Wichita tennis coach Barry Fields will face trial this spring, accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl who attended his family’s academy.
Fields, 44, helps run BK Tennis Academy, which opened in 1992 and serves about 200 young tennis players each month. Today he pleaded not guilty to having sexual intercourse with one of the girls from the academy three times between May and July last year.
After Fields waived his preliminary hearing, Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess ordered the case to proceed to trial, tentatively set for April 13. Fields is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, because the girl was older than 14 but younger than 16, which is the age of consent in Kansas.
I did a double take when I saw Andrea Brooks in the courtroom of a trial that didn’t involve her murdered sister, Chelsea.
Now Andrea, 20, is volunteering with Wichita’s chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. Andrea and her family said Parents of Murdered Children helped them through their difficulty navigating the court system as they waited more than two years and watched three defendants in the case of Chelsea’s killing at age 14. It ended just two weeks ago with the sentencing of Elgin Robinson.
This week, Andrea was in court with another family enduring a tragic loss: that of Kailee Hundley, the 13-month-old girl who died accidentally at day care. Jessica Cummings, the day care provider, was convicted Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter, as Andrea helped console Kailee’s family.
“I decided I wanted to give something back,” Andrea said. “Because Corinne helped me so much.”
There’s rarely a murder trial in Wichita where you won’t see Corinne Radke, who founded the local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She has been a steady shoulder for the tears of those who have lost loved ones, as she lost her son, to violence. I’ve even seen Corinne in trials where we were the only ones in the gallery: no family for either the victim or defendant.
If you want to volunteer for, or need help from, Parents of Murdered Children, call the local office at 316-265-1600.
Judge Michael Corrigan managed one major change in the juvenile justice system in 1976. As the juvenile judge of the county court, Corrigan led the transition when the Kansas Supreme Court folded his job into a division of the district court.
“But this is probably the biggest change I’ve seen,” Corrigan, now chief judge of Sedgwick County District Court, told me this morning about the recent ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court that grants juveniles the right to a jury trial.
Corrigan spent Monday talking to his judges about how they were going to manage what could be as many as 100 new trials a year. He spent Tuesday talking to the County Commission about how it’s going to be funded.
The new juvenile courts facility, just completed, doesn’t have room for juries — yet. Plans originally called for a jury courtroom in the juvenile facility, but the county didn’t approve that expense. After all, until last week juveniles didn’t have jury trials.
Two new judge positions approved by the Supreme Court and funded by state lawmakers won’t take effect until January. But the first jury trial in a juvenile criminal case could come as soon as next month. Corrigan said for the first six months, juvenile jury trials will be managed from the adult courthouse. More summonses will be sent each week and jury clerk Linda Marvin will continue to oversee all jury trials.
Judges from the main courthouse will handle the cases. Corrigan said he may appoint a “pro-tem,” or temporary judge to handle the extra caseload until January.
“That’s if we have one extra jury trial,” Corrigan said. “If we have two, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Meanwhile, Corrigan said judges and lawyers who have been handling juvenile cases have some college-style cramming to do. Jury trials operate under different rules than cases where the trial is decided by a judge.
Prosecutors said Manuel Penalosa-Ramirez should remain in jail on $50,000 bond because he’s a gang member. His lawyer said he was not a gang member, but was an honor student at Derby High School.
Steven Wagle presented letters from school and family showing that Penalosa-Ramirez is a model honors student, trying to get his bond reduced to $5,000 Friday. Assistant Sedgwick County District Attorney Robert Short, however, argued that no matter how good his grades, Penalosa-Ramirez also is a gang member accused of firing an SKS semiautomatic rifle at a house in Wichita.
After hearing the arguments, Judge Clark Owens ruled that “honor student or not,” anyone accused of firing an SKS at a house deserves to have a $50,000 bond.
Bryant Richard is 35 years old. The girl he’s accused of having sex with is 17. While that normally wouldn’t be a crime, it is in this case, because Richard is the wrestling coach at East High School and the girl is a student. Kansas law makes that a low-level felony.
Richard, who is married, is set for a preliminary hearing April 25. He posted a $20,000 bond to be released from jail. If convicted, he would likely get probation with an underlying prison term from four to seven months.
Daniel Collins decided to go to trial instead of plea bargaining with the U.S. government, and he ended up with fewer convictions two buddies who pleaded guilty.
A jury convicted the 18-year-old Collins on one count of setting off a bundle of commercial fireworks that damaged an apartment building on south Seneca this past August. But jurors found Collins not guilty of bombing another building and stealing the fireworks from a storage unit.
Antonio Ray and Nathan Gunter pleaded guilty to two counts arson by explosives.
How much of a bang did they get that morning? They’ll spend as much time in prison as most young men their age spend in college – they face at least five years. And there is no parole from federal prison.