An Oregon man died trying to stop a purse-snatching, and now two teenagers are behind bars, according to police in the Beaver State.

Jonathan Trent, 47, was shopping at the Fred Meyer grocery store on Northeast 102nd Avenue in the Hazelwood neighborhood of northeast Portland on Jan. 13 when he happened upon the mugging outside, according to the Portland Police Department.

Then, the gunshots rang out.

By 3:50 p.m., officers arrived to find Trent in the parking lot. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Now, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old boy are being held in a juvenile lockup on charges of murder and robbery, police say. The teenagers are not being further identified as of this writing.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour request to halt Friday’s sentencing hearing in the president-elect’s criminal hush-money case out of New York.The 5-4 ruling against the 45th and future-47th president was less than one page.

“The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons,” the order reads. “First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal. Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing.”

New York’s highest court has rejected Donald Trump’s latest bid to halt Friday’s sentencing hearing in the criminal hush-money case that saw him convicted on 34 felony charges.

The New York Court of Appeals’ denial of the request is the latest in a string of legal losses for the president-elect this week as he continues his efforts to have the case dismissed and his conviction vacated.

In a 29-page emergency application filed Wednesday, Trump asked the court to issue an “immediate stay” of the criminal proceedings as he sought reversal of Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s “erroneous rulings wrongly denying President Trump’s claims of Presidential immunity.”

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3. California judge admonished for doing this…

Judiciary

California judge admonished for doing this after telling newbie attorney to stop shaking her head

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 12, 2024, 10:21 am CST

A California judge has received a public admonishment partly for flinging court papers at a newbie defense lawyer because he thought that she was shaking her head at him.

Judge Thomas R. Adams of Santa Barbara County, California, acted in November 2023 after expressing impatience with Deputy Public Defender Reem Yassin, according to the Dec. 10 public admonishment. Yassin had been admitted to law practice for only three months at the time.

Law360 has coverage.

Yassin had filed a request for pretrial diversion for her client and noticed it for hearing during a continued arraignment. During the hearing, the prosecution objected to the diversion request on several grounds, including that the arraignment department was not the proper forum.

The California Commission on Judicial Performance’s public admonishment says this exchange followed:

“Let me interrupt,” Adams said. “This is not the time that I’m supposed to play referee between public defender and district attorney. OK? I just don’t have the time or the patience to do that. OK? If you want to have a fistfight with the DA, take it outside.”

Adams continued after Yassin tried to interject.

“I have a whole bunch of people sitting here waiting for their cases to be called. I just don’t need this, OK? I just don’t need it. This is not the first time it’s happened. So, we’re all on—we’re all on notification.”

“And I’m sorry,” he said as he threw off his glasses. “Don’t shake your head at me like, ‘Oh, don’t give me this crap,’ OK?”

Yassin protested that she wasn’t shaking her head at the judge.

“No, you are,” he said as he pointed at Yassin. “I’ll come back later. You guys can have a seat right there, OK? I just don’t need this from you today, OK? Are we on the same page? You’re asking the court to do you a big favor.”

At that point, he flung the moving papers toward Yassin. They landed in front of the podium where she was standing.

The defendant then commented, “That was crazy.”

Yassin was so distressed by the incident that her superiors sent her home and temporarily reassigned her cases to other attorneys. She didn’t return to court until the following week.

Adams later sent Yassin an apology letter acknowledging that his conduct was inappropriate.

The public admonishment also said Adams made misleading statements to the California Commission on Judicial Performance in a previous ethics investigation when he said he intended to retire.

“Judge Adams hopes that the commission will conclude that in light of nearly half of a century’s career on the bench and Judge Adams’ retirement, his missteps do not warrant the imposition of discipline,” he said in his response to the preliminary investigation letter in the previous ethics case.

Adams did not retire. He was privately admonished in June 2023 in that case, which cited an ex parte conversation with the jury foreperson, a failure to cooperate with other judges and court officials in the administration of court business, and conduct that could reasonably be interpreted as biased based on sex and gender.

The bias incident stemmed from a defendant’s remark that a female attorney was “so beautiful.”

“I’ll stipulate to that,” Adams replied.

Adams received a previous private admonishment in 1993 for ordering a pro se family law litigant to be taken into custody for two days without a contempt hearing.

Adams respects the public admonishment decision by the California Commission on Judicial Performance, his representatives told Law360 in a statement.

Throughout his 50-year judicial career, the statement said, Adams endeavored to be “respectful, courteous and patient” to everyone in his courtroom, the statement said.

“The incident involving the deputy public defender was an isolated occurrence for which he immediately sought to make amends by sending her a private letter of apology,” the statement said. “Judge Adams did not intend to mislead the commission regarding his plans to remain on the bench but acknowledges that he should have communicated with the commission more clearly his intention to continue his judicial service.”

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3. Judge denies bid by former Duane Morris partner…

Partners

Judge denies bid by former Duane Morris partner to stop his wife’s funeral

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 21, 2024, 10:51 am CST

A Chicago judge on Wednesday denied a former Duane Morris partner’s emergency motion to stop his deceased wife’s parents from holding her funeral, so that he can obtain her remains.

Judge Eve M. Reilly of Cook County, Illinois, denied lawyer Adam P. Beckerink’s request to preserve the remains of his wife, 36-year-old Caitlin Tracey, pending appeal.

Tracey was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell in Beckerink’s South Loop residential building on Oct. 27. Her foot had been severed.

The Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and Fox 32 Chicago have coverage of Reilly’s Nov. 20 order.

Beckerink was ousted as a partner at Duane Morris after Tracey’s parents sought her remains in court filings alleging that he had physically abused their daughter. A judge in Berrien County, Michigan, granted the parents’ request Nov. 12, saying he had jurisdiction because Tracey was a resident of New Buffalo, Michigan, at the time of her death.

The parents then sought to enforce the judgment in Cook County because the Medical Examiner’s office had the remains.

Two domestic violence charges are pending against Beckerink in Berrien County, Michigan, according to past coverage by the Chicago Tribune. He has not been charged with any crime related to his wife’s death.

The couple had been married six months when Tracey died. A lawyer for Beckerink, Todd Pugh, has previously said Tracey “was the love of Adam’s life.”

In an affidavit supporting a bid for an order of protection that was granted in October 2023, Tracey said Beckerink physically abused her at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, at Beckerink’s South Loop residential building and at her Michigan home.

In one instance, she alleged, Beckerink struck her in the head with a pickle jar and poured vodka on her body, burning her wounds. The protection order was dismissed in November 2023 when Tracey moved to vacate it.

Another lawyer for Beckerink, Telly Stefaneas, told Reilly in a hearing Wednesday that his client planned to appeal the Michigan decision awarding the remains to Tracey’s parents, Andrew and Monica Tracey, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Reilly noted in her order Wednesday that it has been three weeks since Tracey’s death, and the medical examiner’s office has indicated that it could not keep her body beyond 30 days.

“Caitlin is a human being who died under horrible circumstances,” Reilly wrote. “If it is possible for Caitlin’s body to be stored elsewhere for the duration of an appeal, that has not even been filed, no one has informed the court of that fact. Certainly, it does not seem just or equitable to do so.”

A lawyer for Andrew and Monica Tracey, Andrew Cunniff, said in a statement Tracey’s family is grateful for Reilly’s decision.

“We cannot imagine why the defendant would want to keep Caitlin away from her family—even now,” Cunniff said. “No one should have to bury their child, much less fight a legal battle to do it. Thankfully, the right side prevailed, and Caitlin will remain with her family where she belongs.”

Not at all persuaded by Donald Trump’s request to keep special counsel Jack Smith’s immunity appendix under wraps until after the 2024 election, the former president’s Jan. 6 judge on Thursday scoffed at the “oxymoronic proposition” that hiding information from the public for political reasons will enhance its “understanding of this case.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Thursday refused to grant Trump a stay extension until Nov. 14, meaning that on Friday the stay will lift and she will “direct the Clerk of the Court to docket the Appendix, with the Government’s proposed redactions.”

Rudy Giuliani is asking a federal judge in New York to stop defamed Georgia election workers from referencing any of the money he may or may not be owed by Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign — at least for another month or so.

In a late Tuesday filing, the former New York City mayor’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to bar Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss from litigating issues related to “Defendant’s alleged claim against the Trump Campaign.”

Giuliani himself previously — during his since-shelved bankruptcy proceedings — raised the $2 million claim against the Trump campaign. Meanwhile, Freeman and Moss raised the claim in the present case — an effort to enforce their defamation case judgment — in late August.

Now, Giuliani wants a preemptive-but-temporary kibosh on any further legal maneuvers related to those alleged arrears.

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3. Florida Supreme Court tells state bar to…

Diversity

Florida Supreme Court tells state bar to stop funding diversity initiatives

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 6, 2024, 8:21 am CST

The Florida Supreme Court has directed the state bar to stop funding diversity and inclusion initiatives in its new budget.

In response, the Florida Bar will transition its Diversity and Inclusion Committee to a new Membership Outreach Committee that will encourage Florida lawyers to get more involved with the bar, report Florida Bar News, Law360 and Bloomberg Law. Diversity funding will also be moved to the new committee.

The Florida Bar is an arm of the Florida Supreme Court, which has oversight of the bar’s budget, the Florida Bar’s communications director told Law360.

The bar’s current budget called for spending $234,000 on diversity and inclusion, according to Bloomberg Law. The previous fiscal year, the bar spent about $300,000 on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The Florida Supreme Court supports bar participation by all members, according to Paul Flemming, the state supreme court’s director of public information, who was quoted by Law360 and Florida Bar News. As a governmental entity, the bar must treat all members equally and without bias, Flemming said.

The state supreme court’s directive follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision striking down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

But diversity is not the same as affirmative action, according to Merrick L. Gross, a shareholder at Carlton Fields, who spoke with Law360.

“There are lots of ways to support and enhance diversity without affirmative action,” said Gross, who told Law360 that he was speaking for himself and not his law firm. “Acknowledging and understanding diversity can amount to removing barriers and creating truly equal opportunity.”

See also:

“Florida judges can no longer get CLE credit for general ‘fairness and diversity’ courses, state supreme court says”

“Refusing to budge, top Florida court says ABA imposes CLE panel ‘quotas,’ state lawyers can’t get credit for participation”

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3. Supreme Court doesn’t stop nation’s first…

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court doesn’t stop nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 25, 2024, 10:26 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the execution of a death row inmate who claims that he would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment if Alabama tries to execute him again—this time using nitrogen hypoxia.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in one of two pending appeals. The Eighth Amendment argument before the high court was based on Alabama’s second attempt to kill the convicted murderer after executioners were unable to insert an intravenous line in November 2022, the New York Times reports here and here.

Smith’s lawyers say the experience caused trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A second appeal claims that Alabama isn’t ready to try the untested nitrogen hypoxia execution method, and that the mask that it is using to deliver the nitrogen could let in oxygen, prolonging the death process, according to the New York Times.

Smith’s lawyers planned to take that issue to the Supreme Court after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta denied his injunction request Wednesday.

Other publications covering the case, besides the New York Times, include Reuters, the Washington Post and Law Dork.

Smith’s execution was scheduled for Thursday evening. He was convicted for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor’s wife.