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First Female Black Judge in Tulsa OK Reprimanded for Shouting, Favoritism and Dishonesty

27 Oct

A public reprimand was issued by the Oklahoma Supreme Court against Tulsa County District Judge Sharon Holmes in Investigation of Sharon Holmes (2026 OK 67) for cumulative violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Previously, the Council on Judicial Complaints had recommended invoking removal proceedings for “oppression in office”, but the Supreme Court found her actions were merely legal errors and abuses of discretion as opposed to grounds for removal.

The Court did agree with the Council’s findings that Holmes had violated several rules of judicial conduct. 1. Ex parte communications: Holmes held unauthorized private conversations with a criminal defendant in a hallway, and spoke privately with jurors for several minutes (refusing to disclose the substance of this conversation). And she read private emails from incarcerated defendants’ families without filing them or notifying the parties. 2. Failure to disqualify: she did not recuse herself from cases involving such ex parte communications, as well as cases brought by attorneys who had previously represented her. 3. Sentencing violations: she disregarded statutory sentencing restrictions by allowing ineligible defendants to plead into a specialty treatment docket (Arise Program) without making mandatory on-the-record findings. 4. Undignified demeanor: she demonstrated a pattern of hostile courtroom behavior, including screaming at an assistant public defender in a hallway (as opposed to during a trial) and left the bench to approach an agitated defendant with her firsts raised in a manner that was taken to mean she was preparing to fight them. 5. Lack of candor: her testimony to the Council contradicted evidence, indicating dishonesty.

The Court rejected the Council’s recommendation for removal because they found “oppression in office” (intent to commit acts that are wrong or beyond judicial authority) had not been proven. Two of the justices offered dissenting opinions, recommending a removal trial (Justice Combes), or a suspension without pay (Justice Rowland).

The Council had begun its investigation in June 2025 when they received a complaint of an ex parte communication, and then received additional complaints as they commenced. In the central violation, in open court, a criminal defendant asked to speak with Holmes about a personal matter. Holmes replied that while she could not privately discuss the case, “she would speak to him privately as long as it was alright with his attorney.” It almost seems as if she was set up to make a mistake because neither attorney’s objected in court to this conversation, but then the Tulsa County DA asked for Holmes’ recusal from this case because of it. Holmes refused to recuse herself because this conversation “did not have anything to do with this case, at all.” In the second case where she spoke with jurors, she did recuse herself eventually “in the interest of efficiency to allow the case to move forward quickly.” The Council argued that these brief private conversations were sufficient for her impartiality to be reasonably questioned.

Seemingly, it was certainly unbecoming for her to have shouted at an assistant public defender, but witnesses proved their own hostility when they described her as being “very hostile and very nasty”. This seems to be a case of coworkers and subordinates refusing to accept the authority of a female judge. Accusing her of yelling and being “nasty” seem to be insults designed to minimize her power. It is very difficult for women today to find a “balance” between been powerfully intimidating (as male bosses are to gain leadership positions) and remaining femininely polite while bossing people around.

And observers might have assumed Holmes was obtaining some benefit to bending the rules to send convicts to the Arise Program because it echoes the Kids for Cash scandal from a few years ago that took down for kickbacks (from a for-profit juvenile detention facility) Pennsylvania judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan.

In contrast, Holmes seems to have been speaking with parties and referring unqualified convicts to a rehabilitation program out of a desire to seem especially helpful. Holmes was first elected to this position back in 2014 as the first Black woman elected as a district judge in Tulsa County. She was an Assistant District Attorney for Tulsa County (2000-3). She won the 2026 reelection by default and is scheduled to remain in her judgeship through at least 2030. Holmes’ approach to mixing bombastic yelling with yielding on talking about personal matters, and being especially kind to some defendants in sentencing has been the reason she had acquired and retained a job no other Black woman had previously climbed into. When judges are elected, they must placate the defendants they see in court to convince the public she represents the interests of the populace poor. Ideally, it would be possible to stop judges from displaying favoritism either because they are being corruptly influenced in a given case or because their reelection depends on them placating some organized criminal group sponsoring their runs. An auditor is unlikely to have witnesses of bribery confessing to having bribed a judge to gain favor. So, they have to rely on appearances of impropriety, of which there were a few in this case. And the problem was not merely that she chatted with jurors, but that she refused to disclose the content of this conversation, which suggested it included inappropriate content she did not want to out. Given these uncertainties and borderline questions, it is a good sign that the Council investigated these allegations, and probably also a good sign that the Court ruled they were not serious enough for the removal of the first female Black judge in this district.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “First Female Black Judge in Tulsa OK Reprimanded for Shouting, Favoritism and Dishonesty.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 27, 2026).

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Ohio Judges Confirm the Burden to Prove Righteousness Is with the Police in Excessive Force Allegations

25 Oct

Do police officers have a special right to assault suspects? This strange question has been under debate in Ohio courts. Historically, the prosecution has harried the absolute burden of proof over every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, while the defendant had to prove affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence. But then in 2019, the Ohio General Assembly amended its rules to state that if a defendant raises self-defense, defense of another, or defense of a residence, the burden shifts to the state to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This legislation failed to mention “reasonable use of force by a police officer”, leaving an opening for the ongoing dispute. Back in 1989, Graham v. Connor had established that a police officer’s violence was legally justified if it met standards of “objective reasonableness”. Then in 2024, State v. Graham argued that the State of Ohio bore the burden of proof to show an officer’s use of force was unreasonable. This decision was flipped in March and reaffirmed more formally in September 2026 in State v. McInnes, where the panel decided the police officer bore the burden of proof use of force was reasonable.

Officer Ian W. McInnes was accused of excessive force in four incidents that took place between 2020-2. He had: 1. kicked one man in the face while he was subdued by a taser, 2. kicked a handcuffed 17-year-old in the groin while handcuffed, 3. kicked a complaint, kneeling mentally ill man in the back, and 4. struck a fleeing suspect with his police cruiser. The jury convicted McInnes on the first three charges on October 18, 2024, but acquitted him on the last. He was sentenced to a 30-months prison sentence in 2025. Then, by citing State v. Graham, McInnes’ lawyer appealed his conviction arguing the burden of proof should have been with the prosecutors. If they had won this appeal, anybody accusing police of excessive force would have to go to extraordinary length to insist police surrender body cameras of an assault, or to gather witness testimony to support their position that they had indeed been beaten up when they were complying with a police officer.

Given the repeat violations McInnes was guilty of, this was a good case to test the irrationality of the opposing position. A victim of police brutality might have a concussion, and is likely to be incarcerated after this interaction, so place the burden of proof they have been violated on them or on their likely public attorney would have unjustly further shifted power towards violence-prone officers.

McInnes claims he had “slipped” when hitting a tasered man, made a tactical miscalculation when kicking a surrendering man, or had made contact with the upper thigh instead of the groin of the third seem to have been rebuttals one issues when they anticipate they will not be reprimanded no matter how ridiculous their excuses are.

The initial case was a public corruption and civil rights indictment that had been filed against 13 East Cleveland police officers, whose trials and appeals were later severed. 7 of the officers either entered guilty pleas or became cooperating witnesses, 3 officers had cases dismissed or acquitted, and three officers (including McInnes) proceeded to full jury trials and were convicted to between 1 and 4 years in prison. While the other two convicted cops also filed appeals, only McInnes’ case was selected for the top-level en banc full-court review. With bodycams as the norm across all major precincts, officers should be informed during retraining that they cannot hit-a-man-when-he-is-down as a legal fact. It is important for jurisdictions to explain elements such as who has to prove misbehavior, and for these decisions to be plainly explained to officers, who might otherwise assume they are the Law.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Ohio Judges Confirm the Burden to Prove Righteousness Is with the Police in Excessive Force Allegations.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 25, 2026).

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Juvenile Life-Without-Parole Conviction So Egregious It Has Not Been Overturned

25 Oct

Back in 2012, Miller v. Alabama outlawed mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Then, in 2016, Montgomery v. Louisiana found that this rule had to be retroactively applied to past cases. This invited relitigating of past life-without-parole cases. Over 1,200 applicants of the near 3,000 appeals have successfully reversed life sentences and have been released from prison. The new minimum sentences are capped at between 25-40 years. Only around 4.1% of appears have resulted in a judge reissuing the life-sentence under the “irreparably corrupt” offender standard. This latter category includes Jason Michael Pilcher, who has been denied a reversal and has failed a new appeal on September 23, 2026 in State v. Pilcher at the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

In 1993, Pilcher was 15 when he and a companion runaway stole a car, and burglarized guns before driving this stolen car into a ditch, and breaking into the rural home of Mrs. Phyllis Albritton, who let them in to use her phone, and gave them ice water. While partaking of this hospitality, Pilcher pulled out his stolen .38 caliber revolver and her killed her instantly by shooting her in the head. Pilcher also shot to death her 11-year-old son Jusin and tried to shoot her 13-year-old daughter. In 1994, Pilcher was convicted in an 11-to-1 non-unanimous jury vote to mandatory lime imprisonment without parole for two counts of second-degree murder.

Pilcher failed to convince the court at a 2025 resentencing hearing to lower his sentence because his 30-year prison record proved he remained “irreparably corrupt” and thus a continuing danger to society. Expert testimony from Dr. Simoneaux had explained that the prison record indicated Pilcher had no taken classes (that might have helped by providing proof of his attempts at rehabilitation) in prison since 2016. Back in 2017, Dr. Simoneaux had concluded Pilcher still had a “clinically elevated profile”, meaning he was unusually “resentful, angry, and distrustful” for an adult. Anger and paranoia are a combination for violence.

Pilcher’s appeal had focused on accusing his family of providing a difficult childhood. For example, Pilcher’s mother, Janet Harmon, testified that she drank during the pregnancy, though she could not recall if it had been “whiskey” or “Crown Royal”. Pilcher was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school and was prescribed Ritalin. Before this, his father had begun disciplining Pilcher by spanking him with his “hand on the butt”. There were several other problems, and during his first trail, neurologist Dr. Pinkus concluded he had a “congenital malformations of the brain and right temporal lobe with learning disorder, poor coordination, and lack of impulse control.”

While this is a sympathetic list of problems Pilcher has had to overcome, the fact that he remains a danger to society is proven by the over a hundred disciplinary conduct infractions Dr. Simoneaux reported Pilcher had been cited for while he has been in prison: he is still displaying signs of a dangerous antisocial personality disorder. If Pilcher had been released despite these continuing violent incidents, he would probably have been back in prison by now on new violent charges. This case seems to prove judges have been able to discern which of the life-without-parole appeals have been filed by those who had not developed psychological resilience or rationality since their juvenile actions. Yes, it is at times unfair to continue to penalize an adult for the actions of their undeveloped youth, but not when they keep committing similar actions now that they are an adult.

***

There was a similar recent appeal in Louisiana in State v. Craig that initially ruled that Dale Dwayne Craig was eligible for parole before the latest September 10, 2026 ruling reversed this decision, reinstating his original parole ineligibility. In 1992, Craig and three accomplices kidnapped out of a Louisiana State University parking lot a freshman Kipp Gullett, torturing and then murdering him. Craig was initially sentenced to death in 1994, then this was commuted to life in 2005, and a sentencing review in 2023 temporarily made him eligible for parole before the latest appeal pointed out that Craig had attempted two previous violent escapes: threatening to kill a guard with a shank during his 1993 trial, and then cutting his window bars and climbing over security fences from death row in 1999. A three-judge panel heard the 2026 appeal, with two of them for the reversal (led by Judge Stromberg) and one dissenting (Judge Fields), found he had a permanent disregard for the law, categorizing him among the state’s “worst offenders” that mandated a permanent containment. Louisiana is one of two states where life without parole is an automatic sentence for adult second-degree murder. Thus, letting either Pilcher or Craig go free after even a prolonged sentence—just because of their age during the crime—would be unfair to adults that do not have a chance to argue about their difficult youth or other mitigating circumstances.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Juvenile Life-Without-Parole Conviction So Egregious It Has Not Been Overturned.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 25, 2026).

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Drug Dealer Informant and His Corrupt HSI Handler Caught in $280,000 Cocaine Sale by DEA’s Informant

24 Oct

On September 25, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Northern District of Illinois affirmed the conviction in United States v. Gary L. Howard of Howard to a 13-year prison sentence. Howard was appealing that the drug deal he was caught making was part of the work he previously did as a confidential informant for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Howard has been convicted on three federal drug charges for selling cocaine in a 2018 sting when he attempted purchasing 10 kilograms of cocaine for $280,000 in the parking lot of informant seller “Z’s” furniture store. A search of his home uncovered a loaded firearm and a drug ledger.

Howard’s HSI handler Anthony Sabaini had been receiving tips from Howard on rival dealers. In exchange for information, Sabaini had been asking other agencies to “stand down” on investigating Howard’s drug dealing. For this, Sabaini was convicted of federal corruption charges. Part of Howard’s appeal was objecting to the court refusing his request to subpoena Agent Sabaini, who could have provided a “public authority” defense for his drug dealing. Sabaini had refused to testify voluntarily because he was anticipating his own appeal, and feared discussing recorded jail calls that explained his quid pro quo deal with Howard.

Howard was also unsuccessfully objecting to the warrantless search of his phone, but Judge Steven C. Seeger disagreed because this search fell under the inevitable discovery doctrine: investigators had probable cause from text messages.

Howard should not have needed to continue dealing because he was being paid by HSI for informing. The standard method of payment is up to 25% of the net recovery from an asset forfeiture or net recoveries from a trafficking bust. They can also make up to $100,000 per year in cash payouts, with most paying only a few thousand dollars for a few buys. One of Howard’s problems was that he needed to pay his corrupt handler Agent Sabaini at least $50,000 for protection and law enforcement information. This specific amount was communicated in the coded text: “50 words on a page”, where “50” stood for $50,000. Sabaini used this cash to purchase a new car. In another case, Sabaini requested $50,000 from HSI for a cash drug buy only to pocket this cash while giving his informant counterfeit bills to use in the sale.

The corrupt dealings might have continued if wires were not crossed when Howard tried to sell two ounces for $2,400 from another confidential informant in 2017: this one from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). This suggests that American drug enforcement agencies are spending so much money and labor that they are catch each other in corrupt activities internal auditing methods are failing to catch. Sabaini managed to convince DEA agent Phillip Hahn not to prosecute his “golden goose” in 2017, he failed to intervene before Howard was arrested on a second DEA informant’s sale in 2018. With Howard in the system, it was too late for DEA Special Agent Anthony Anglada to take Sabaini up on his offer for Howard to “work it off if he cooperated”. A new problem then surfaced when Howard refused to “work it off” or to cooperate with Agent Anglada’s investigation. Thus, the DEA had to press charges for this sale against Howard. While Howard refused to cooperate in some ways, he had given a post-arrest statement that confessed to the drug deal because the investigator convinced him with a false promise of leniency. This meant Howard’s coerced statement could be suppressed at the trial, but not the gun, cash, and drug-dealing ledger that were found during a search at his house.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 80% of federal drug prosecutions involve confidential informants. And the total might be higher because 95% of drug cases are plea bargained, meaning the government never has to disclose how they obtained the evidence against the person on trial. And the United States Sentencing Commission has found that 50% of federal drug defendants cooperate or snitch on other drug dealers to ease their own sentences. And Forbes found that the DEA has an active list of 18,000 confidential informants. Their study calculated FBI, DEA and AFT jointly paid informants $548 million over a few years. While this seems like a lot, if the other two agencies have similar numbers of informants, each of them would have made on average $2,537 per year. Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded an average street dealer makes less than minimum wage at between $6-11 per hour.

To summarize what is happening: half of all people facing drug charges offer to serve as informants, but only a small percentage of these are asked to do so officially, and most might only assist with one or two drug buys. This is because after 2-4 controlled drug buys, they have worked off the quota required by their agreement that dropped their charges or reduced their sentence. And after helping to arrest their immediate network, an informant stops having value because they lack additional contacts that an officer would not be able to find themselves on cold buys.

The trick that Howard and Agent Sabaini pulled off before their arrest was to generate no drug busts or arrests across their affiliation. Howard did not make any controlled sales because the agent on his case wanted to make money from Howard in exchange for not busting him. The reason Howard transitioned from a $2,400 sale in 2017 to a $280,000 sale in 2018 was because he did not rat on his contacts, but rather helped to protect these connects with Sabaini’s help. Howard had become a rare example of a profitable dealer because of Sabaini’s protection.

A drug dealer in America has a 1-in-4 chance of being arrested in a given year, and near 100% certainty of being arrested over their career. This is assured by the 50% informant-turning odds, and is the reason for America having one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. In contrast, in Western Europe, Canada, Japan and most other developed nations, it is unheard of for agencies to give enormous cash payments to criminal informants. Abroad paying cash to informants is classified as bribery, as only basic reimbursement is allowed. And elsewhere prosecutors lack unreviewable discretion to wipe away felony charges because a defendant offers to snitch.

This case thus helps to explain that one way America could rapidly drop its incarceration rate, as well as its higher murder and lethal drug overdose rates is by adopting other countries policies of not paying cash to informants, and not dropping charges in exchange for snitching. Having one of the highest incarceration rates in the world has create a cycle of spiking addiction and criminality rates because those who enter the system cannot find work outside of it. Returning to Howard’s appeal: why did a dealer feel he was in the right despite being busted in this massive sale? From Howard’s perspective, he was paying kickbacks to a government agent who was (seemingly officially) directing him to make sales to have money to pay him kickbacks. If Sabaini was orchestrating these deals, he succeeded in deploying the American secrecy shield to not be forced to incriminate himself by explaining this under oath. Though mostly the appeal was the work of a lawyer who wanted to make a bit more money from a convicted drug dealer by nitpicking about a warrantless search and the definition of an “agreement”.

Suggested Citation:
Faktorovich, Anna. “Drug Dealer Informant and His Corrupt HSI Handler Caught in $280,000 Cocaine Sale by DEA’s Informant.” Anaphora’s Law Review (October 24, 2026).

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