What the Judge Ate for Breakfast: State Courts

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What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

News from inside Wichita's courts.
By Ron Sylvester

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Last Entry: November 21, 2009 at 01:17:24

Common Law: Flying fugitives back to jail

Posted on November 21, 2009
Bringing back fugitives wanted on felony warrants falls on the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Judicial Division. Deputy pilots Steve Saffell and Nathan Bevis fly on the sheriff’s airplane to retrieve some 200 inmates a year. What may seem like an extravagance actually saves taxpayers more than $100,000 a year...

Common Law: Out of county, off his meds

Posted on November 19, 2009
Previously on Common Law, public defender Lacy Gilmour showed how jail overcrowding in Wichita can inhibit talking to clients about their cases. This time, moving inmates to smaller counties prevented a mentally ill client from staying on his medications...

Common Law: Terms of probation

Posted on November 17, 2009
We’ve received several questions about what happens to people getting probation. As we’ve explained before, it’s not a free walk. While people don’t stay locked up, their life is restricted. Most of the people we’ve seen receive probation get standard terms they must follow...

Common Law: A shot fired into the air

Posted on November 13, 2009
A bar bouncer with no history of breaking the law got involved in a fracas, faced with two threatening patrons. The bouncer pulled a gun and fired a warning shot into the air. He now has a criminal record that could follow him for the next 10 years. (Watch video after the jump)

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Common Law: Domestic violence or just a ?stupid? act?

Posted on November 12, 2009
Jeremy Thompson and his wife got in an argument. She was driving. He grabbed the steering wheel. A police officer saw the car swerve off the road and stopped it, finding the couple’s child in the back seat. Thompson was charged and convicted of felony endangering a child...

Common Law: Not only a sex offender registry

Posted on November 10, 2009
It used to be only sex offenders had to register their addresses. Since 2006, people in Kansas convicted of some drug and weapons offenses also have to keep their whereabouts current with the sheriff’s department. Judge David Kaufman explains how this causes people with otherwise minor sentences to face prison...

Common Law: Preparing for trial

Posted on November 04, 2009
Public defender Lacy Gilmour expects one of her cases to go to trial next week. Her client is accused of stealing money from an elderly woman. He said she loaned him the money for school. Gilmour explains what it takes to get ready for a criminal jury trial...

Common Law: A father?s trust betrayed

Posted on November 03, 2009
He had sex with her on Mother’s Day and after her best friend’s birthday. She was 14 years old. He was her father. Did he deserve a harsher sentence because of that relationship? No judge can decide that. Only a jury can. Prosecutor Marc Bennett asked a jurors to do that because a father had [...

Common Law: Will prison help an addict?

Posted on October 20, 2009
If mental illness seems like a recurring theme here, that’s because it often surfaces in our courts. A majority of Kansas prison inmates suffer from a mental disorder. Mark McGee was one of them. He spent 10 years in prison for a drug crime. He got out and five years later was convicted of breaking [...

Common Law: A quick verdict of ?not guilty?

Posted on October 16, 2009
Public defender Lacy Gilmour compares her case to that of the prosecution in a recent theft trial before Judge Kaufman, and how it won an acquittal for her client. (Watch video after the jump)

Common Law: Outside the jury?s presence

Posted on October 09, 2009
Beverly Mitchell went to trial this week accused of stealing an expensive piece of equipment from his former employer. But when the prosecutor asked the company’s human resources director why Mitchell no longer worked there, public defender Lacy Gilmour objected...

Common Law: Youthful squabble nets felony

Posted on October 02, 2009
Dominique Willis, 18, got into an argument over $10. Willis punched another young man and took the money. He was charged with aggravated robbery and faced four years in prison, unless a judge departed from sentencing laws to grant probation. Watch video after the jump

Common Law: In a jail far away

Posted on September 30, 2009
Ryan Benson was in jail awaiting his day in court in Sedgwick County. But because of crowding in the local jail, he was being held in Ottawa County. After trying unsuccessfully to get a hold of his public defender, Lacy Gilmour, Benson filed a motion to fire her as his lawyer...

Want to sue someone? Here?s how

Posted on September 29, 2009
Today we’re launching a new feature on this site to help guide people through the sometimes daunting halls of justice. If you click the “Court Guides” tab above, it will take you to this page, which provides links to various pages to help local residents navigate the court system...

Common Law: Seeking reason in violence

Posted on September 25, 2009
Lacy Gilmour drew a murder case this week and explained what she looks for in defending a crime of violence. Her client: Frederick Fritz, accused of a shooting spree inside a west Wichita apartment last month, killing one and wounding two others. According to one witness, the shooting didn’t stop Fritz from trying to flirt [...

Common Law 27: A plea bargain for victims

Posted on September 24, 2009
People often look at plea bargains as a deal given to the defendant. But it also helps those harmed by crimes. Prosecutor Marc Bennett said that’s an ultimate goal in cases such as the sex abuse and attempted murder plea of Chris Newberry. (Watch video after the jump)

No. 26: A Common Law wedding

Posted on September 22, 2009
After listening to people argue all day, judges enjoy the opportunity to hear people say, “I do.” Most judges in Sedgwick County perform marriages outside of regular court business for a $40-$50 honorarium. Jerry Chebultz, 64, of Wichita and Nadiya Hryhorenko, 42, of Ukraine were among those deciding on a courthouse wedding...

Common Law No. 25: Legal payback

Posted on September 18, 2009
Most people know if they can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided for them at no cost. What they may not know is in Kansas, if they’re convicted, they have to pay their legal fees. Judges, however, have to base the fees on the defendant’s ability to pay...

Common Law No. 24: Guarded compassion

Posted on September 17, 2009
Every day, deputies in the Judicial Division escort defendants between jail and court, often under stressful and emotional circumstances. Once in the courtroom, defendants may get a rare chance to see their families. Deputies such as David Rank have to make decisions on how much to let loved ones interact with those in custody while [...

RICO update: Judge to hear request for new trial

Posted on June 16, 2009
U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten today set a hearing on the defense motion for a new trial in the racketeering case for five convicted Crips gang members. The defense has accused jurors of not being impartial in their deliberations. Last week, I talked to the presiding juror, who explained how the jury approached [...

Back to RICO: juror discusses deliberations

Posted on June 11, 2009
I went on medical leave two months ago, awaiting the verdict of a racketeering trial involving accused members of the Crips street gang. After sitting through the trial for weeks, the verdict came the morning I was having knee surgery. The jury convicted five of the six men of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and [...

Missing the verdict but will return with a new walk, new type of coverage

Posted on April 15, 2009
An appointment with a scalpel kept me from making this morning’s verdict in the RICO case I began covering last month. But when I return, we’re going to try a new kind of courts coverage through this blog. An old high school sports injury finally caught up with me, and I’ll be recuperating from total knee [...

Carr brothers? death appeal coming in June

Posted on April 14, 2009
It’s been nearly six years since a jury said Reginald and Jonathan Carr should die for the torturing and killing of four people in Wichita during a weeklong crime spree in December of 2000. The Supreme Court should begin receiving the Carrs’ appeals by June...

Economic times could boost shooting rampages

Posted on April 08, 2009
Crime researchers say crimes such as shootings in Binghampton, N.Y., increase as the economy declines. Experts urge police and communities to plan how they will respond, before something happens. Frank DiMarino, dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Kaplan University, offers 10 tips for police to prepare for such “psychological offenses...

RICO jury heads into Day 5 of deliberations on Monday

Posted on April 03, 2009
Jurors in the Crips trial finished their fourth day of deliberations without reaching a verdict Friday. They’ll return Monday to continue to sort out four weeks of testimony against six defendants accused of running organized crime through the street gang in Wichita...

Courthouse bomb threat checklist asks callers name, location of bomb

Posted on April 02, 2009
A checklist by the U.S. Department of Justice being distributed around the courthouse tells people what to do in the serious event of a bomb threat. Developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the list suggests questions to ask someone calling in a bomb threat, including: Where is the bomb? [...

Truck passenger convicted of unintentional murder in nightclub parking lot deaths

Posted on March 31, 2009
A man riding in a truck when it ran over and killed two people last summer is guilty of second-degree unintentional murder and voluntary manslaughter, a jury decided this afternoon. The jury returned their verdict on lesser charges for Carlos Chavez-Aguilar, 22, who had gone on trial accused of second-degree intentional murder...

The book of RICO: jury instructions of biblical proportations

Posted on March 30, 2009
The 89 pages of jury instructions in the RICO Crips trial had lawyers comparing it to parts of the Bible in today’s closing arguments. “We have jury instructions longer than the Psalms, except there is no poetry in them,” defense lawyer Paul McCausland said of the jury instructions given Friday by U...

Weather stalls RICO trial

Posted on March 27, 2009
Weather interfered with the continuation of the federal racketeering trial against six accused Crips gang members this morning. As sleet peppered the windows of the federal courthouse, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten halted the trial and sent jurors home under the threat of more severe winter storms this afternoon...

Jurors to get RICO case Friday

Posted on March 26, 2009
Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Friday in the case of six men charged with running organized crime through the Crips street gang in Wichita. After U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten gives legal instructions and lawyers present closing arguments, the jury will get the case...

Verbal volleys from the Tiller trial

Posted on March 25, 2009
On television court dramas, witnesses give clear answers to direct questions. After all, the entire story has to wrap by the top of the hour. In real life, testimony isn’t always so easy. Put yourself in the jurors’ seat for this exchange between Kristen Neuhaus and prosecutor Barry Disney during the trial of George Tiller [...

Are juror tweets grounds for a new trial?

Posted on March 13, 2009
When judges tells jurors not to discuss a case with anyone, they also mean via social networks such as Twitter. A $12.5 verdict is being challenged in Arkansas over a juror sending “tweets” - the 140-character posts on the Twitter micro-blogging network...

RICO trial off for a day: me for a week

Posted on March 13, 2009
The federal RICO trial fo six accused Crips members took the day off today. The trial resumes Monday with prosecutors expecting to continue presenting their case most of next week. Although I have been covering the trial on Twitter, I am taking next week off to spend spring break with my children...

Recapped: A glossary of gang slang

Posted on March 12, 2009
The Crips trial going on the past couple of weeks has revealed a life within our city where violence visits regularly. Not only are details of testimony about the gang lifestyle foreign to many, so is its language. You don’t need the Urban Dictionary to keep track...

Is there a ?code of the streets?? Researchers say yes

Posted on March 11, 2009
While I’m covering a gang racketeering trial, an interesting research report just came out from the Department of Justice. The “code of the streets” report released today says that neighborhood and community values can play a big role in whether African-American males adopt violent lifestyles...

Retweets from the RICO gang trial

Posted on March 10, 2009
A cool part about covering a trial via Twitter is seeing reaction from those following the coverage. That’s the “social” part of the Internet social networking experience. But there’s been an interesting twist in the coverage of the federal racketeering trial of six accused Crips gang members...

Woman says man impersonated police officer to gain entry to her house

Posted on February 26, 2009
A 35-year-old woman testified this morning that a man posed as a police officer as a ruse to attack her inside her Wichita home. Sedgwick County District Judge Joseph Bribiesca ordered Michael W. Young to stand trial on two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of aggravated robbery and one count of attempted rape following a [...

Federal judge says ?Twitter is on?

Posted on February 23, 2009
Live coverage of courts in Wichita expanded today, when a federal judge said he will allow me to use Twitter during the trial of six accused gang members. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten told defense counsel that he would allow me to file live posts, via Twitter, from his Wichita courtroom...

Armed robbery earns men $7, up to nine criminal charges

Posted on February 19, 2009
Four men could face years in prison over an armed robbery that netted them $7 in cash. The men, ranging in age from 18 to 20, were arrested after Wichita police said four people were held at gunpoint on Dec. 12 in the 2100 block of North Broadway. Set for preliminary hearing next week on nine criminal [...

25 random things about covering a capital murder trial

Posted on February 18, 2009
A lot of the people using this meme have blogged about trivial stuff. My time has been absorbed by the grim reality of the justice system, so that’s what I’ve chosen to write about. Here are thoughts, observations and personal notes that are helping me process the trial I’ve covered the past three weeks — [...

Anti-death advocates speak out about Thurber?s sentence

Posted on February 17, 2009
Sue Norton sat with the family of Justin Thurber as a jury said he should receive a death sentence for killing Jodi Sanderholm two years ago. Norton now lives in Arkansas City but she’s from Oklahoma, where her father and stepmother were killed in January 1990...

Thurber trial expected to last two weeks

Posted on February 03, 2009
I’m spending my days for the next couple of weeks in Winfield, covering the capital murder trial of Justin Thurber. Thurber is accused of raping and killing 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm on Jan. 5, 2007. He could get the death penalty if convicted...

Wichita woman wrote $200,000 in business checks to herself

Posted on January 29, 2009
Becky Vanderhoff-Huber was an office manager for Plains Petroleum when she started writing company checks to her self. For more than a year, she wrote checks in her own name, and by the time the company found out she’d stolen nearly $200,000. This morning, Sedgwick County District Judge Mark Vining sentenced the 32-year-old mother of [...

Kansas judge says ?cram down? mortgage bill will help troubled homeowners

Posted on January 28, 2009
The chief bankruptcy judge in Kansas says he and his colleagues are in the best position to help troubled homeowners, if they?re given the authority they need by a new bill going through Congress. The bill, which Tuesday passed the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, would allow judges to reduce, or ?cram down,? mortgages to meet market [...

Judge files written order on Schneider evidence

Posted on January 28, 2009
As his ruling awaits appeal, U.S. Senior District Judge Monti Belot today issued a written order detailing his limitations of evidence in the case of a Haysville doctor as his wife. Belot issued the written order after ruling from the bench on Monday that prosecutors could present evidence to the jury on only four of [...

Man gets 20 years for pimping teenage girl

Posted on January 23, 2009
Marlin Williams is off to prison for the next two decades, because he took a 15-year-old girl from Wichita to work the streets of Dallas as a prostitute. Williams, 38, was sentenced to 246 months in prison last week, and courthouse sources say he continued to blame the teenage girl for his predicament...

Prosecutors say mom had history of prostituting daughters

Posted on January 23, 2009
A 48-year-old Wichita woman is accused of prostituting her 5-year-old daughter, but prosecutors say it wasn’t the first time. Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston is seeking a judge’s permission to introduce testimony from two of the woman’s grown daughters, who said she sold them for sex when they were between the ages of 8 and [...

Wichita school bus driver charged with fondling 6-year-old

Posted on January 21, 2009
A 73-year-old Wichita school bus driver has been charged with fondling a 6-year-old girl. Billy J. Reynolds made his first appearance Tuesday morning to hear charges against him on four counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Prosecutors say he engaged in lewd touching of the girl from October until his arrest Jan...

Trial begins of man charged with raping blind, mentally disabled woman

Posted on January 21, 2009
Ricardo Adkins, 28, picked up an 18-year-old woman at a bus stop near 21st and Woodlawn on April 24. The woman, who is mentally disabled and legally blind, said he raped her. Adkins said they had consensual sex. Assistant Sedgwick County District Attorney Justin Edwards outlined the state’s case in his opening statements to the jury [...

Wichita tennis coach will go to trial accused of sex with teen

Posted on January 20, 2009
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...

Former Haysville doctor will stay out of jail awaiting trial

Posted on January 15, 2009
A federal judge in Wichita ruled today that a former Haysville doctor will remain free awaiting trial next month on charges that he over-prescribed painkillers, resulting in the deaths of 59 patients. U.S. District Judge Monti Belot denied a request by the prosecution to revoke Stephen Schneider’s bond...

Man accused of shooting Rosann Kapaun ruled competent to stand trial

Posted on January 15, 2009
Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess this morning reinstated the case against Charles Cullum, who is accused of shooting Rosann Kapaun nearly two years ago. Cullum’s case had been taken off the docket last spring for him to undergo a mental evaluation...

Murder charges gets more serious for Wichita woman

Posted on January 14, 2009
Gloria Ibarra told police she stabbed Kevin Hadley in an argument over $35. This morning, after hearing Wichita homicide detective Tim Relph recount his conversation with Ibarra, Sedgwick County District Judge Joseph Bribiesca granted a prosecutor’s request to change the charges against her from second-degree murder to first-degree premeditated murder...

Wichita girl says relative raped, abused her for four years as mother did nothing

Posted on January 13, 2009
Warning: Contains graphic content. A 36-year-old Wichita man is scheduled to go to trial later this month charged with repeated sex acts against a young relative over four years. Robin Adams is charged with raping, fondling and abusing the girl from the time she was 7 until she was 11...

What does it take to make a lawyer happy?

Posted on January 13, 2009
When dealing with serious issues, it pays to keep a sense of humor. Stephen and Linda Schneider are charged with over-prescribing painkillers, leading to the deaths of 59 patients. But even they got a chuckle out of the banter between Judge Monti Belot and defense lawyer Lawrence Williamson at a pretrial hearing this afternoon...

On the boardwalk: Wichita man cited for beating seagull

Posted on January 12, 2009
Laguna Beach police cited a Wichita man on “suspicion of animal cruelty” after he beat a seagull with a stick when it attacked him and his wife while swooping down on their ice cream. The Orange County Register reports that Dragan Djuric, 50, was waving a stick trying to fend off several aggressive — and endangered [...

What more do you need to know about Paul Morrison and Linda Carter?

Posted on January 08, 2009
People have been asking me this week about what Linda Carter’s affair with former Attorney General Paul Morrison has to do with a criminal case against Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller. Tiller’s lawyer Dan Monnat tried to show that Morrison so wanted to please Carter that he’d do anything for her...

Courtroom drama resumes today in Kansas v. Tiller

Posted on January 06, 2009
A former Kansas attorney general who crusaded against abortion, his successor and the successor’s former lover are all scheduled to take the stand in a Wichita courtroom this week. Sound like a political soap opera? No, it’s just the latest hearing in the case of Kansas v...

A packed courtroom says farewell to Judge Pilshaw

Posted on January 05, 2009
The cake was decorated to look like law books with a gavel on top. The books carried the dates of Judge Rebecca Pilshaw’s reign on the Sedgwick County District Court bench: 1993-2008. A courtroom packed with lawyers, fellow judges, police and court staff ate the cake and sipped punch in a farewell reception for Rebecca [...

Wichita police officer to go to trial with sex discrimination suit

Posted on December 22, 2008
A Wichita police officer’s claims that she was sexually discriminated against should go to trial, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Monti Belot to dismiss the lawsuit by other women working for the WPD but reinstated the case of Greta Semsroth...

A new face joins Wichita?s Parents of Murdered Children

Posted on December 18, 2008
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 [...

Office manager?s sentence: two years in federal prison for fraud

Posted on December 18, 2008
A 51-year-old Wichita woman will spend more than two years in a federal prison for stealing more than $300,000 from the doctor?s office where she worked. U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown sentenced Frances E. Holt to 27 months in prison on Wednesday...

Harper returns home after serving time for shooting PI

Posted on December 10, 2008
The man who shot Wichita private eye Emory Goad said through his lawyer that he was too old and sick to go to prison. But two years later, 79-year-old John Harper called after returning from serving his time and said he’s never felt better. “I came out healthier,” Harper said...

How much prison time should a fake Indian chief get?

Posted on December 09, 2008
Malcolm Webber will soon face sentencing as the convicted chief of a fake American Indian tribe that duped thousands of illegal immigrants out of money with the promise of U.S. citizenship. Lawyers in the case are asking U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley Brown to consider sentences between eight months and 18 years for the 70-year-old Webber...

County public defender?s office stops taking cases

Posted on December 08, 2008
UPDATED: With judge’s plan to appoint private attorneys and quotes from the judge. The Sedgwick County Regional Public Defenders office has stopped taking cases for at least two weeks, its chief said this morning. “We have an obligation to offer ethical representation, and we just can’t keep going on like we’re have been,” Steve Osburn said...

Hey, lawyers: I?m more trusted than you ? kind of, for now

Posted on December 04, 2008
I always say that when I married an attorney we were both shocked, shocked, to learn that each other’s profession had a code of ethics. The public might agree. A Gallup poll released this week shows the public rated journalists above lawyers in their perceptions of ethics and honesty...

Judge again admonishes Schneiders? lawyers

Posted on December 03, 2008
Judge Monti Belot continues to admonish lawyers for motions they’re filing on behalf of Stephen and Linda Schneider, as the couple await trial charged with more than 30 federal crimes related to their prescription practices for painkillers at their Haysville clinic...