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State Courts

What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

News from inside Wichita's courts.
By Ron Sylvester

Post Frequency: 1.3/day

Last Entry: March 28, 2011 at 22:37:55

Common Law: Witness to a murder, cross-examination

Posted on April 07, 2010
When police arrived to find Gonzolo Gomez dying on his front steps, Kathleen Buendia originally denied being outside the house during the shooting. She later changed her story, and that was enough for defense attorney Mark Sevart to call into question the 19-year-old’s testimony against his client, Maria Reyes.

Common Law: Witness to a murder

Posted on April 06, 2010
Kathleen Buendia watched Gonzolo Gomez stagger out to his front porch and collapse with a gunshot wound the night of May 15, 2007. Buendia was 16 at the time. Now 19, she testified against Maria Reyes, Gomez’s common law wife, who is currently on trial, charged with murder (first of two parts):

Common Law: Coming to terms with a plea

Posted on March 26, 2010
Greggory McCray got in a fight with another man, over a woman, and beat him up. He then waited for 10 months in the county jail before public defender Lacy Gilmour could work out a plea deal with the prosecution. Then McCray found out that judges don?t have to follow plea bargains at sentencing.

Lawyer?s argument for bond: he?s in jail

Posted on March 23, 2010
Federal public defender Steve Gradert made one recent argument that was what you might call inspiring to his colleagues. Gradert told U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Humphreys that she should release the defendant on bond awaiting trial on federal charges because the man already faced five days in the county jail for drunk driving...

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Common Law: A bad boyfriend

Posted on March 11, 2010
Judge Eric Yost decided Petra Carruthers had such a bad boyfriend, he told her she might end up in prison if she didn’t stop seeing him.

Common Law: Two-minute morning docket

Posted on March 10, 2010
Each morning judges call a docket of cases assigned to them. Many times, they are the same types of hearings: guilty pleas, sentencing hearings or probation violations. The judge’s job is the same. Only the names and faces change. Here’s a recent morning docket of pleas before Judge David Kaufman, edited to two minutes.

Common Law: Serving an era of changing civil rights

Posted on February 26, 2010
Judge Wesley Brown lived through the deadly 1918 flu epidemic and the Great Depression. When he was younger, he also had a quick temper. But he began to mellow out around age 80. That was two decades ago. During his time as a federal judge, he’s seen the courts and the law change, especially [...

Common Law: From crank phones to the iPhone

Posted on February 25, 2010
U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown lived through the advent of radio, television and now the Internet. In Part 2 of our interview, Brown talks about the changes he’s seen communication over his lifetime. He’s 102.

Common Law: 48 years on the bench

Posted on February 24, 2010
When Wesley Brown was born in 1907, Theodore Roosevelt was president, women started staging protests fighting for the vote and the Boy Scouts opened their first camp. As Senior U.S. District Judge, Brown still works full-time, deciding criminal and civil cases at the federal courthouse in Wichita...

Common Law: Learning crime at an early age

Posted on February 17, 2010
Kenneth Alvis was raised to steal. Public defender Lacy Gilmour said when Alvis reached her office, he’d grown up being encouraged to be a thief to support his family. A traffic violation at age 17 put Alvis in adult court. When he continued to break the law after his 18th birthday, he faced a probation [...

Common Law: Deputies discuss Roeder trial security

Posted on February 05, 2010
Courtroom security became a major issue during the Scott Roeder murder trial. Not only did Roeder admit killing Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, the gallery drew several people who had been convicted of and spent time in prison for violent crimes against abortion clinics...

Common Law: ?Season 1? highlights

Posted on February 03, 2010
When I started a video blog — or “vlog” — to share the daily exploits of a criminal court in the Midwest, I asked for a lot of trust and a little faith. I got both from a judge, a public defender, a prosecutor and courthouse deputies who let me follow them around with a [...

Clinic supporters hear hint of ?network? in Roeder?s testimony

Posted on January 29, 2010
Vicki Saporta listened as Scott Roeder talked about the friends he had and people around him who supported the killing of abortion doctors, as the district attorney cross-examined him Thursday afternoon. “I just wish she’d have gone a little farther and asked him who they were,” said Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation...

The signs show up at the courthouse for Roeder trial

Posted on January 27, 2010
(Photo by Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle) Updated: After three days of a relatively quiet trial, Randall Terry and three of his supporters showed up with signs in front of the courthouse today, as prosecutors prepared to wrap up their case for murder against Scott Roeder...

In the Roeder trial gallery: abortion opponents and the feds

Posted on January 26, 2010
As abortion rights opponents put out press releases about attending the Scott Roeder trial, federal authorities quietly sat in the back of the courtroom, taking notes. Abortion rights advocates, meanwhile, want the federal government to step up an investigation into whether some anti-abortion factions were conspirators in Tiller’s shooting...

The District Attorney brings up abortion in Roeder trial

Posted on January 26, 2010
On Friday, prosecutors objected to the defense trying to inject the subject of abortion in the first-degree murder trial of Scott Roeder. On Monday, District Attorney Nola Foulston asked witness Keith Martin about his church’s view on abortion...

GQ article stirs discussion at Roeder trial

Posted on January 25, 2010
Talk today in the Scott Roeder trial stemmed from weekend reading, particularly an article from GQ, detailing George Tiller’s final day. At the end of today’s testimony, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert even admonished the jury not to read GQ, if they have a subscription to the magazine, look at it online or buy it [...

A discussion about ?the a-word? in Roeder trial

Posted on January 25, 2010
Count how many times lawyers and the judge use the word “abortion” in trying not to talk about what public defender Mark Rudy called ‘the a-word” in the first day of Scott Roeder’s trial. For the record, witness Paul Ryding, who attended church with George Tiller, said he’d seen Roeder at the church before...

Testimony opens in Roeder trial on historic anniversary of legalized abortion

Posted on January 22, 2010
Across the country, supporters and detractors of the abortion rights issue with gather in the nation’s capitol and state capitols to mark the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. That Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in the United States. In a Wichita courtroom this morning, a jury of eight men and six women will begin hearing [...

Seating restricted to reporters in public jury selection

Posted on January 21, 2010
When jury selection continues this afternoon in the murder trial of Scott Roeder, it will be open to the public through the news media. Courthouse spokesman Kirk Longhofer said this morning that at least three people had asked to be in the courtroom for general questioning, set for 1:30 p...

Jury update: Lawyers pass half of those questioned in morning session

Posted on January 19, 2010
Lawyers said they interviewed eight prospective jurors and passed four of them for cause this morning in the first-degree murder trial of Scott Roeder. Since jury selection began Wednesday, 29 have qualified to move on to the next round in the trial stemming from the killing of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller...

Jury update: Roeder?s defense asks for ?cautionary? instruction

Posted on January 15, 2010
Updated: Fearing jurors may feel in danger during the murder trial of a man charged with killing Wichita abortion doctor, Scott Roeder’s defense has asked the trial judge for a special instruction when panelists are questioned as a group. Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert has ordered jurors to receive numbers when they enter the next stage [...

Assistant AG asks judge not to enforce subpoena by Roeder?s defense

Posted on January 15, 2010
Barry Disney, who prosecuted a case against abortion provider George Tiller just two months before his death, has filed a motion to quash a subpoena from the defense of the doctor’s accused killer. The assistant Kansas Attorney General said he has no information that would be relevant to the trial...

Tiller?s wife fights subpoena for abortion records

Posted on January 11, 2010
A lawyer for Jeanne Tiller, wife of a slain Wichita abortion doctor, filed a motion this afternoon to quash a subpoena for her late husband’s business records, sought by his accused killer, Scott Roeder. Attorney Lee Thompson said in his motion that Roeder’s defense had requested “professional calendars, appointment books, records of scheduled procedures” from Tiller’s [...

Behind the challenge for access to Roeder jury selection

Posted on January 11, 2010
Four news outlets this morning filed a request to the Kansas Supreme Court to allow public access to jury selection in Scott Roeder’s trial. Roeder is charged with the killing of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller. The Eagle, The Kansas City Star, The Associated Press and KWCH-TV are asking the state’s high court tell the trial [...

Common Law: Out running too late

Posted on December 30, 2009
We last saw Julius Brown in court two weeks ago. He’d violated his probation by being out past curfew the night Cindy Garcia was shot to death last June. Murder charges were dropped, but prosecutors wanted him to go to prison. Judge David Kaufman had to decide whether to reinstate probation or make Brown serve [...

Common Law: ?Nothing to say? to his lawyer

Posted on December 29, 2009
Bryant Douglas has spent the last seven months in jail, charged with domestic violence and criminal threat. He’s apparently not getting along with his lawyers, and that’s keeping his case from going to trial. Recently, he asked Judge David Kaufman to give him yet another public defender...

Common Law: ?Tis the season to protect yourself from crime

Posted on December 16, 2009
As Deputy David Rank escorts defendants from jail to court, he’s noticing more cases of burglary, robbery and theft. It’s just that time of year, he said, when people try to prey on holiday shoppers. In our latest interview, Rank said he wanted to give people tips on how to stay safe this season...

Common Law: Is $5,000 bond enough?

Posted on December 15, 2009
John Taylor stood at the center of one of the most dramatic local legal stories in recent memory. He originally was sentenced to life in prison, after pleading guilty to strangling a 60-year-old mentally disabled man in 1996. The case was reversed on appeal, Taylor withdrew his plea and spent a dozen years in prison [...

Common Law: Murder as cause for PV

Posted on December 11, 2009
Julius Brown, 26, appeared to have dodged a murder charge. Brown was among four men charged with the shooting death last June of 20-year-old Cindy Garcia while she was driving with friends along East Harry. Last month, prosecutors dropped the murder charges against all four...

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