RELATIVE HARM
A teenage girl who saw her brother die in a car accident can sue for emotional distress, Staten Island Supreme Court Judge Joseph Maltese ruled yesterday in a case of first impression, the New York Law Journal reports. Immediate family members, which usually include spouses, children and parents, can sue under New York precedent based on claims of psychological injury as a result of being near the “zone of danger” surrounding a relative’s death. Maltese wrote, “to find that a brother and sister, who lived together in the same household at the time of the accident are not members of their 'immediate family' is contrary to the definitions established by the state Legislature and legal reason.” The sister and brother, Shannon and Jesse Shipley, were passengers in a car driven by the defendant, which collided with a car driven by the codefendant.

RELATIVE COMPENSATION
The Albany Times Union chronicles the difficult path of a girl in foster care to get the state to pay her sister to care for her, as it pays other foster families. When Shardise McAuthur’s mother died in April, she became homeless at 16. A married sister took her in, but — having less than $500 a week in family income and children of her own — could not afford to keep Shardise. Now Shardise has accused Albany County of “ducking its statutory requirement to support relatives who want to become foster parents,” Kate Gurnett writes.
The girl’s legal guardian wants the county to make Shardise’s sister a certified foster parent and reimburse her for the costs of raising Shardise. In 2006, the Appellate division found that Albany county improperly refused an aunt foster certification in a similar case. Meanwhile, the Albany County Commission for Children, Youth and Families says it has helped Shardise and her family to “explore all the options” from food stamps to a subsidized apartment. Although the commission says it “doesn’t make sense” to place Shardise with a foster family, it has yet to provide benefits to her sister. What’s more, in December, Family Court ordered Albany County to respond to the family’s bid for “kinship foster” benefits. The county rejected the application because the family’s apartment was too small, with no separate bedroom, which is required by state law.

OFFENDER-FREE ZONING
Another town might soon join the ranks of Long Island municipalities trying to keep out sex offenders by passing regulations that prevent the offenders from buying and renting residential property within town borders. Newsday reports that Huntington will vote on a proposal to ban the highest level offenders from owning or living in apartments in the town and restrict them from living within a quarter-mile of schools, parks, beaches, playgrounds, day camps, and day care centers, which raises the question of exactly where they can live. The town also wants to use a computer-generated map that shows where sex offenders currently live and where they won't be permitted to live. The article notes that experts say the instability such regulations can create sometimes increases the likelihood of re-offense, and point out that the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by those who know their victims, not by strangers.

SUCH A NICE BOY
A final note before jurors begin deliberations in Martin Aguilar’s capital murder trial in federal court came yesterday when the jury heard the story of the defendant’s childhood. Defense attorneys tried to show jurors that Aguilar, who is convicted of a murder-for-hire, was once like them, writes Joseph Goldstein in the New York Sun. It’s got to be tough going for defense attorneys Carl Herman and Louis Freeman. The prosecution has outlined a life of violent crime, from stabbing a man with a screwdriver to shooting at couples parked beneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. While Aguilar’s former baby-sitter testified in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that he was a “really nice kid, very happy, very well spoken,” his mother told jurors of her son’s abuse at the hands of Aguilar’s father, and encouragement from his father to “bloody up other kids.” Jurors are expected to start deliberations this week.

LAW AND OVERTIME
Lastly, also from the Sun comes a report that the police department's removal of internal caps on overtime (first reported in the New York Post) has led to a 22-percent spike in arrests over last year. The result? Criminal courts in every borough except Staten Island were so swamped over the weekend that additional parts had to be opened and extra staff summoned, according to David Bookstaver, spokesman for the Office of Court Administration.