KS Meadowlark: JoCo District Attorney Phill Kline Holds Town Hall Meeting in Overland Park

March 10, 2007

JoCo District Attorney Phill Kline Holds Town Hall Meeting in Overland Park

KC Star: Kline faces critics, supporters at town hall meeting (March 10)
KC Star: Kline: I'm misunderstood; says that his good intentions are ignored by critics (March 11)
KC Star: Mike Hendricks: Pity Phill? We’ve had our fill (March 12)

Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline held a Town Hall Meeting in Overland Park today. The meeting room in the Overland Park Community Center was standing room only, with about 70 folks attending. Kline invited audience members to suggest topics, which would be used as an outline for further discussions.

Kline wrote the topics on a white board as audience members made suggestions:

Horton murder case
DA Office Jackets
Abortion
Republican Party Unity (give college credit for that discussion)
DA Office Budget
Caseload
Replacement Elections
Juvenile cases

JoCo DA Kline Writes Discussion Topics on White Board

Kline said he would be willing to meet individually after the formal meeting about specific concerns if anyone was interested. Once these topics were suggested, Kline started to discuss them one-by-one:

1. Horton murder case. Kline was limited on what he could say because the case is active. He didn't want to jeopardize a fair trial

This was a cold case from 1974 when a girl from Shawnee Mission East was killed. Kline was at the autopsy in 2003. Recently, chloroform evidence was thrown out by the KS Supreme Court, and the Court's ruling means there may not even be sufficient evidence to arrest him. Kline is asking the Kansas high court to reconsider, but that is a bit of a long shot. Kline has a task force working on a new legal theory and/or new evidence to prosecute case.

As part of the discussion of this case, Kline picked on Kansas City Star's columnist, Mike Hendricks as part of his explanation of a legal point.

Kline "Picks On" KC Star Columnist, Mike Hendricks (center)
(Star reporter Paul Wenske is to Hendricks' left)

2. Jackets. Kline: "I don't know anything about this …. Linda, what about jackets? …"

Linda from Kline's Office Talks about DA Jackets

Linda: "Are you talking about the new navy blue jackets with the Johnson County District Attorney logo on them?"

Questioner: "Yes"

Linda: "In January we purchased 12 for our investigators. … Many times they will have to go into undesirable areas … to serve subpoenas, interview witnesses, gather evidence and our new chief investigator was concerned for their safety with having no identification at all on their person. For identification reasons he thought we should purchase jackets and they were less than $20/each. Those were not paid for by taxpayer dollars ….mainly for the safety of our investigators…"

Kline: "Thank you. It's an identification purpose …"

Hostile audience member (former employee): "Why weren't you made aware of it? How did you not know about this?"

Kline: "I don't get involved in purchases of $150 or less… "We've got a $6.8 million budget. I'm watching the overall budget" ...

3. Budget/Caseload. . lLine: "I believe we're tracking under budget, and I believe we'll end the year under budget, and I'm dedicated to that …It's proceeding very, very well…"

"There are some new initiatives that I … want to share with you… We'll be able to do all that stuff, I believe, under budget ..."

"One of the things that hasn't been reported is that those that I did let go I insisted on giving them severance. In fact, my first battle with the county was that the county did not want to give them severance and they did not have the right to be paid for work they did not do. I said, 'no', we've got to give severance. … We ended up giving them severance. We've had about a $40,000 hit to our budget, which I'm fine with, to pay those former employees for a period of time…."

Audience member: "Were you forced to give them that?"

Kline: "No … the severance I insisted on was two weeks.."

Audience member: "Was that [$40,000] enough for 8 employees?"

Kline: "For that period of time – yes. One of the employees had only been with the office for less than a month .."

Hostile audience member: "Did you indicate that in their letter of termination – that you were going to pay them two weeks' severance?"

Kline: "No, it wasn't in their letter of termination…. I think that was communicated to them the following day."

Backing up to discussion of termination issues:

Kline: "This is not unusual. Our turnover has been running about 10% in my coming into the DA's office. By the way, the [current] Attorney General's office turnover is 40% -- about 20% of those employees were fired and 20% left on their own volition."

Kline: "The Kansas City Star finally did an article by Diane Carroll ("Kline's housecleaning in DA office has precedent," Feb 20) after a lot of ink had been spilled that said this routinely happens in DA offices and county attorney offices across the state when there's a changeover in leadership. I know it's not the most pleasant thing, but this is what happens. When I became Attorney General, the turnover was about 10% ..."

Kline: "…this is important – that is why I was a little bit bothered by the County Commission action yesterday. Kansas Law provides that all sheriffs, and county and district attorneys can handle their own hiring and firing, and setting of salaries … It's real clear in the statute. That's why the County Commission essentially admitted I had the authority to do what I did when they asked for a bill to change the law prohibiting me from doing that…Here's the problem with that:"

Kline: "When I was the Attorney General I initiated the first public corruptions unit in Kansas … we prosecuted numerous city and county officials and employees. The DA's office and the county attorney's offices – and the sheriffs' offices – at times … are called to investigate and potentially prosecute county employees and officials. And we have to maintain that independence. And I believe the legislation goes too far to remove that independence. …My primary frustration with the County Commission is that they … never talked to me. If you're mad at me, hold a news conference; call me a bum. But don't do this short range thinking to change policy when it's an important policy to maintain. It doesn't make any sense. So, I'm going to be lobbying the legislature … to try to prevent that bill from passing…."

[Meadowlark's comment: Isn't there something odd politically that legislator John Vratil introduced Senate Bill 373 against Kline, while Vratil's ex-wife, federal judge Kathryn Vratil, is meddling in county and state politics by telling Kline what to do in the groundless case again Kline in federal court by the employees Kline fired? A political "odd couple" now?]

Current DA's Staff

Kline: ".. I don't want to get into talking about the former employees… What I want to share is some of the people we brought on. … Everything's working well. We don't have gaps…

Kline: "[Steve Maxwell] … has tried more murder cases than the DA's office combined. I brought him from the Attorney General's Office. Last year he was County and District Attorney Association's Prosecutor of the Year. I've been trying to get the Star to report on that. It hasn't gotten in yet. "

Steve Maxwell, Senior JoCo Deputy District Attorney
(winner of 2006 County and District Attorneys Association's Prosecutor of the Year --
why won't the Kansas City Star report this award?)

Hostile Audience Member: "Who was nominated against him for that?"

Kline: "Paul [Morrison]. You knew that. …

Hostile Audience Member: "No, I didn't"

Kline: "Steve had been with the AG's Office for 16 years. … He's a former U.S. Attorney … He's tried 40-some odd murder cases in his career. He tried 8 murder cases last year alone. As Attorney General I more than doubled the criminal case load, we prosecuted over 60 homicides … He is my senior deputy district attorney."

Kline also introduced other members of his staff, including:

Eric Rucker, chief deputy district attorney, former Dickinson County attorney, Kline chief-of-staff in the AG's office. 15 years of prosecutorial experience.
Shelly Diehl, head juvenile division, 18 years prosecutorial experience. Former head of juvenile division in Douglas County. Worked for Insurance Commissioner, Sandy Praeger, prosecuting insurance fraud.
Brad Burke, Assistant Attorney General, Alcohol Beverage Control. Former assistant district attorney in Douglas County.

Kline: "We brought on a good team. Cases are proceeding very, very well."

Hostile Audience Member: "How many juvenile cases are presently under review at this time compared to last year? Do you know?"

Kline: "Linda, do you know?"

Linda: "Under review? We don't get those stats on a weekly basis ..."

. . .

Kline: "The lawsuit, by the way ... the county settled and basically their settlement was 'we're not going to pay you anything, but we'll give you a hearing' and you can go ahead and sue Phill Kline. So, I'm sued personally, which kind of makes it hard for us to put our house on the market right now, and they have sued me as District Attorney, and that's in federal court. I can't get into ... the substance ... there's a gag order."

. . .

Audience Member: "Since you brought it up about the sale of your house, where do you live?"

Kline: "I've got an apartment ... in Stillwell, and I've got my house out in Topeka. ... We kept our daughter in school there. We thought that was important. I come ... here and spend time at the apartment and then go home on weekends. ...Of course, I grew up here and was born here."

Hostile Audience Member: "I still have some questions on the budget. ... it's my understanding that ... a $2000 desk was purchased -- new lobby furniture -- ... how are we getting the funding for that?

Kline: That funding was in Paul's budget. So those expenditures were approved by the County Commission before I became DA.

Hostile Audience Member: "How are we affording the new salaries? The $65,000 ... $90,000+ ? And is any of the funding coming out of the white collar crime economic fund?"

Kline: "Good questions. Paul Morrison's chief-of-staff as Attorney General filed an open records request with us to get all of our salaries, which is fine, I don't have any difficulty with that. And then those salaries were disbursed through the court house, I guess, trying to cause problems -- I don't know. We are under payroll from what was previous. We are spending less on payroll than my predecessor. So there's not any need to pull funds from other areas of the budget."

Kline: "They had focused on two employees, my chief deputy and my senior deputy, Steve Maxwell, trying to cause a stir politically about ... what their salaries were. They make the very same amount as Paul's chief deputies, who were in the positions ..."

Hostile Audience Member: "Can you confirm or deny that a desk was purchased for $2000?"

Kline to Linda: "Was it?"

Linda: "No, sir"

Audience: Can we confirm their wages and salaries?

Kline: Yeah. It's public. In fact, the Kansas City Star asked me about it the other day, and I said 'look' .. we've got it, but Morrison's already got it because he asked for it -- you can call him... it's been distributed around the court house. I don't mind it being public ... you have a right to know...

Audience member: "As state attorney general I understood you hired outside legal consultants. Are you still planning to do that as DA?"

Kline: "Not really, because the job's different. By the way, my outside legal expenses as AG were 75% less than Carla Stovall. . . . and even less than Bob Stephan . . . You don't do that as DA. The DA's office is focused on one area -- crime. You don't want to outsource crime. Prosecutorial decisions have to be made with direct accountability to the elected officer. In the AG's office, the criminal division is one of eight divisions ... it has a much broader range of effort."

Kline discussed the use of outside resources in the Kaufman case, which was about routine and continued sexual and physical abuse of the mentally ill in Newton. ... Kline went to a group called the Disability Rights Center, setup under some of Bob Dole's legislation, who had civil authority, when the AG only had criminal authority. The case involved medical records, which showed the abuse of what was going on. Dr. Kaufman is now serving 30 years for his abuse of the disabled.

Kline: "The Star ran a big story on this -- they just removed from the story any involvement of myself. I don't mean to say I did it for that reason, but you don't know half of what's going on because there is that continuous effort to not show anything about me except for abortion, or controversy. I was honored to receive the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Prosecutor of the Year award for the effort of that, and we shut down that house, but I couldn't have done that without taking it to the outside Disability Rights Center ... Paul has brought that all in-house and there's not the tools in house to be able to do what you need to do. ...

Audience member: "One more question, since you brought it up: Did Bob Stephan resign from your office?"

Kline: "You'll have to ask him. We used Bob Stephan in a couple of cases. .."

Audience member: "What issues did you have with Bob?"

Kline: "Bob was upset by the fact that I spoke in churches."

Different audience member: "That's illegal, isn't it?"

Kline: "No, it's not illegal -- this is America. I could speak at churches. .... my faith is integral and central to who I am, and that's what I did in churches: I shared my faith. They videotaped it -- there's nothing about politics. ... I gave the press the video of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Lawrence holding a campaign rally for what some would consider more liberal candidates. It's fine, folks. There's nothing wrong with getting together with people and sharing your faith. There's nothing wrong with getting together and sharing politics. You just can't use church resources to advocate for an election."

There was a question and discussion about comparing salaries of administrators in schools to law enforcement officials, who are risking their lives. Audience member: "There's a lot of concern here about jackets and desks, but that concern is not going to our schools. There's a lot of money being spent in our schools that needs to be looked into ..."

Kline said as DA school funding doesn't affect him much. Kline said debate has been going on for perhaps 12 years on standardized accounting in schools. Kline suggested local control was best and the local school boards should make such decisions.

Kline: "There not a group of people that is more underpaid in the State of Kansas than law enforcement."

Kline discussed unique problems facing law enforcement officers.

4. Late-Term Abortion / Child Predators.

Kline: "Will you indulge me? This is something that I cannot confine to five minutes. It's going to take me a little while. And let me preface this ... I'm not judging an individual that's had an abortion. I'm not going to do that. My faith teaches me not to do that. And my personal experience in life teaches me not to do that. My role as attorney general was to enforce the law and where I found evidence that the law was not being followed, I was sworn to enforce the law. "

Kline: "I am pro-life. I believe that this great nation with all its wealth and all its power should have room at the table for the woman facing an unwanted pregnancy and her unborn child. I recognize the right of people that disagree with me. ... On another occasion, if you're interested, we could debate ... the philosophy and the policy behind that statement, but as attorney general I swore I would enforce the law. That means if an abortion clinic was under siege ... and there was a woman who wanted an abortion, who had a right to an abortion, that was wrongfully being denied, I would enforce the law to support her right to an abortion. I believe in our Constitution. I believe in our Judicial System, although I disagree with it at times. However, if I find evidence that an abortion clinic is violating the law, I'm going to prosecute the abortion clinic."

Kline then discussed Kansas law regarding abortions. "In no instance can the mother be prosecuted. Nor would I support that. ... The woman with the unwanted pregnancy is never to be investigated or prosecuted -- only the doctor who profits from the potential illegal abortion can be investigated and prosecuted."

Kline: "Kansas law allows an abortion up to the moment the child is viable .. that's consistent with Supreme Court decisions ... In the first six months, roughly ... a women can have an abortion without explanation for any reason whatsoever: don't like the gender of the child, just don't want to be pregnant, ... or for some of the more extreme circumstance like rape, or incest, or maybe the child has a deformity. ... There's roughly about 10,000 abortions in Kansas every year ..."

Kline: "After viability ... you would not notice any distinction between this human being and another baby, except it would be smaller ... abortion is restricted. Kansas doesn't allow a late term abortion unless the mother's life is in jeopardy -- that's one exception."

Kline discussed reporting requirements for the reasons of abortions, which started in about 1997. Kline said about 70,000 to 80,000 abortions have been reported since then and ZERO have been to save the life of the mother.

Kline: "That doesn't happen late term. If there is an ectopic pregnancy, the concern develops early on."

Kline commented that from all the reports, there have not been any post-viability cases where an abortion was necessary to save the life of a mother.

Kline explained the other exception when there is a substantial and irreversible damage to a major bodily function of the mother -- and two doctors agree.

Kline Explains Abortion Legal Exceptions

Kline explained that when he was a legislator, Kansas had an exception for severe fetal anomalies. Kline observed that there were hundreds of these occurring in Kansas but not elsewhere. Tiller on his web site explained severe fetal anomalies could include cleft palette, Down's syndrome -- and twins, which were "abnormal" since they were rare. Kline didn't think considering twins as "abnormal" was in compliance with the law.

Kline played the audio of Tiller speaking at a conference on April 2, 1995. On the tape Tiller said he had experience with 10,000 late term abortions of which 800 were for severe fetal anomalies. There were 9200 late term abortions that were not fetal anomalies, which appeared to Kline to be a violation of Kansas Law at that time.

Kline: "That's an admission of 9200 illegal abortions. I packaged that data up and gave it to district attorney of Sedgwick County, Nola Foulston. And I gave it to then Attorney General Carla Stovall. Nothing happened. I think that was wrong."

Kline discussed former Attorney General Carla Stovall's opinion that mental health was included in the "substantial and irreversible" exception. The mental health condition must be irreversible and permanent.

Kline explained when he became attorney general that in addition to past evidence, he was troubled by 75 child statutory rape victims every year, some as young as 10, who were having abortions.

Kansas Stats:
75 Child Rapes a Year Resulting in Abortions
Some girls are as young as 10 years old.

Kline said he wasn't seeing the prosecutions, or even investigations, seeking justice for these statutory rape victims. Kline said in 2002 he ran on a platform of strengthening our laws on sexual exploitation of children. Kline explained how successful the Cyber Crimes task force had been on finding exploitation of children and putting over 100 Internet sexual predators of children behind bars.

Kline: "The Star ran a front page story on that, but just removed from the reporter's reference of our involvement. ... The story's a good story. I don't mind not being there, but you never knew I had a part in establishing the task force -- it's still operating today. We did over 229 cases of child rape in my office."

Kline: "And I did look at live birth information. When the 13 or 12 year old child gives birth to a child -- we did look at that. I had all the evidence brought to our office, and we referred out child rape investigations. But generally when you have a live birth, you don't have a situation to prosecute since often times it's two teens of a similar age that made a mistake. ... You don't want to prosecute that case. You don't want to prosecute the 14 or 15 year old that made a mistake. We're looking for the adult and the child when there's exploitation."

Kline: "The reality is that when there is an adult and a child -- especially if it's a family member -- and the child gets pregnant, the adult perpetrator wants to eliminate the evidence relating to the rape by getting an abortion."

Kline explained that medical records are part of nearly all violent criminal investigation, especially child rape. Kline said a prosecutor should NOT have the right to go to one's doctor and ask for medical records, without providing other evidence to a judge, and getting a finding from a judge of "reasonable suspicion" that a crime has been committed. The JUDGE issues the subpoena for the medical records. Kline: "That protects your fourth amendment right."

Kline: "Morrison has subpoena medical records tens of thousands of times in his experience as district attorney. It's done every day."

Kline explained that after showing evidence to a judge, as AG he subpoenaed records from medical clinics, doctor's offices, and hospitals and they complied. The judge subpoenaed records from Planned Parenthood and Tiller -- the judge had found probable cause that a crime had been committed, which was a much higher legal threshold than "reasonable suspicion."

Kline: "We never requested the names of the adult women -- we didn't want them. We never needed them. All I need to investigate illegal late term abortion is to see their doctor's reason in the medical record. ... It's impossible to enforce the law without seeing that medical record. I was fine with the names being taken out. ..."

Kline: "For the children I did seek the names, because we wanted to act to protect the children."

Kline explained how this investigation was all private until the abortion clinics exposed it. The child rape investigation started in March 2003. The mandamus action that the abortion clinics filed with the Kansas Supreme Court allowed the public to find out about the investigation. Kline explained that a in a separate court motion, the clinics were allowed to tell their patients about the investigation. Kline explained his office never needed to contact the adult patients, so they didn't need their names.

Kline: "If you have an 11 year old who's pregnant and gets an abortion, and no one calls the police, who do you think the rapist is? ... You have a child that's 11, and pregnant, been raped ... aren't you're going to call the police? ... unless the rapist is the stepfather, or somebody in the family. And if you allow them to contact their patients ... the person picking up the phone might be the rapist. " ...

Kline: "We won before the [Kansas] Supreme Court -- the news reports were that we lost. We won. The court doesn't like me ... They kinda lectured me in this opinion, but they said, 'yeah', you can have the records. We got the records on Oct. 24 [2006].""

Kline "I must mention this. Mr. Tiller is presumed innocent by law, which is his right ... These are allegations. ... We file charges some time in December [2006] against Tiller. .... Those charges allege criminal late-term abortion ... What we put in the public document was that he was performing late-term abortions ... post viability ... with a diagnosis of 'severe depression, single episode', 'anxiety disorder'... Now you might think that late-term abortions ought to be allowed for those reasons. That might be your policy perspective. Kansas law says they are not. So charges were filed."

A question about the "second doctor" was not addressed by Kline to protect the integrity of the case.

Kline: "I could tell you a lot more if I could speak to you about what I saw in those records." ...

Kline: "For these charges to be filed ... a judge has to review the evidence ... and ... find probable cause that crimes have been committed." Judge Eric Yost reviewed he evidence and found that, and he issued a summons for Dr. Tiller .."

Kline: "... I met with ... Nolla Foulston, before I filed the case. We discussed it. She said she wouldn't stand in my way. She said this: 'you can't prosecute because you're not going to be Attorney General'..."

Kline explained how Nolla Foulston via Judge Clark had the charges dismissed. Judge Clark's reasoning was that the AG does not have the right to file criminal charges without DA approval.

Kline: "I have prosecuted county attorneys. They didn't approve. [laughter]."

Kline explained the Kansas legal term "inquisition" -- like a federal grand jury with a judge and no jury. Kline explained the statute allowed the Attorney General to file charges if "probable cause" was established as part of the inquisition process. "But Judge Clark dismissed it."

Kline explained Tiller's ProKanDo PAC and mentioned Tiller's "charities." Some in the room had not heard of the "Snoop Dog" mailings against Phill Kline last year.

"No one did anything"

Kline briefly discussed the Estrada case in Wichita when an adoption agency reported unusual circumstances about a baby being put up for adoption. Child rape had occurred. A previous abortion was also the result of child rape and had not been reported. When Kline's office gave this information to Sedgwick County DA Nolla Foulston for prosecution "no one did anything". Why are child rapists protected by the law in Sedgwick County?

Other.

Kline discussed a new "SAUSA" initiative where certain members of the Johnson County DA's would also become Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys. In cases that could be tried in either state or federal court, this program would sometimes provide prosecutors with a way to seek harsher penalties in Federal Court. It's not clear why Paul Morrison had no interest in this program when he was JoCo DA.

Kline was mystified how his name was connected with recent legislation that would allow prosecution of teachers. Kline explained that he had nothing to do with this legislation and that he believed in local control of schools. Kline said this about a recent JoCo Sun article, "Book banning, other mischief": "It's not professional journalism." Kline did say this about where he would draw the line on pornography in schools: "images of children involved in a sexual act should not be allowed in K-12."

Kline took several other swipes at the news reporting of the Kansas City Star:

"This newspaper doesn't want you to know."
"I wouldn't vote for me either if I only knew what was published in the Star."

Kline speaks with the Star's Mike Hendricks after the Town Hall Meeting

Kline joked to Hendricks at one point in the meeting: "I can't wait to read you column." If Kline left a few minutes earlier he could have seen the bumper sticker on Hendricks' van in the parking lot: "Proud to be a liberal." Would it be too much to ask Hendricks to sign all his commentary in the Star the same way?