A Washington state woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for her role in the killing of a man found bound with zip ties and his mouth taped shut on a park trail by a passerby.

Larren Parker, 21, learned her fate on Friday in the death of Andy Hernandez, 51. She was convicted in May of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

The victim’s brother, Freddie Hernandez, cursed Parker during sentencing.

The co-defendant of a former MLB player has admitted to her role in the deadly shooting of the baseball player’s in-laws in their California home.

Samantha Maria Scott, 34, pleaded guilty on Feb. 6 to a charge of being an accessory to a felony in the shootings of Robert Gary Spohr, 70, and Wendy Louise Wood, 68. Scott’s co-defendant, former MLB pitcher Daniel “Danny” Joseph Serafini, 51, is set for a jury trial in the case in March.

Robert Spohr was the father of Erin Spohr, Serafini’s wife. Scott was reportedly a friend of Erin Spohr’s and the family’s former nanny.

UKIAH, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management has selected Neal Craig as the Ukiah Field Manager who will oversee management of more than 270,000 acres of public lands within Marin, Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma, Napa, Colusa, Glenn, Yolo, and Solano counties. 

The Ukiah Field Office also manages parts of the California Coastal National Monument in the Point Arena-Stornetta area and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, managed jointly with the Mendocino National Forest. The field office also administers geothermal leasing at The Geysers, the world’s largest geothermal steam field and the Cow Mountain Recreation Area, which includes the first Congressionally designated OHV area. 

“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work collaboratively with our stakeholders and the public to manage the Ukiah Field Office,” Craig says.  “I look forward to developing new and existing projects and programs that serve the surrounding communities, while balancing our multiple-use mission.” 

Neal brings a broad background in natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, and organizational development in both the government and private sectors. Most recently, Neal has served as the Assistant Field Manager in the BLM Bishop Field Office where he supervised the multi-resources staff and provided leadership in several program development areas. He previously worked for the U.S. Geologic Survey, serving as a technical expert, project manager, and supervisor in water quality and water quantity projects in Colorado, Michigan, Kentucky, and other states. Throughout his career, he has focused on employee training, mentoring, engagement and advancing organizational change. He has also owned and operated a sustainable farm that utilized livestock grazing systems, soil health improvement, and watershed restoration projects.  

“We are fortunate to have Neal on our team,” says BLM Central California District Manager Gabe Garcia. “His experience and leadership in natural resource management combined with his knowledge of watershed restoration projects will be valuable additions to our Ukiah Field Office.” 

Neal graduated from the University of Memphis with a Bachelor of Science in geography. When not in the office, Neal is an avid runner, small batch coffee roaster, and explorer of diverse social viewpoints. Craig succeeds Nick Lavrov, who took a position with another government agency. 

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management has selected Gabriel Garcia to serve as the new District Manager for the Central California District. In this position, Garcia will be responsible for roughly 2.2 million acres of BLM-managed public lands stretching from the Pacific coast through the Central Valley across the Sierra Nevada to the California-Nevada border.

The Central California District manages a variety of National Conservation Land Units, including 12 wilderness areas, 33 wilderness study areas, four national monuments, three wild and scenic rivers, two national scenic and historic trails, and the BLM’s only national scenic area, the Alabama Hills. Five BLM field offices and 260 employees oversee these lands across 42 counties.

“I am pleased to welcome Gabe into this new role where his knowledge of public lands, planning, and recreation will be utilized and benefit the communities and stakeholders we serve,” said BLM California State Director Joe Stout.

Garcia brings more than 22 years of experience with the Bureau of Land Management, most recently as the Field Manager of the Bakersfield Field Office, which manages 600,000 acres of public lands spanning eight counties in Central California. While there, Garcia dedicated over a decade working with the oil and gas program throughout the state of California. In addition, he saw the completion of the Bakersfield Resource Management Plan, the expansion of the Piedras Blancas Light Station into the California Coastal National Monument, the completion of Forest Health Projects within the Case Mountain Recreation Area and oversaw multiple major wildfire incidents.

“It is a tremendous privilege to be a steward of such a diverse landscape and spectacular cross-section of California that is enjoyed and utilized in a variety of ways,” says Garcia. “I look forward to supporting the BLM managers, staff and specialists who are fantastic at handling the popularity of our recreation areas, while building partnerships with other agencies and communities. Together we can leverage resources and enhance the work being done on the ground.”

Prior to his position as Bakersfield Field Manager, Garcia served as the Assistant Field Manager for Minerals and as a Planning Coordinator where he oversaw the many facets of the oil and gas program within the field office. Throughout his BLM career, Garcia has worked in various capacities within the planning, oil and gas, and natural resource programs. Garcia’s time as Field Manager has afforded him opportunities to establish and maintain strong partnerships with other agencies, organizations, and the public to manage important public land resources. He looks forward to expanding on these as he moves into his new role as District Manager.

Garcia graduated from Chico State University with a Bachelor of Science in biology and holds a master’s degree in business administration from National University. When not in the office, Gabe enjoys family time, traveling, and recreating on public lands. Garcia replaces Chris Heppe, who has taken a position with the BLM California State Office.

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Judiciary

Supreme Court justice’s teen dream comes true with Broadway walk-on role

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 11, 2024, 11:21 am CST

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will appear in a performance of the musical comedy & Juliet on Saturday in a one-night walk-on role.

The show announced Jackson’s Dec. 14 appearance and an audience “talkback” after the performance in an Instagram post.

CNN, Above the Law, People, Deadline, Entertainment Weekly and the Hill have coverage.

Jackson revealed in her memoir Lovely One that her Harvard University application essay expressed a desire to become “the first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.”

“Let’s make that teenage dream come true, Justice Jackson,” the Instagram post said.

The show & Juliet considers what would happen if the William Shakespeare character Juliet did not kill herself after the character Romeo’s death.

Jackson once performed an acting scene with actor Matt Damon in a Harvard drama class.

“He’s not going to remember this, of course,” Jackson told CBS News’ Sunday Morning in September. “The reason why I remember it is because he was already kind of well-known around campus and off campus, so it was kind of exciting to be his scene partner for a particular class.”

At the end of the scene, Jackson said, the professor told Jackson that she was very good and then addressed Damon.

“Matt, we’ll talk,” the professor reportedly said.

As the justices return to the bench on Oct. 7 for the new term, the unknowable question is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will play a role in the outcome of the November 2024 presidential election. Will this year be like 2000, when a close election was effectively decided by the court’s ruling in Bush v. Gore? Or will it be like 2020, when a close election did not raise any issues for the justices to decide?

Before the court adjourned for the summer, it had granted review in 28 cases, which is likely slightly less than half of its docket. It will grant review in more cases when it returns from its recess and continue to take cases until mid-January that will be decided this term.

What are some of the more high-profile cases already on the docket?

A ban on gender-affirming care?

United States v. Skrmetti involves a Tennessee law that prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender minors. In 2023, Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1, which prohibits health care provided for: “(A) Enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex; or (B) Treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”

Three transgender teenagers, all receiving gender-affirming care, filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin enforcement of SB 1. The Biden administration joined the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The district court issued a ruling that prevented implementation of SB 1 until litigation had concluded, finding that “parents have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children, which naturally includes the right of parents to request certain medical treatments on behalf of their children.” Additionally, the district court found discrimination on the basis of gender identity and that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their equal protection claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit simultaneously evaluated Tennessee and Kentucky laws prohibiting gender-affirming care for transgender minors. It reversed the preliminary injunctions from the lower courts, upholding the laws. The court cited studies from the late 1970s and early 1980s that recommended only adults undergo hormonal and surgical treatments for “gender dysphoria” (the terminology used throughout the case). The court urged deference to the political process.

The Supreme Court granted review on the question of whether the Tennessee law violates equal protection. The case will matter for transgender youth in the United States. A study concluded: “As of August 2024, 39.4% or 118,300 trans youth aged 13-17 are living in the 26 states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care.” This case will also likely see the Supreme Court address the level of scrutiny that will apply to discrimination against transgender individuals and whether they are to be treated as a “suspect class.” It is a case that once more puts the Supreme Court squarely in the middle of the “culture wars.”

Age verification for sexually explicit websites

Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton involves a Texas law that regulates websites that have more “more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors.” Such websites must “verify that an individual attempting to access the [covered] material is 18 years of age or older.” The act permits verification by “digital identification,” “government-issued identification” or “a commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data.” These websites also must have a series of warnings about the harms of exposure to pornography.

A federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against the statute, concluding that it was likely unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the age verification requirement was likely constitutional, but it agreed with the lower court that the disclosure requirements should continue to be enjoined as violating the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, said that only rational basis review—whether the law is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose— is to be used in evaluating the age verification requirement and found it to be constitutional.

On the one hand, in Ginsberg v. New York (1968), the court upheld a law that prohibited the sale of sexually explicit magazines to those under 18. On the other hand, the court never has upheld a law that applies to both adults and minors. On many occasions, the court has held the that a burden on adults’ access to that content “can stand only if it satisfies strict scrutiny,” Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004); Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002). Also, in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), the court used strict scrutiny to declare unconstitutional a California law that prevented minors under 18 from renting or buying violent video games without parental consent.

As states are increasingly trying to regulate the internet, including with laws like that in Texas, this case takes on great importance.

The death penalty

Glossip v. Oklahoma poses the issue of whether a state can execute a person when its attorneys concede that a new trial is appropriate. In 2004, Richard Glossip was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury in Oklahoma County District Court. When Glossip was originally convicted and sentenced, the state relied on its “indispensable witness,” Justin Sneed. It has now become clear, however, that Sneed likely murdered the victim.

Indeed, the state of Oklahoma confessed error, admitting that the failure to disclose the truth about Sneed’s psychiatric condition, leaving the jury with Sneed’s uncorrected false testimony and then suppressing this information for a quarter century, rendered “Glossip’s trial unfair and unreliable.” But the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to stop the execution. The U.S. Supreme Court granted review of several questions, including “[w]hether the state’s suppression of the key prosecution witness’s admission he was under the care of a psychiatrist and failure to correct that witness’s false testimony about that care and related diagnosis violate the due process of law.” Also, the court granted review on “whether due process of law requires reversal, where a capital conviction is so infected with errors that the State no longer seeks to defend it.” In addition, the parties were directed to brief “whether the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ holding that the Oklahoma Post-Conviction Procedure Act precluded post-conviction relief is an adequate and independent state-law ground for the judgment.”

This is likely to be an important case for precedent regarding the death penalty. Will the Supreme Court allow a likely innocent person to be sentenced to death, even when the state now agrees that man should not be executed? What is the legal effect of the state of Oklahoma confessing error? The case also poses important issues about the government’s duties for disclosure and when a state law ground is an independent and adequate state law ground of decision.

Exhaustion of state court remedies

If I were to pick a potential sleeper case for the term, it would be Williams v. Washington, which poses the question of “[w]hether exhaustion of state administrative remedies is required to bring claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in state court.”

The Supreme Court has consistently held that there is not an exhaustion requirement before bringing Section 1983 claims, which allows individuals to sue state or local governments for constitutional rights violations. In 1982, in Patsy v. Board of Regents of State of Florida, the court concluded that “exhaustion of state administrative remedies should not be required as a prerequisite to bringing an action pursuant to Section 1983.” More recently, in 2019, in Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, the court held that there is no need to exhaust state administrative or judicial remedies before bringing a takings claim under Section 1983.

Williams v. Washington arose when Nancy Williams sued under Section 1983 in Alabama state court, complaining about delays in the processing of unemployment benefits. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the case, holding that the Alabama “legislature has prohibited courts from exercising jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims at this stage” before the claimants had exhausted their administrative remedies.

If the Supreme Court were to affirm the Alabama Supreme Court, it would be a dramatic change in what the law has been for over a half century and radically change how civil rights cases are litigated. Conceivably, the court could distinguish many of the prior cases by saying exhaustion is not required before a federal court suit under Section 1983, but it is for a state court suit under Section 1983. But since the court’s reasoning has been that an exhaustion requirement is inconsistent with Section 1983, it does not seem that the forum should matter.

Conclusion

It always is difficult at the beginning of a Supreme Court term to forecast what will be the blockbuster cases in June. It is especially so in this election year. But it is safe to predict that it will be another term with decisions that have enormous impact on our society and on people’s lives.

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Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. He is an expert in constitutional law, federal practice, civil rights and civil liberties, and appellate litigation. He’s also the author of many books, including No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States and the forthcoming A Court Divided: October Term 2023 (October 2024).

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning today announced that veteran land manager Joe Stout has been named the new BLM California State Director, where he will oversee 15 million acres of public lands and 42 million acres of minerals and energy resources in California, as well as 1.6 million surface acres in northwestern Nevada. Stout will begin his new role on August 11, 2024.

Stout is returning to BLM California, where he previously served for over seven years as the Associate State Director and Acting State Director. Most recently, Stout has served as the Forest Supervisor of the Eldorado National Forest in the Central Sierras of California, overseeing four ranger districts and managing programs in natural resources, fire and aviation, public services, and engineering.

“Joe brings nearly 25 years of experience in natural resources, conservation, and business management to his new role,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “He is highly respected for his inclusive approach to management, his ability to build strong relationships on the ground, and his knack for finding solutions to tough issues. His expertise will benefit the BLM and the communities we serve.”

Before his tenure with the United States Forest Service, Stout held leadership positions at all levels of the BLM. At the Bureau’s Headquarters, he served as the Acting Chief of Staff for the Director’s Office and Division Chief for the Decision Support, Planning, and NEPA programs. At the Regional level, he served as the Acting Associate State Director of BLM Colorado, and at the field level he led a land use plan revision for the Kremmling and Glenwood Springs Field Offices in Colorado.

As BLM California State Director, Stout will lead a team of 1,100 permanent staff who oversee public lands across the rangelands, forests, high mountains, and deserts that make California one of the most diverse states in the nation. The BLM manages an abundance of resources for multiple use in California, supporting generations of families and local communities, and providing important economic benefits to Californians and the nation.

Stout holds a master’s degree in public administration (Environmental Policy, Management, and Law) from the University of Colorado in Denver, and he completed his undergraduate studies in sociology and environmental studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Stout and his family love spending time outdoors, including backpacking, fly fishing and skiing.

A face-painting St. Louis Cardinals superfan once accused on ex-Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson’s show of being a Jan. 6 plant admitted to clashing with a phalanx of officers guarding the U.S. Capitol during the riots.

Rally Runner, formerly known as Daniel Donnelly, Jr., 43, pleaded guilty to a felony offense of civil disorder. He faces up to 30 months in prison and fines of up to $40,000 when he is set to be sentenced on July 30.