubu, alleging that he has a Guinean passport and therefore wasn’t eligible to enter the presidential contest under the Nigerian Constitution. |
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