Three public defenders have finished their first month in the new conflicts office, and they say they’re just finishing up their cases from their old office.
Chrystal Krier, Pam McLemore and Nika Cummings each brought about 60 cases with them when they moved into their new office in the historic Occidental Building at 2nd Street and Main. Fortunately, they only picked up 13 new cases in the first month, allowing them to clear their old files.
The three expect to get as many as 30 cases per month at the new office, which handles defendants too poor to hire their own lawyers, but whom the regional public defenders office can’t represent because of legal conflicts. These may include cases such as those with multiple defendants.
The office opened after Richard Ney, Brad Sylvester and Doug Adams stopped taking assignments from state court. They now work on private retainers.
Judges and former attorney generals may be receiving subpoenas for a week-long hearing in November to suppress evidence in a misdemeanor criminal case.
That’s not surprising, when that case involves Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.
Dan Monnat, who represents Tiller, said those witnesses — including Phill Kline — could be on the witness list for the hearing set the week before Thanksgiving. Monnat said he plans to file a motion to suppress the abortion records from Tiller’s clinic that Kline began pursuing the year he took office. Kline began his probe in a secret investigation before a Topeka judge. It took Kline nearly his full term to get the records, which he received in October 2006, right before he was defeated by Paul Morrison.
Morrison could also be on the witness list. He filed the current charges last summer before having to leave office amid a sex scandal.
Monnat said he hopes to challenge how Kline got the records, which Morrison used to file charges.
Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanors stemming from how he got second opinions from another doctor, which are required to perform some late-term abortions. Tiller is set for trial in March 2009.