Monthly Archives: September 2008

AG wants more time to respond to Tiller accusations

Sept. 29, 20088:17 a.m.

UPDATED: A hearing on these motions is set for 3 p.m. Thursday before Judge Clark Owens.

The office of Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six is asking for more time to respond to charges that his predecessors acted illegally in their investigation of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

Tiller’s lawyers call motions filed last week by Six’s office “highly unusual.”

Judge Clark Owens originally had given Six’s office until Oct. 17 to respond to the allegations in Tiller’s motion to dismiss the 19 misdemeanor charges against him. But on Thursday, Six asked to the court to let his prosecutors hear testimony before they respond.

That “suggests that the state simply wishes to delay being forced to admit publicly the extent of the former AG’s misconduct,” said Wichita lawyer Dan Monnat in his response filed Friday. Monnat said all the evidence used in his motion came from internal memos and files Six’s office give the defense.

Six’s office also asked that a weeklong hearing set for Nov. 17 be postponed, because a new prosecutor has been assigned to the case: former Sedgwick County prosecutor Barry Disney. Disney, the motion said, has a conflict in another case that week.

Dan Monnat, who represents Tiller, objected, saying the date has been set for two months, asking why a prosecutor couldn’t have been chosen who was available for the scheduled hearing.

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Teenage prostitute case in Wichita reveals glimpse into bigger problems

Sept. 17, 20088:13 p.m.

Listening to the story of a former teenage prostitute from Wichita this week provides a glimpse into a troubled world of runaways and other youngsters forced to live on their own means.

But it’s a much bigger problem than the story told this week by the 15-year-old Wichita girl in the human trafficking trial of Marlin Williams.

Two years ago, ABC News reported a study estimating some 650,000 teenagers in the U.S. had sold sex for drugs or money. In Dallas, where the Wichita girl testified that Williams took her to work the streets, police found girls as young as 12 working in strip clubs this year.

The girl told the Sedgwick County jury this week Williams promised her he would take her off the streets as soon as he raised enough money to open his own club.

There also seems to be a part of popular culture, including the music of Lil’ Wayne, which the girl said she listened to and quoted on her MySpace page, that appears to promote treating women as sex objects.

Police intervened and sent the girl back to Dallas, where she is now in a state program for independent living and reunited with the daughter she had at age 14, then abandoned.

Still, thousands of others remain on the streets.

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Sedgwick County District Court offers child support amnesty

Sept. 11, 20086:12 p.m.

UPDATED: The Office of the Court Trustee provided additional details and about the amnesty payment plans.

More than 1,000 parents who could face jail for not paying their child support get a break next month, when Sedgwick County District Court offers amnesty to those who want to catch up.

Amnesty payment plans will be offered to parents who have active bench warrants or are not in compliance with their orders, if they show up, in person, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Oct. 14 at Atwater Neighborhood City Hall, 2755 E. 19th St.


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Court Trustee Joy Kay Williams, whose office oversees some 15,000 domestic cases, said people can call her office at 316-660-5833 to find out how much they owe. As part of the amnesty plan, parents will be asked to make a one-time fee of roughly 1.5 times their regular monthly child support payments. That will go to help pay their back support. Then they will get a personalized payment plan to help them catch up.

Parents with outstanding bench warrants will have them cleared. All parents will receive a copy of their payment plans.

But you must show up Oct. 14 at Atwater.

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City of Wichita gets grant for mental health court

Sept. 11, 20083:05 p.m.

Wichita Municipal Court officials tell us that the city has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for a mental health court.

City officials say the court has been trying to get a grant for two years. Although they don’t know how much money they’ll be getting, they have received approval for federal funding.

The word on the new court follows a story I wrote for the Eagle about the growing problem of mentally ill people ending up in prison and another story about the training received by police for handling mentally ill people in crisis situations.

According to criminal justice experts, the mental health court is the next step in helping reduce the numbers in prison. Mental health courts follow the model of drug courts as a way of giving alternatives to punishment for people who may have run afoul of the law because of their illnesses or addictions.

Wichita Municipal Court has already developed drug courts for city offenders charged with misdemeanors.

Sedgwick County District Court is beginning a drug court for more serious offenders this fall. Parole officers and mental health providers have told us they hope that a mental health court for felony offenders also will follow.

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Wichita case of pregnant woman punched in stomach a common example of abuse

Sept. 8, 20086:28 p.m.

The 19-year-old woman cried this afternoon, as she told a judge how the father of her unborn child choked her and punched her in the stomach last month.

Jamie Stuart was seven months pregnant when she went to see her estranged husband about why their bank account was overdrawn, she testified at a preliminary hearing. She said Brian Stuart, her recently separated husband, became enraged, choked her and punched her in the stomach.

Such cases are not uncommon. Experts say women in abusive relationships may find violence escalates during their pregnancies.

Judith McFarlane, a domestic violence expert at Texas Women’s University, told the San Antonio Express-News:

“The abuser sees this as taking the focus away from him. And when the attention is taken away from him by the unborn child, that unborn child becomes the focus of his rage.”

The target of such violence is often direct their anger toward the woman’s stomach, Marc Shapiro, a professor of trauma surgery, told WebMD:

“The fetus is most at risk during the third trimester. I’ve seen fetuses that were shot or situations in which the mother was kicked in the stomach and spontaneously aborted. Pregnant women get scratched, punched, stabbed, shot, and sexually assaulted. It’s rare to have to do a Cesarean section to save a fetus, but it happens.”

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens ruled the case should proceed to trial. Brian Stuart, 20, pleaded not guilty to aggravated battery. His trial is tentatively set for Dec. 1.

Resources for victims of domestic violence in Wichita.

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Court says Sedgwick County deputy went too far in traffic stop

Sept. 2, 20087:05 p.m.

When a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy asked a passenger for his license, then ran a warrant check on him during a routine traffic stop, it went beyond what the law allowed, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled last week.

Inappropriate questions unrelated to the traffic violations and the warrant check on the passenger negated the deputies’ search of a van that turned up bags of marijuana, the court said in a 2-1 decision.

The case sounds similar to scenarios from a video I posted last week.

According to court records, Deputy Henry Cocking pulled over a van with Arizona tags in February 2006 on U.S. 54 for failure to signal while changing lanes. The deputy encountered a nervous 16-year-old driver and began questioning him about where he’d come from, where he was headed and other travel plans. First mistake.

“During a routine traffic stop, a law enforcement officer may question the driver about his or her travel plans provided that the questioning is reasonably related to the scope of the traffic stop and the questioning does not unreasonably alter the nature or the duration of the stop. Generally, this is limited to questioning concerning the driver’s place of departure or destination.”
Cocking then asked Ronnie Morlock, the passenger, for his license and ran a warrant check, even though the deputy later testified he didn’t at that time suspect any criminal activity. Second mistake, the court said:
“While a law enforcement officer may demand that the driver produce his or her driver’s license and vehicle registration in order to run a warrant check on the driver, a law enforcement officer exceeds the reasonable scope and duration of a traffic stop by running a warrant check on the passengers in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.”
What the court said is that when you’re pulled over for a traffic stop, the officer can check the driver’s license, run a check and write a ticket. Unless they suspect some other criminal activity that’s about all they can do.

The deputies’ further actions, the court said, violated the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee to unreasonable search and seizure. The court said Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess’s should have suppressed the evidence drugs the deputy later found by going through the luggage in the van.

Wichita lawyer Mark Schoenhofer argued the case for Morelock.

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