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.