South Dakota Wrongful Death Lawyer category
1The Ongoing Attempt to Justify Murder
18 September 2008
Cory at the Madville Times is excited because he thinks he’s finally found a way to justify abortion: a “fetus” (a human fetus?) and an adult are “different,” and that people disagree on criminal penalties.
How is a human “fetus” different than a human “adult?” Perhaps it’s because they’re different in things like size, development, their environment and their level of dependency.
The human fetus is a lot smaller than the human adult. Oh, but toddlers are smaller than human adults, too. Does that mean they aren’t human? Should we allow toddlers to be killed for convenience?
Well, the human fetus isn’t nearly as fully developed as the human adult. Oh, but 5-year-old girls aren’t capable of reproduction as adult females. Five-year-old-boys also aren’t capable of reproduction like adult males, either. They’re also a lot smaller, don’t have the same set of teeth that adults have, and so on. Does that mean these 5-year-olds aren’t human? Do they lack value because of their lack of development? Should we allow 5-year-olds lacking in development to be killed?
Okay, but the human fetus is inside the womb, while human adults are outside the womb. What, you say location doesn’t change the worth and dignity of a human being? You mean I’m worth just as much on this side of the street as that side of the street? I have the same human dignity in Asia as I do in South America? You mean I’m just as human in orbit or walking on the moon as I am here on earth? You mean a child has the same human value when they’re being carried on daddy’s back as they do when they’re walking on their own, or the baby has just as much value being held in someone’s arms as they do when they’re an adult holding another baby?
2Anthrax and unsolved suspicious deaths
11 September 2008
The FBI has given a thorough accounting of its investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001. It has not explained how it wrongfully accused one scientist and hounded him, and finally had to pay him $4 million for the damages it did to him. Once the agency thought it found the real perpetrator, Dr. Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide when the FBI was closing in on him the agency provided a comprehensive account which covered the essentials of the crime–means, motive, opportunity.
The FBI has briefed victims and family members of victims of the anthrax attack. It also released scientists from secrecy to give the press an account of the sicence created and applied to solve the case.
3South Dakota Wrongful Death Lawyer - Anthrax and unsolved suspicious deaths
5 September 2008
The FBI has given a thorough accounting of its investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001. It has not explained how it wrongfully accused one scientist and hounded him, and finally had to pay him $4 million for the damages it did to him. Once the agency thought it found the real perpetrator, Dr. Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide when the FBI was closing in on him the agency provided a comprehensive account which covered the essentials of the crime–means, motive, opportunity.
The FBI has briefed victims and family members of victims of the anthrax attack. It also released scientists from secrecy to give the press an account of the sicence created and applied to solve the case. The New York Times has the fascinating story.
Scientists involved have declined to comment or speculate on the charges the FBI was developing against Bruce Ivins, but people involved in briefings, such as Sen. Tom Daschle, have said the ece was coompelling, even though some questions remain unanswered.
The FBI’s forthrightness stands in contrast to the way such incidents and investigations are handled in South Dakota. That’s why the death of Prof. Morgan Lewis on the campus of Northern State University on Nov. 1, 2004, remaiins a puzzle.
READ ALL ARTICLE ON SOUTH DAKOTA WRONGFUL DEATH LAWYER……..
4Sheriff’s Office sued over 2004 prisoner death
31 August 2008
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office is the target of a wrongful-death suit concerning the July 2004 death of Marvis Gail Davidson in the Buncombe County Detention Facility. Bobby Medford, since convicted on federal corruption charges, was sheriff then.
April Nicole Welch, Davidson’s daughter and the administrator of her estate, filed the lawsuit Aug. 8. It alleges that after Davidson’s arrest, she was repeatedly denied medical care for conditions related to diabetes, which jail officials knew she had because it was noted in her records during a previous incarceration.
“As her condition deteriorated and the associated pain grew to intolerable levels—particularly in the days immediately preceding her death—Ms. Davidson and fellow inmates of her cell repeatedly beseeched detention officers monitoring Ms. Davidson,” the lawsuit alleges, adding that “detention officers ignored Ms. Davidson’s continuous cries for help even as she lay writhing and screaming on the floor in pain.” The lawsuit accuses the Sheriff’s Office of manifesting “a heedless indifference to, or reckless disregard of, Ms. Davidson’s safety and well-being.”
The autopsy report revealed that Davidson died of a condition known as “dead gut,” which is sometimes related to diabetes. In 2005, a jail employee filed complaints about Davidson’s treatment.
The lawsuit seeks a trial by jury and at least $30,000 in damages, plus attorney and court costs. It names current Sheriff Van Duncan—in his official capacity only—and the Sheriff’s Office. It also targets the South Dakota-based Western Surety Co., which insures both the Sheriff’s Office and the jail.
Lt. Ross Dillingham, the sheriff’s public-affairs officer, said he had no comment on how his office would respond to the lawsuit, emphasizing that the incident took place under the previous administration. “Sheriff Duncan in no way had any affiliation with the office then, or any control over what happened in the jail in 2004,” Dillingham told Xpress.
Davidson’s death was not the only controversy related to prisoner treatment during Medford’s tenure—or the only inmate death.
Xpress has previously reported on the September 2001 arrest of Joey Max Rogers for driving his lawnmower while drunk. After being taken into custody and placed in a locked room, he was found a half-hour later with his neck broken (see “High Pressure Zone,” May 18, 2005 Xpress).
5Some positive news about preemption
25 July 2008
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).
6Executions by lethal injection in Texas and Virginia
22 July 2008
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.”
7$1M for motorcyclist’s family in Janklow crash
6 June 2008
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Relatives of a motorcyclist killed in a crash with former Rep. Bill Janklow said Wednesday they’ve settled their South Dakota wrongful death lawsuit against the government for $1 million.
Randy Scott of Hardwick, Minn., was killed Aug. 16, 2003, when his Harley-Davidson struck the back of a Cadillac that Janklow drove through a stop sign at an intersection in eastern South Dakota.
Scott, 55, was killed instantly. Janklow, 68, was injured.
Scott’s family sued the federal government for $25 million after the U.S. attorney in Minnesota concluded Janklow was on official business at the time. A trial had been scheduled to start June 16 in Minneapolis, but the family opted to settle Tuesday, said Scott’s mother, Marcella Scott of Luverne, Minn.
“Now that it’s all over, we can get closure,” she said. “And so many people have been helpful and given us the strength to go on.”
The family’s lawyer, Ron Meshbesher, said federal attorneys settled “begrudgingly.” Because it was a nondependent case, meaning Scott’s two children are adults supporting themselves, the $1 million is about as much as was possible, he said.
Janklow has not commented on the accident but said Wednesday he’s glad Scott’s family can move on.
“I’m happy that part of it’s over,” he said.
Janklow, who has returned to private practice as a lawyer, was a dominating force in South Dakota politics for 30 years. After serving as attorney general, the Republican was governor for 16 years, serving four terms in two separate eight-year stints. In 2002, he was elected as South Dakota’s lone member of the House.
8South Dakota Wronful death: After ruling, executions reset
5 June 2008
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Here in the nation’s leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others that practice capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up.
Less than three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ended a seven-month halt in lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have now been set in six states between May 6 and October. The first, on Tuesday, is in Georgia of a man who killed his girlfriend and another woman.
“The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. “So in some sense, they’re back from vacation and ready to go to work.”
Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national — and international — issue of capital punishment.
“When people confront a new wave of executions, they’ll be questioning not only how people are executed but whether people should be executed,” said James R. Acker, a historian of the death penalty and a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany.
Texas leads the list with five people now set to die here in the Walls Unit, the state’s death house, between June 3 and Aug. 20. Virginia is next with four. Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota have also set execution dates.
Some welcome the end of the moratorium.
“We’ll start playing a little bit of catch-up,” said William R. Hubbarth, a spokesman for Justice for All, a Houston-based … READ MORE
9Janklow should pay settlement
3 June 2008
As a lightning rod for strong public opinion, few politicians can beat Bill Janklow.
South Dakota’s four-term governor and former congressman was back in the spotlight last week, attracting the ire of angry taxpayers with the news of a $1 million settlement in the South Dakota wrongful death of Randy Scott.
That’s because U.S. taxpayers, not Bill Janklow, were on the hook for the civil damages awarded to the family of the late motorcyclist.
Scott was killed Aug. 16, 2003, when Janklow drove through a stop sign on a rural highway in eastern South Dakota and collided with Scott’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle. That collision led to Janklow’s conviction for second-degree manslaughter and cost him his seat in Congress. He served 100 days in jail, paid a $5,000 fine and lost his law license temporarily.
But he avoided a civil lawsuit when the U.S. attorney in Minnesota concluded Janklow was on official business at the time of the crash, which made the federal government responsible for financial damages because he was performing his duties as a government worker. The Scott family had wanted to sue Jank-low personally, which would have allowed them to pursue punitive damages, something that is not allowed under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
10Should Janklow pay settlement?
28 May 2008
South Dakota’s four-term governor and former congressman, Bill Janklow was back in the spotlight last week, attracting the ire of angry taxpayers with the news of a $1 million settlement in the wrongful death of Randy Scott.
That’s because U.S. taxpayers, not Bill Janklow, were on the hook for the civil damages awarded to the family of the late motorcyclist.
Scott was killed Aug. 16, 2003, when Janklow drove through a stop sign on a rural highway in eastern South Dakota and collided with Scott’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle. That collision led to Janklow’s conviction for second-degree manslaughter and cost him his seat in Congress. He served 100 days in jail, paid a $5,000 fine and lost his law license temporarily.
But he avoided a civil lawsuit when the U.S. attorney in Minnesota concluded Janklow was on official business at the time of the crash, which made the federal government responsible for financial damages because he was performing his duties as a government worker. The Scott family had wanted to sue Jank-low personally, which would have allowed them to pursue punitive damages, something that is not allowed under the Federal Tort Claims Act.