A Florida nurse likely will be blind for the rest of her life after a patient allegedly attacked her unprovoked.

Deputies from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office wrote an arrest affidavit that the patient, later identified as 33-year-old Stephen Eric Scantlebury, had been admitted to HCA Florida Palms West Hospital under the Baker Act, which allows people to be involuntarily detained and examined for mental health issues, and was receiving treatment. Shortly before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday the nurse walked into Scantlebury’s third-floor room. Witnesses said the suspect inexplicably “jumped on top of his bed, and then jumped onto and attacked the victim,” according to the affidavit.

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Scantlebury allegedly stood over the victim and repeatedly punched her in the face. A witness yelled for him to stop and he ran out of the room. He fled down the hallway and into the stairwell where he went down to the first floor and escaped from the hospital. The suspect, shirtless and still wearing patches from an EKG monitor, reportedly sprinted across the parking lot and into traffic on Southern Boulevard. Video obtained by local TV stations showed deputies pointing what appeared to be either Tasers or stun guns at Scantlebury and ordering him onto the ground in the middle of the road. He surrendered and deputies took him into custody.

The nurse was transported via helicopter to another hospital where she was last listed in critical condition. Doctors said “essentially every bone in the victim’s face is broken and the victim is likely to lose the use of both eyes.”

According to cops, Scantlebury had been “acting paranoid” for the last few days and “blaming people in his life for events they had nothing to do with.” That led to authorities to take him into custody under the Baker Act.

In a statement, HCA Florida Healthcare said the attack “happened within a matter of seconds.”

“Our primary concern is with our beloved colleague and we are praying for her recovery. We are also providing support to our hospital staff who are understandably shaken by this incident,” the hospital said.

Willa Fuller, executive director of the Florida Nurses Association, also released a statement expressing concern about the safety of nurses as attacks happen across the country.

“With concern about a longstanding nursing shortage, there needs to be substantive action by ALL stakeholders to prevent this kind of egregious action. We would like to see direct care nurses included in any initiatives related to violence against healthcare workers,” she said.

Scantlebury stands accused of attempted murder and is receiving treatment at a hospital. His next court date is scheduled for Tuesday.

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Trials & Litigation

Lawyers’ ‘barrage of personal attacks’ on opponents started with tissue-box toss, appeals court says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 14, 2024, 12:02 pm CDT

Updated: A federal appeals court saw a need for a civility lesson when it granted a new trial to a civil-fraud plaintiff because of a “barrage of personal attacks” made by opposing lawyers in a closing argument.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans said lawyers Stephen A. Khoury of Dallas and C. Gregory Shamoun of Farmers Branch, Texas, had “employed nearly every category of what we have previously held to be improper closing argument.”

Bloomberg Law has coverage of the March 8 opinion.

The personal attacks targeted the opposing lawyer, Andrew W. Mychalowych, and the civil-fraud plaintiff he represented, David Clapper, the appeals court said in the per curiam opinion.

When beginning the closing argument, Shamoun threw a box of tissues at Mychalowych, stating: “I know y’all have a potentiality of crying, y’all might need Kleenex.”

Later, Shamoun said that if Mychalowych had accused him of perjury on the street, rather than in the courtroom, he would have “kicked his butt.” If the opposing lawyer was his child, Shamoun said, he would have “spanked” him for asking so many leading questions.

Shamoun told jurors that Mychalowych defied the judge’s instructions, tried to hide evidence (a reference to misrepresentation of an exhibit), and treated everyone at the trial with disrespect.

“Judge had to scold him,” Shamoun said. “I have never seen anything like this in the over 30 years that I have practiced in this town. Never have I seen what y’all witnessed. I am embarrassed for the profession, ma’am. I’m embarrassed.”

For his part, Khoury implied that Mychalowych had paid a witness to testify, a comment that he later walked back. He also referred to a plaintiff’s expert witness as a “paid prostitute from Michigan” and called the opposing lawyer “deceitful and deceptive.”

The arguments also included personal attacks on the plaintiff, the 5th Circuit said.

Shamoun characterized Clapper as a “‘billionaire’ with a 70-foot yacht who was going after the estate” of a man who had recently died, leaving behind a widow and six children. The plaintiff’s case, Shamoun said, was “insulting to everybody’s intelligence” and “insulting to everybody’s position as a juror.”

Shamoun said he hoped that anyone who could “drum up a lawsuit like Clapper’s” would “understand that they are going to meet their maker,” and that Clapper is not credible.

“He can cry, cry like he did in the first trial, he can cry like he did here,” Shamoun said. “I’m not going to tell you, I don’t like him because it don’t matter what I do or what I don’t. But he’s not a credible person.”

Khoury, meanwhile, called Clapper a “financial pimple.” And both lawyers mentioned several times that Clapper was from Michigan while also suggesting that “people from Michigan have lower moral standards,” the appeals court said.

Khoury did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s requests for comment made in phone messages and emails.

Shamoun responded to the Journal’s comment request by forwarding the defendants’ motion for sanctions against the plaintiff and his attorneys, filed in June 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr’s August 2023 ruling on the request.

“The attached orders say all one needs to know,” Shamoun’s executive assistant, Tatum Gonzales, said in relaying Shamoun’s message to the Journal.

Starr denied sanctions but said the plaintiffs’ “bad-faith conduct permeated this suit,” justifying the payment of more than $2.5 million in attorney fees to the defendants. Starr cited some instances, without specifying which of the plaintiffs’ lawyers were responsible for the conduct.

Starr said the plaintiffs’ counsel continued to explore an issue that was off-limits because of a privilege ruling. In addition, the plaintiffs’ counsel “repeatedly testified for witnesses,” leading to reprimands from the judge. And the plaintiffs’ counsel designated 699 exhibits and 63 witnesses for trial, even though Starr had given each side only 24 hours to present the case. As a result, the defendants had to analyze and respond to each exhibit.

The 5th Circuit used the last section of its opinion to review attempts to impose civility in law practice.

The appeals court noted that a precursor version of the current ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct had criticized the view that lawyers have a duty to do whatever it takes to win. The U.S. Supreme Court also commented in a 1935 opinion that while a lawyer “may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.”

In the 1980s, “Rambo” litigation tactics became a concern, leading the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to adopt a civility standard in 1988 for lawyers in civil actions. It included a “duty of courtesy and cooperation” owed to the opposing counsel.

“Effective advocacy does not require antagonistic or obnoxious behavior,” one of the tenets said.

The Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals adopted a lawyer’s creed the next year calling for courtesy, candor and cooperation in lawyer-to-lawyer dealings.

The authors of the 5th Circuit opinion are Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, an appointee of former President George W. Bush; Judge Patrick Higginbotham, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan; and Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, also an appointee of Bush.

“We recognize that such unprofessional practices as those that occurred in this case continue to appear in our courtrooms, despite many attempts to eradicate such practices,” the 5th Circuit said. “We remind all practitioners in our court that zealous advocacy must not be obtained at the expense of incivility.”

The case is Clapper v. American Realty Investor Inc.

Updated March 14 at 1:04 p.m. to include the response from C. Gregory Shamoun’s executive assistant, Tatum Gonzales, and to report on the June 2021 motion for sanctions and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr’s August 2023 ruling.

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Criminal Justice

‘Airborne defendant’ leaps over bench, attacks Vegas judge during court hearing recorded on video

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 4, 2024, 9:55 am CST

A man who pleaded guilty to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm attacked a Las Vegas judge who was sentencing him Wednesday.

The video shows defendant Deobra Delone Redden, 30, leaping into the air, flying over the judge’s bench and landing on the judge. A Politico headline described Redden as an “airborne defendant.”

Other publications with coverage include the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, KSNV and the New York Post.

The Clark County, Nevada, judge, 62-year-old Judge Mary Kay Holthus, was injured and being monitored, a court spokesperson told the New York Times. A marshal who was injured was taken to the hospital. KSNV reported that the marshal needed stitches to his head. The marshal also suffered a dislocated shoulder, according to AP.

The first person who came to Holthus’ aid was a man in a suit sitting beside her. In a longer video posted by the AP, the same man is shown punching Redden as another man in a suit tries to subdue him. Redden is shown throwing punches at this same time at a person who is outside the video frame.

One of the people trying to subdue Redden was Chief Deputy District Attorney Jory Scarborough, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Thank God the judge is OK,” Wolfson said in a statement cited by the New York Post. “Thank God for the heroic efforts of those who came to her aid, especially her marshal and her law clerk. Without them, the situation would have been much worse, as this defendant exhibited extremely violent behavior, and I’m confident there will be consequences.”

Redden has been charged with battery, battery on a protected person and battery on a protected person resulting in substantial bodily harm.

Redden had sought probation, telling the judge that he had mental health problems, but he was “a person who never stops trying to do the right thing—no matter how hard it is.” His lawyer, Caesar Almase, said Redden had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Redden attacked Holthus after she indicated that he would be sentenced to prison. Redden previously spent time in prison for attempted theft and domestic battery.