Drama and scorn ran rampant in a Michigan courtroom on Friday, where a convicted killer was shouted down by his victim’s family members before he could tender some formal condolences.

In June 2023, Sekou Conde, 24, repeatedly shot and killed Donrell Canda, 24, inside his own home – in front of the slain man’s son and girlfriend, according to the Ann Arbor Police Department.

In February, the defendant was convicted by a jury of his peers on all counts against him, including one count each of premeditated murder in the first degree, felony murder, and first-degree home invasion, as well as two counts of possession of a firearm during a felony.

On Friday, Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Carol Kuhnke sentenced Conde to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Two men in Florida are heading to prison — with each of them getting hit with a life sentence last week — for a horrific 2020 kidnapping in which they abducted three people and “tortured” them in the back of a U-Haul rental van before executing two of them, while one of the victims “miraculously survived,” according to prosecutors.

James Edward Daniels, 59, and Frederick Eugene Rudolph, 69, both of Miami, were sentenced to life in prison last Tuesday for the shooting deaths of Osmar Oliva, 50, and Johan Gonzalez Quesada, 26, in December 2020. The pair was convicted last year of conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, multiple counts of kidnapping resulting in death, and kidnapping, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. A third defendant, Herbert Barr, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

“On Dec. 5, 2020, Daniels, Rudolph, Barr and other co-conspirators kidnapped three victims from a truck yard in Opa-locka, Fla.,” the attorney’s office said in a press release last week. “They bound and tortured the victims, duct-taped their eyes and threw them in the back of a rented van after stealing the victims’ drugs. They drove around the city for hours before taking the victims to an abandoned house in Opa-locka and attempting to execute them by shooting the three victims. Two of the victims died, while one miraculously survived.”

The victim who lived was airlifted to the hospital and made a full recovery, according to prosecutors. In addition to attacking and torturing them, Miami-Dade police reported that the trio had also been robbed.

“Daniels stole jewelry from one of the murdered victims,” prosecutors explained. “And all defendants benefitted by receiving drugs, money, or both, in exchange for their participation in the conspiracy.”

More from Law&Crime: Teen and his buddy fired nearly 100 bullets into apartment of romantic rival, but killed the wrong man: Cops

Records show Daniels and Rudolph were also indicted on unrelated drug distribution charges in July 2022. In that case, a judge sentenced Rudolph to 11 years in prison and Daniels to 35 months in prison, or just under three years. The men were indicted for the kidnapping case in November 2023. Neither is a stranger to the criminal justice system, with Daniels’ Florida Department of Corrections incarceration history dating back 40 years. Rudolph was on probation for a drug-related charge at the time of the murders, records show.

The investigation into the 2020 kidnapping and shootings was conducted by the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force.

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David Harris contributed to this report. 

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Judiciary

Judge accused of using ‘game or jail’ tactic, asserting abuse victims get ‘Super Bowl’ neurochemicals

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2025, 3:15 pm CDT

An Indiana judge has been accused in an ethics complaint of failing to recognize “appropriate ethical boundaries” and making “injudicious statements” to litigants and defendants.

Judge Matthew J. Elkin of Howard County, Indiana, allegedly singled out some participants for special treatment in the problem-solving courts over which he presided and made discourteous remarks to other participants and litigants, according to a March 26 statement of charges. A March 26 press release summarized the allegations.

WISH, WTHR, the Kokomo Tribune and the Indiana Lawyer have coverage.

The problem-solving courts included drug court, which addressed substance-abuse issues of criminal defendants, and the reentry court, which focused on reintegrating people into the community after incarceration.

In one instance in March 2023, Elkin allegedly told a reentry participant who had been a domestic violence victim why he thinks that such victims stay in relationships.

He began by talking about the kind of elation quarterback Tom Brady must feel when winning the Super Bowl. After the win, Brady’s brain “is filled with all kinds of neurochemicals,” he said.

“If I smack the sh-t out of you right now, what chemicals get dumped in your brain?” Elkin allegedly said. “The exact same chemicals he experiences when he wins the Super Bowl. Did you know that? So the whole thing is every time I beat you up or you beat me up, we won the Super Bowl. … So if I smack you in the head and you feel the exact same way so you can enjoy the relationship. That’s what happens. … That’s the truth. That’s why women don’t leave.”

In another instance in October 2023, Elkin is accused of using a “game or jail” tactic after learning that a re-entry court participant referred to as R.P. was accused of rule violations. Elkin ordered the handcuffing of the person seated next to R.P. and told them the handcuffed person would be sent to jail if R.P. lied to him.

His aim, Elkin later said, was to prevent R.P. from rationalizing or downplaying his behavior and would reward him for telling the truth.

The complaint also alleges that Elkin:

  • Remarked on a criminal defendant’s lengthy record, saying, “You have more convictions than the average child molester in this country. You are the one-third of the one percent of the worst people in the planet.”

  • Displayed a sign to a problem-solving court participant that said, “Watching you dumb a- -.”

  • Failed to disqualify himself in some cases in which he previously represented the defendant as a criminal defense attorney or appointed public defender.

  • Followed problem-solving court participants outside the courtroom to check up on them.

  • Told some staff members he has followed them or had them followed outside the courtroom and twice accused them of being “moles.”

  • Gave special treatment to some problem-solving court participants but not to others. In one case, he allowed a drug-court participant to live at his wife’s rental property, initially charging only for utilities. In other instances, he allowed participants to store personal belongings at his or his wife’s properties, rented a car for one participant applying for a job, offered household and personal belongings to participants, and walked one person to a medical appointment before incarceration.

A lawyer for Elkin, Jennifer Lukemeyer, did not immediately reply to an ABA Journal request for comment.

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Obituaries

Plane crash victims include 2 Wilkinson Stekloff associates, civil rights attorney set to join law faculty

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 3, 2025, 10:53 am CST

Victims of the Washington, D.C., plane crash Jan. 29 include two Wilkinson Stekloff associates and a civil rights lawyer planning to join the faculty of the Howard University School of Law this fall.

The associates were Sarah Lee Best and Elizabeth Keys, according to the Wilkinson Stekloff website. They were both 33 years old; Keys died on her birthday. The civil rights attorney was 30-year-old Kiah Duggins, according to her employer, the Civil Rights Corps, and an obituary by her alma mater, Harvard Law School.

Among publications with coverage are Law360, Original Jurisdiction, Law.com (here and here), People and the Wall Street Journal.

While at Harvard Law School, Duggins helped protect families from COVID-19 pandemic evictions as president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. According to John Goldberg, the dean of Harvard Law School, Duggins was known for optimism, kindness and empathy.

“As a student and lawyer, Kiah was known for her boundless enthusiasm for advancing justice for the most vulnerable, and for building community,” Goldberg wrote.

Before joining the Civil Rights Corp, Duggins worked with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the law firm Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin. At the Civil Rights Corps, Duggins challenged unconstitutional policing and money bail practices.

She was also a former Miss Kansas contestant and a graduate of Wichita State University. During her undergrad years, she was a White House intern working for former first lady Michelle Obama, according to Law.com.

Best and Keys were returning to Washington, D.C., from a deposition when their American Airlines plane crashed with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, according to Original Jurisdiction.

Keys, a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, clerked for U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia before joining Wilkinson Stekloff in December 2021. During law school, she was the managing editor of the Georgetown Food and Drug Law Journal.

While an undergraduate at Tufts University, Keys was part of the sailing team, her partner, David Seidman, told Law.com.

David A. Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Law360 that Keys was “an extraordinary law student and an even better person.” Keys “was everything a great lawyer should be: meticulous but creative, focused but flexible, professional but kind,” Super said.

Best worked for Teach for America before attending the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She graduated in 2021. She clerked for U.S. District Judge John Cronan of the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge Eugene E. Siler Jr. of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati.

Best began work at Wilkinson Stekloff in November.

Cronan told Law360 that Best would spend hours mentoring law student interns to help them with research and writing.

“She was so caring and thoughtful and generous and had a wonderful sense of humor,” Cronan said.

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A Florida judge on Monday was primed to sentence a 55-year-old man to 20 years in prison for allegedly shooting his ex-fiancee eight times as she lay on the couch. But then the judge heard the alleged victim’s testimony.

Bridget Knighton spoke of the “countless assaults” before the shooting, a courtroom report from Miami ABC affiliate WPLG stated. How the suspect, Gayle Blount, allegedly prevented her from answering the door when the cops would arrive during prior domestic violence incidents, threatening to blow her “brains out” if she “even uttered a sound.” The time he slammed her on a table full of dishes and food at Denny’s. All the times he ignored the restraining order, showing up at her apartment several times leading up to the shooting.

More from Law&Crime: Ex-boyfriend who threw mother of 2 ‘out with the trash’ charged with murder after ‘large crime scene’ found: Police

“Those restraining orders are just a piece of paper,” Knighton reportedly said. “They don’t stop a bullet.”

In May 2021, Knighton was on her couch in her Miami Gardens apartment when Blount allegedly grabbed a gun from a car, barged into the home and shot her eight times. He reportedly told her “Look what you made me do.”

As a result, Knighton has had to undergo some 11 surgeries and suffers from other health problems. She also must walk with a cane.

Blount has sat in a Miami-Dade County jail cell for nearly four years. Last month Blount and prosecutors came to a plea deal where he would plead guilty to attempted murder in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence. But Knighton reportedly testified that she felt the punishment was not stiff enough for all the terror he allegedly put her through.

A California man was found guilty this month of first-degree murder for killing a 17-year-old in Oakland while on an “escalating” crime spree that included carjackings, robberies and urinating on the grave of one of the victim’s friends for an Instagram video, according to prosecutors.

Jacobi Gaines, 23, was also convicted of three counts of gun possession, carjacking, robbery, vehicle theft and assault with a deadly weapon in connection to his six-week crime spree back at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 — culminating in the murder of Hasan Humphries, according to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, which announced the conviction in a Friday press release.

A Florida man is accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death with a kitchen knife while the victim’s daughter was home and on the phone with 911.

Makinson Devalcin, 45, faces charges in the death of Enese Pierre, court documents said.

She was killed on Sunday. An affidavit outlines the allegations.

Drama was high, surprising, and consistent in an Ohio courtroom on Friday, where a convicted killer was sentenced for his role in an eight-person massacre of another family over a child custody dispute.

In April 2021, Edward “Jake” Wagner, 32, pleaded guilty to murdering members of the Rhoden and Gilley families — five years to the day of the gruesome finds at three houses and one camper in Pike County.

Two other members of the Wagner clan were also admittedly culpable — to various degrees — in the violence. Angela Wagner, 54, and her mother, Rita Newcomb, 72, were sentenced earlier in the same courtroom on Friday. They remained at the defense table throughout the proceedings.