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A Johnson County judge "overturned" a recent Kansas City
Star editorial when he sentenced a woman who had six
previous DUIs to five years in jail.
On April 12,
2007 the Kansas City Star's Editorial Board wrote a hit piece
against Johnson County District Attorney, Phill Kline. The Star's
Editorial Board was mostly interested in character assassination of Phill
Kline and did not try to comprehend Kansas Law (or even common sense for a
woman who had six previous DUIs) when they wrote the following:
Fight drunken driving, but let hospitals follow procedure
Kline out of bounds with blood-test plan
Prosecutor seeks evidence of a crime at the expense of
a medical patient’s privacy. Health professionals object. Prosecutor
says he’ll arrest them if they stand in his way.
The sequence has a familiar ring to anyone who
followed Phill Kline’s turbulent term as Kansas attorney general.
It’s perturbing, but not surprising, to see him continue the pattern
as Johnson County’s district attorney.
As attorney general, Kline sought records of some
patients who had received abortions. He waged an unsuccessful and widely
ridiculed legal battle to require counselors, doctors and others to
notify authorities if they suspected that some teenagers were sexually
active.
Now Kline wants hospital staffers to obtain blood
tests from certain unwilling patients to determine whether they are
intoxicated. He says he’ll arrest the medical personnel for
“obstruction of justice” if they don’t comply, even though they
are bound by federal regulations and accreditation guidelines to respect
patient privacy and a patient’s right to refuse medical treatment.
No responsible person wants to let intoxicated
drivers off the hook. But the proper procedure is to obtain a warrant
from a judge if a motorist balks at providing a blood sample.
In a small number of cases, a warrant won’t be
available. Reasonable prosecutors have still found ways to hold drunken
drivers accountable without forcing health care workers to violate
professional codes.
Kline, however, lacks finesse and experience in
criminal prosecution, not to mention respect for health professionals.
After just three months in his new post, he is drawing the
once-respected Johnson County district attorney’s office into
unnecessary, but predictable, controversy.
On Friday the Star
did report the five-year sentence in DUI wreck from this case:
Genia Hope Robinson had been convicted three times
of drunken driving when she ran a red light on Jan. 11 in Overland Park.
She was over the limit again, with two children in
her car. And this time her vehicle struck another carrying a
16-year-old and his grandmother. Both were seriously hurt.
On Friday, a Johnson County judge sentenced
Robinson to five years in prison. The 35-year-old Lenexa woman had
pleaded guilty in March to driving while under the influence of alcohol
— fourth offense, and to two counts of aggravated battery.
Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carney told
District Judge John Anderson III that the 66-year-old grandmother
suffered life-threatening injuries and was still recovering from the
crash at 91st Street and Quivira Road.
“She came within an eyelash of not being with us
today,” Carney said.
Carney said Robinson’s blood alcohol content was
0.14 more than two hours after the accident occurred. The legal limit in
Kansas is 0.08.
Neither the grandmother nor the teenager attended
the sentencing.
Defense attorney Damon Mitchell said that Robinson
“offers no excuses and is prepared to do her time. … She has learned
her lesson.”
Afterward, Carney said outside the courthouse that
the sentence was one of the stiffest ever imposed in the county in a DUI
case in which no one died.
And District Attorney Phill Kline said
prosecutors might not have gotten the conviction if they had not pushed
that night for University of Kansas Hospital to draw blood from an
unwilling Robinson.
Because Robinson declined to give permission, hospital
personnel initially refused to draw the blood. They contended that doing
so would violate federal laws regarding patient privacy.
However, Kline said, hospital personnel finally drew
the blood after prosecutors got a judge to order a warrant for it over
the telephone.
“That’s why we obtained the verdict today,”
Kline said Friday.
Where is the Star's editorial complementing Kline for getting a
serial DUI offender off the street, who also had endangered the lives of
her two children? Where's the Star's mea culpa that Kline
knows more about Kansas Law than they think? Does the editorial
board have the character to make an apology? Doesn't this case
show the Star is more interested in the political character assassination
of Phil Kline and less interested in public safety or strict enforcement
of existing laws?
Here are more
details about this case from KMBC Channel 9:
When Robinson arrived at the University of Kansas
Medical Center, the staff refused to draw blood for a DUI test.
"We got a judge on the phone, got a telephone
search warrant and this went on until 1:30 in the morning," Johnson
County District Attorney Phill Kline said.
KMBC's Bev Chapman reported that timing was
important -- police only had two hours from the time of the wreck to get
a blood sample; if it was any later it could alter the evidence.
"I would describe it as mass confusion,"
Kline said.
He said it was confusing because the staff on duty
at the hospital that night apparently didn't know the law, which is that
if someone suspected of drinking and driving is involved in a wreck
where people are hurt or killed, staff members can be ordered by police
to draw blood.
"Be ready. If there's severe injury or death,
the law says the blood shall be drawn," Kline said.
The law is an exception to patient privacy laws
intended to get dangerous drivers off the road.
In the Robinson case, the victims were nearly
killed, prosecutors said.
The details of this case have received minimal attention in the Kansas
press -- less than generated by the original Star editorial
attacking Kline:
The Star's Editorial Board should apologize to Kline and the
public. But will they? When?
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