Fraudulent concealment claim survives despite dismissal of time-barred promissory note claims

Summary: Darren Zhou reported to FBI by OpenAI for threats Zhou pleaded guilty to aggravated stalking and threats Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer sentenced Zhou to probation   A South Palm Beach man turned to ChatGPT to plot the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, reported a 25-year-old Florida man to the FBI after he shared detailed plans to rape and murder his ex-girlfriend. "I'm gonna kill her by the end of this month," Darren Zhou told the chatbot, his messages preserved in court records. "If I can't have her then nobody can." Investigators say Zhou, a since-fired Goldman Sachs analyst living near Donald Trump's Palm Beach estate, turned to ChatGPT in March to discuss his recent breakup with a girlfriend of six months. He recounted her hobbies, the places she frequented, his jealousy of the men around her, and his desire to get back together. OpenAI's policies say a small team of people may review ChatGPT interactions when the company detects that a user plans to harm others. In serious cases, the company may send a tip to law enforcement. ChatGPT conversations have become evidence in numerous court cases, but fewer examples exist of a user's activity being reported to police by the company. Investigators say Zhou's messages quickly turned to threats of rape, murder and murder-suicide. Federal agents turned over two months of Zhou's chat logs to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in May, by which point Zhou's targets had grown to include the young woman's family. A deputy who reviewed the logs — which included only Zhou's messages, not ChatGPT's responses — said they weren't "vague emotional outbursts" but instead showed a pattern of rehearsal and planning. Deputies performed a welfare check on the girlfriend, a 21-year-old from Lake Worth Beach. She said she had broken up with Zhou over his "erratic, jealous and controlling behavior," and did so over the phone because she feared how he would react. Since the breakup, the woman said Zhou dogged her with calls, texts and social media messages, pressing her about comments that a man left on her TikTok videos. He accused her of moving on quickly and ignored her repeated requests that he not contact her again. Investigators say Zhou continued to call and text his ex from various app-generated phone numbers. She took screenshots of the messages, many of which were harassing, insulting, sexual and threatening. Armed with Zhou's messages to the AI and to his ex, deputies arrested him in May. He spent two days in the Palm Beach County jail before posting $100,000 bail. Assistant State Attorney Ana Cuskova charged him in June with aggravated stalking, written threats to kill, and illegal use of a cellphone, felonies punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Zhou pleaded guilty to all three on Aug. 13 after negotiating a deal with Cuskova that spared him both from prison and a felony conviction. Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer, speaking from the bench, said he only accepted the deal because Zhou's ex-girlfriend had approved it. In accordance with the agreement, the judge withheld adjudication and sentenced Zhou to eight years of probation, during which he must abide by a slew of restrictions. He pointed to the fact that Zhou graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University in Boston and had no prior criminal record. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: “Florida man told ChatGPT he'd murder his ex. OpenAI alerted the FBI” Reporting by Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post

Summary: Vice Chancellor Travis Laster denies injunction on pepper spray use Trial to assess constitutionality of decontamination policies ACLU represents plaintiffs challenging Delaware Department of Correction A lawsuit claiming that the Delaware Department of Correction routinely leaves subdued prisoners to marinate in high-concentration pepper spray will go to trial in the coming months, a judge ruled on Aug. 11. The lawsuit filed in May claims that Delaware prison officers fail to decontaminate inmates subjected to powerful, law enforcement-grade pepper spray, and that that failure violates a provision of Delaware's constitution barring cruel punishment. The lawsuit is unique as it seeks policy and practice change in the prisons, rather than monetary damages, and is being litigated through Delaware's Court of Chancery, the state's nationally renowned forum for business disputes. It was brought by attorneys for the local chapter of the ACLU on behalf of people locked up by the state who claim they were sprayed and not allowed to clean themselves, in some cases for days. Officers in the department use so-called OC spray — short for oleoresin capsicum — hundreds of times per year in state prisons. In interviews over the years, prisoners have said the spray, which is more powerful than civilian pepper spray, is deployed unnecessarily and recklessly and causes suffering long after a prisoner is subdued. The use of such spray is not at issue, but instead, what happens after. Attorneys for the plaintiff prisoners asked the Chancery Court to issue an injunction barring use of pepper spray in state prisons until correction officials show they are properly decontaminating the subdued targets of the spray. But a recent ruling by Vice Chancellor Travis Laster denied the injunction request because of the necessity of pepper spray for "maintaining order" in state prisons. "If correction officers could not use OC, they would have to resort to the weapons of the past, like police batons, nightsticks, and truncheons," Laster wrote. While the preliminary injunction was rejected, Laster ordered the parties to prepare for a trial in the coming months on the constitutionality of the prisons' practice as it relates to decontamination. In ordering the trial, Laster's 136-page opinion treads new legal ground for prison litigation in the state and creates a test for whether a condition of confinement violates the state constitution's bar on cruel punishment. A condition fails the test when it exposes a prisoner to an "objectively significant risk of harm" that isn't required to serve the prison's interest in "incapacitation, deterrence or rehabilitation," the opinion states. He wrote that the plaintiffs have shown it is reasonably likely that not facilitating decontamination creates that risk of harm. For emphasis, he also singled out reported instances when sprayed prisoners were subjected to strip searches in which they were required to touch their mouths and genital areas. He added that the potential long-term health effects of OC spray also show a risk of irreparable harm. At trial, the plaintiffs will have to prove that failing to decontaminate prisoners violates the cruel punishment clause and that the relevant policy, which the department put in place after the lawsuit was filed, is constitutionally inadequate. Laster noted the plaintiffs have already pointed to "gaps" in the policy, including the failure to address decontamination and strip searches, and doesn't address aspects that the comparable federal prisons' policy includes. "Determining whether these issues warrant a declaratory judgment or targeted mandatory injunctive relief will require a trial and expert testimony," Laster wrote. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: “Trial set in novel challenge to Delaware prison pepper spray practices” Reporting by Xerxes Wilson, Delaware News Journal / Delaware News Journal

Summary: U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issues ruling Executive order restricts mail ballots without state voter lists ACLU represents voting rights groups challenging USPS policy A federal judge on Aug. 11 blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing part of President Donald Trump's executive order that aims to tighten rules ‌for mail-in voting ahead of November elections that will decide control of Congress. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston marked the latest setback for Trump's push to expand the federal government's role in overseeing elections. Trump, a Republican, signed his executive order in March after years of calling for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. The executive order called on states to provide lists of eligible voters who may receive mail ballots. If states did not comply, USPS would have refused to deliver the ballots. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement: "The entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact — which includes the safety and security of American elections." Talwani’s decision effectively expanded on an earlier order she issued in June that prevented Trump's administration from implementing it in 23 mostly Democratic-led states. Several voting rights groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union asked the judge to go further and bar the USPS altogether from implementing the order anywhere in the nation. In granting the plaintiffs' request, Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote that the executive branch of the federal government had no authority to regulate elections, a responsibility that the U.S. Constitution assigns to individual states. "The is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy," Talwani wrote. "Enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive's attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation." Sophia Lin Lakin, a voting rights lawyer with the ACLU, said in a statement: "Today's ruling sends another necessary message to an administration that continues to weaponize portions of the government to sow chaos into our elections." The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put Talwani's earlier decision on hold, arguing the states' case was premature as agencies had not yet finalized plans to implement Trump's order. In a similar case brought by the Democratic Party, a federal judge in D.C. declined to immediately block the executive order, finding it would be premature to do so because the USPS had not yet issued its rule. An appeals court affirmed that decision. Talwani said the case was now ripe for a decision because the USPS had proposed a rule, and the election was closer. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Nia Williams)