Community Brainstorming Conference to discuss wrongful conviction
Lawyers, a former death-row inmate and a civil rights advocate will discuss issues surrounding wrongful convictions at Saturday’s Community Brainstorming Conference.
The session will feature the case of Alphonso James of Milwaukee. James was 17 years old when a jury found him guilty in the 1985 strangling of a 54-year-old man. He was sentenced as an adult to life in prison and has served time in six different facilities over the past 23 years. He has maintained his innocence, and many people believe him and have worked to have his case re-examined.
Among the panelists will be former Texas death-row inmate Christopher Ochoa, who was freed after DNA evidence proved his innocence. After he was freed, he went to law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked on James’ case with the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which had helped clear him. Also scheduled to appear is Madison civil rights lawyer Ed Garvey.
Author Steve Rose, who started the Justice 4 James organization in 2001, said James has never filed an appeal because of lack of physical evidence.
“The main thing right now is to bring awareness to the case so we can have this thing looked at by the powers that be,” he said.
The Wisconsin Innocence Project picked up the case in the late 1990s and found that improperly stored DNA evidence used in the case could not be used to exonerate James.
A TV Reporter Tackles Workers’ Comp
In the decade and a half or more than I have known Rick Kupchella of KARE-TV in Minneapolis, he has always been attracted to stories that are complex and tough to tell. I have seen him try to explain community sprawl, how long-distance phone companies price their plans and how Ticketmaster works. I have seen him explore stories like global warming and alcoholism. That is not the stuff that local TV gets stereotyped as covering, is it?
I asked Rick what story we should all consider taking on and he points us to a big one: workers' compensation. He explains in today's guest column:
One of the issues I've covered at KARE repeatedly over the years focuses on the inadequacies/inequalities of the workers' compensation system in my home state of Minnesota and throughout the nation.
Congressional sources peg the number of work-related fatalities in this country at 6,000 a year, with millions more injured.
Injured workers -- or survivors of those killed -- really cannot sue a company for wrongful death. The workers' compensation system involves its own judges, in its own courts, with its own laws.
Legal group in Iowa aims to review convictions
The odds of a judge overturning a murder conviction in Iowa are minute, but a handful of lawyers are out to change that.
The lawyers have created the state's first innocence project to investigate alleged cases of wrongful conviction. The all-volunteer effort promises to increase the chances that more Iowa inmates will be exonerated for crimes they didn't commit, national experts say.
"There's no question that we have more of these cases now - there have been more than 1,300 documented exonerations in the U.S. going back to the 1800s," said Rob Warden, who heads one of the country's most successful innocence projects at Northwestern University. "Before we had modern science, they were rare. Now with DNA evidence and more innocence projects, they are much more common."
One case in Iowa that doesn't involve DNA but has the potential for a first-degree murder conviction being overturned is that of David Flores. Des Moines police admitted in court this month that they did not give Flores' lawyers a 1996 FBI report in which another man was named a suspect in the shooting death of bank executive Phyllis Davis.
Flores has served 12 years in prison. He is expected to have a hearing next month at which Polk County District Judge Don Nickerson will be asked to decide whether Flores' conviction should be vacated because the evidence that was withheld could have changed the outcome of his trial.
Company seeks dismissal of wrongful death suit
Ace Doran Hauling & Rigging has filed a motion to dismiss a wrongful death complaint filed against them.
Represented by Michael Lawder of St. Louis, Ace Doran Hauling & Rigging argues a company known as Ace Doran Brokerage Company is the company that brokered the load involved in this case.
The estate of Steve DeVries filed the complaint against Metro Contract Services (MCS) and Ace Doran Hauling & Rigging Company alleging DeVries was killed when the load on his tractor trailer fell on top of him.
According to the complaint filed May 29 in Madison County Circuit Court, DeVries was employed by Smith Trucking as a driver from August 2006 through August 2007.
In August 2007, Smith Trucking was hired to haul an enclosed semi-trailer load containing miscellaneous piping machinery and a large control panel to be used in the operation of a water treatment plant.
DeVries' estate alleges he was dispatched to Tower Automotive in Granite City to pick up the load.
According to the complaint, MCS and Ace Doran were the responsible parties who loaded, rigged, arranged, chained, positioned, secured, organized and contracted with other people to load the water treatment plant equipment in DeVries' enclosed semi-trailer.
The estate alleges DeVries departed from Granite City once his trailer was loaded and drove to the Smith parking lot in Bethel Heights, Ark., where the trailer was to remain until he was to depart for the anticipated delivery location in Oklahoma.
DeVries' estate alleges that while in the Smith parking lot the large control panel fell out of the back of his semi-trailer.
There Goes Worker Safety – ( Minnesota wrongful death lawyer )
The reality of current worker safety is that more Americans are killed at work each year than died in the twin towers on September 11th. Every day eighteen Americans die preventable deaths; preventable because mandated safety precautions go unheeded. When a preventable death occurs it means that someone, somewhere, dropped the ball. Possibly a safety measure was not followed by an employee or their supervisor. Or, an employer who has repeatedly and maliciously disregarded OSHA regulations has been allowed to literally “get away with murder!”
According to Webster’s Dictionary, an “accident” is defined as “an unexpected unusual event.” But, when an employer repeatedly breaks laws, there is nothing unusual or unexpected about an event that produces a tragic debilitating injury or death to an employee.
This is the dirty little secret of Workers’ Compensation: employers hold the ultimate “Get Out Of Jail FREE” card when it comes to their employee’s safety. Employers are immune from civil wrongful death actions and, for all practical purposes, criminal prosecution.
Prior to Workers’ Compensation laws employees had the right, just like any other citizen, to sue their employers if the employer’s tortuous behavior caused the employee an injury or worse, death. Unfortunately, very few workers prevailed in court. The employer’s ability to afford more lawyers and more investigators outmatched that of the resources of the workers.
Employers did not take safety precautions seriously or provide adequate safe working conditions because they had absolutely nothing to fear from the injured worker.
An idea that developed shortly after the turn into the 20th Century was the formation of state-created industrial commissions to establish health and safety regulations and to compensate injured workers. The various state commissions desired to make available a fund which would compensate workers for their injuries without draining the resources of the employers.
The general idea was that companies would contribute to a self-insurance fund; the fewer injuries there were, the less the fund would have to pay out and the lower the premiums would be to the employers. Thus, the initial Workers’ Compensation concept was a
preventive measure by individual states in reaction to the need to protect workers..
Then the insurance companies of America got hold of these commissions with their massive economic and legislative clout and that is what we have today; a system that gives the employers and their insurers the ultimate shield against civil and criminal prosecution for crimes which if committed anywhere else, would land them in jail poste haste!
Welcome to the doctrine of the “Exclusive Remedy!
And what do injured workers get in exchange?
The ability to get medical treatment when the insurance company feels like giving it.
The ability to have their medical needs reviewed by doctors who are not impartial, and who are paid by the employers and insurers to delay and deny industry standard treatment modalities.
The ability to get little or no compensation for their inability to compete in the workplace for jobs that will fit their post injury abilities.
It’s time that our legislators got off their respective hind ends and passed some laws that will aid and assist the working population of this state or there won’t be anyone left to man the jobs that we already have.
The State of Minnesota has a bill in it’s Senate sponsored by Senator John Marty that is a unique one-of-a-kind bill that will hold employers accountable for the Minnesota wrongful death of a worker due to their ignorance of OSHA regulations. It’s a start.
Chief dropped from Wisconsin wrongful death suit
WOODSTOCK - A Wisconsin wrongful-death lawsuit involving a McHenry father and son who drowned in McCullom Lake can go to go to trial after a judge dismissed claims over lake maintenance and the against the village’s police chief.
The San Juan family alleges the village did not properly mark the wading and swimming area off the village’s beach, where Jesus San Juan drowned in June 2001 trying to save his 9-year-old son, Sabas.
They also claim that McHenry dispatchers waited too long to send help. A rescue crew was at nearby Petersen Park but dispatchers waited 3 minutes and 24 seconds to send help because they did not know where in the lake the two were, San Juan family attorney Sean Burke said.
“The San Juans were still above water when these [two 911] calls were made,” Burke said.
The lawsuit no longer involves McCullom Lake Police Chief Anthony LoPorchio, who allegedly did not go into the water to help the struggling pair. A judge removed claims against LoPorchio Wednesday, because the chief did not have a legal responsibility to rescue them.
Some positive news about preemption
Defendant SmithKline Beecham Corp. (“GSK”) manufactures and sells pharmaceuticals, including Paxil, an antidepressant. Plaintiff Debra Tucker brought this South Dakota wrongful death suit under Indiana state law against GSK, claiming that her older brother, Father Rick Tucker, committed suicide as a result of taking Paxil. She contends that GSK breached its duty to warn of an increased suicide risk in adults taking Paxil. Finding that the federal Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) required GSK to include language in its drug label that conflicted directly with the warning that Tucker argues was required under Indiana law, this court dismissed Tucker’s state law claims as preempted by federal law. See Tucker v.SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2007 WL 2726259 (S. D. Ind. Sept. 19, 2007).
CIETC outrage not near end
Lawyers in the CIETC civil lawsuit agreed Thursday on an August 2010 trial date, which sets the stage for at least two more years of legal battles over roughly $1.5 million in taxpayer money allegedly misspent by former job-training executive Ramona Cunningham and others.
"There are a lot of different issues, and there are a lot of people in the case that weren't in the case before," said Leon Spies, attorney for former Iowa Workforce Development executive Jane Barto, one of those accused in the case. "I think the blister continues to fester."
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller's office sued seven former officials of the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium in March to recover at least $1.3 million linked to various CIETC officials. The lawsuit - it also names a former CIETC consultant and former auditing firm Faller & Kinchloe -was filed before April's fraud and conspiracy trial in Davenport.
Jurors in the criminal case found former CIETC accountant Karen Tesdell guilty of 29 charges connected to what prosecutors said was a three-year conspiracy to misspend public money on CIETC salaries.
Barto, a co-defendant, was found not guilty of conspiracy but was convicted of obstructing a CIETC investigation.
Former board member Dan Albritton also was acquitted of conspiracy.
Cunningham, Tesdell, Barto and Albritton all are named in the civil lawsuit, along with former CIETC board chairman Archie Brooks, former executive John Bargman and Bargman's wife, former CIETC consultant Deb Dessert.
Lawyers say Barto and Albritton, despite their acquittals in the criminal case, still face civil liability in a manner similar to legal proceedings against former football star O.J. Simpson. Simpson, acquitted of murder in 1995, later was socked with a $38 million Iowa wrongful death judgment.
Fred Pritzker: Litigating Food Borne Injury Cases
Minneapolis, MN: Fred Pritzker and the lawyers at his Minneapolis firm always have a lot on their plate, so to speak.
His firm, Pritzker|Ruohonen & Associates P.A., is one of very few firms in the U.S. that can claim expertise in representing people injured by food borne illnesses, like E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria. It is a highly technical business, which requires experience, and a lot of scientific detail.
“It is a very small group of lawyers, I can think of one other firm. Plenty of lawyers do food borne illness cases,” he says “but I don't think that many of them have the kind of experience and consistency that we have,” says Pritzker.
Over the years, Pritzker has served as legal council in “hundreds” of cases where people have suffered serious injuries, even died from eating contaminated food.
Pritzker|Ruohonen & Associates have been involved in most of the major food borne illness outbreaks involving E. coli 0157:H7, and collected millions on behalf of food borne illness survivors, and the families of people who have died.
“E. coli cases can be very large, especially if there is a Minnesota wrongful death case, or something called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is destruction of the kidneys,” he says. “There have been many major outbreaks, for example, there was the lettuce outbreak involving Dole lettuce that affected a lot of the United States two years ago, and we had one of the wrongful death cases associated with that, and they are very significant claims,” says Pritzker.
E. coli poisoning victims often get sick, very fast. It is among the most dangerous of all types of food borne illnesses. Many victims recover, but about a third of all E. coli infections result in kidney failure. Other complications may be blindness, seizures, paralysis or other types of debilitating or disfiguring and permanent injuries.
On July 2, 2008, the firm filed a lawsuit in Ohio, on behalf of 21-year-old Zachary Everhart from Columbus, who became ill with an E. coli O157:H7 infection after eating Kroger ground beef. The defendants in this case are Kroger Co. and Nebraska Beef, Ltd.
“He has recovered from the physical injuries to a large degree, he's still got a little bit of weakness,” says Pritzker “but anyone who has gone through a near death food borne illness experience, you can imagine, is very emotionally involved and very concerned about what they eat and how it is prepared and who makes it and things like that.”
In the Everhart case, Pritzker says, using a genetic fingerprint of the bacteria, it was possible to trace the illness back to Kroger Ltd. and then to Nebraska Beef Ltd. “He is a culture confirmed case,” says Pritzker.
LAS: How did you get interested in litigating food borne illness cases?
FP: Years ago, I handled a significant food borne illness case, but not as well publicized as E. coli, and just got to know the science involved, and became more and more interested in it, and had more and more cases and developed a reputation.
LAS: Do you represent companies in food borne illness cases?
FP: What we are usually involved in is individual cases, we feel we can do a much better job helping individual clients and helping people with real problems.
LAS: What kind of verdicts result?
FP: It depends on what kind of food borne illness is involved. There are probably a dozen that we see, some of them like listeriosis (which causes fever, meningitis, miscarriage, or premature birth and is spread by eating food contaminated with Listeria bacteria) is a rare food borne illness. There are only about 2500 cases a year in the United States. Of those, 20 per cent of the people die and the rate of serious complications is significant. When there is an outbreak of listeriosis, those cases typically settle in the millions and in several instances, in the multi million-dollar range.
E. coli cases can be very large, especially if there is a wrongful death case, or something called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is destruction of the kidneys. There have been many major outbreaks. For example, there was the lettuce outbreak involving Dole lettuce that affected a lot of the United States two years ago. We had one of the wrongful death cases associated with that, and they are very significant claims.
LAS: What do you kind of evidence do you need to bring forward to successfully conclude these cases?
There is first, proving fault on the part of the producer or retailer.
The second is causation, and that is usually the more difficult one. By causation, I mean that this particular product was produced by a particular manufacturer and produced a particular kind of illness.
Executions by lethal injection in Texas and Virginia
The states of Texas and Virginia each sent a condemned prisoner to his death Thursday night, both executed by lethal injection. Carlton “Akee” Turner died after 6:00 p.m. at the death chamber at the Huntsville prison near Dallas, Texas. Kent Jermaine Jackson was pronounced dead at 9:18 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia.
Texas has executed 407 individuals since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, more than any other US state. Virginia is second only to Texas, having sent 101 to their deaths during this same period. Deaths in these states account for more than 45 percent of all executions in the US since 1976.
The state killings of Turner and Jackson are part of a new round of executions in the US following a 7-2 decision by the US Supreme Court in mid-April that ruled lethal injection—the exclusive method used by the vast majority of the 36 US states that practice capital punishment—does not violate the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision came in response to a challenge by two Kentucky death row inmates.
Executions in the US had been on hold for seven months prior to the May 6 lethal injection of William Earl Lynd in Georgia. A total of 12 men have been executed since the high court’s April 16 decision, and a total of 22 more are scheduled to be put to death between now and the end of October in eight states: Texas, 15; Virginia, 2; Oklahoma, 2; and one each in Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas and South Dakota.
Carlton “Akee” Turner, 28, was convicted in the 1998 murders of his adoptive parents, Tonya and Carlton Turner Sr. After shooting them multiple times, he hid their bodies in the garage of their home until they were discovered after three days. He later confessed to the crime, saying at trial that he killed his father in self-defense but could not explain why he had killed his mother.
The way was cleared for Turner’s execution following the rejection of a clemency petition by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and the US Supreme Court’s rejection of an appeal for a stay. Turner’s attorneys had argued before the high court that he should be entitled to a federally appointed and paid attorney to pursue his clemency.
Turner was only hours from execution last September 27 when he was issued a last-minute stay pending the outcome of the Kentucky lethal injection case. That stay was lifted following the April 21 decision by the Supreme Court, denying without comment the appeals of 11 death row inmates who challenged the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure as practiced in their states.
The University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Clinic filed a petition for clemency on Turner’s behalf with the Texas Board of Pardons. It cited racial discrimination at his trial as well as aggravating factors in his childhood. The petition also contained affidavits from families and friends arguing that Turner’s death sentence should be commuted to life in prison.
Carlton Turner was adopted as an 11-month-old baby. The family moved frequently due to Carlton Sr.’s career in the military. The petition stated, “While Tony and Carlton presented the picture of a happy and well adjusted family, trouble started at an early age. Akee exhibited learning and behavioral problems as early as elementary school. These continued throughout his school years.
“His problems were only exacerbated by his father’s strict and abusive punishments. He suffered broken fingers, cuts, bruises and a broken leg (after his father threw him to the ground when he was seven years old), and endured many trips to the hospital as a result of his father’s punishment.”
Maurice Levin, an attorney with the Capital Punishment Clinic, notes that it was an all-white jury that convicted Turner, who is African-American. He also points to anecdotal evidence that no blacks even made it to the questioning portion of jury selection.
Dallas County, site of the trial, has a long history of excluding blacks from juries in death penalty cases, as well as other judicial improprieties. There have been 12 prisoners exonerated in the county on the basis of DNA evidence, including those serving long sentences for murder, rape and other felonies. These South Dakota wrongful death convictions in one county amount to more than all those recorded in the entire state of Florida—a situation referred to by one Texas lawmaker as an “international embarrassment.”