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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: Not home for the holidays

Posted on November 25, 2009
Teresa Cloud learned how many times a judge can say “zero tolerance.” She went to court on her fifth probation violation for drug use, facing 18 months in prison just before Thanksgiving. (Watch video after the jump)

Common Law: Flying fugitives, part 2

Posted on November 23, 2009
Continue the day’s trip with the extradition crew from the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Judicial Division. In this segment, you’ll see how the deputies interact with the inmates and learn about security issues on their plane. See Part 1 here and find more about the extraditions by reading our story...

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...

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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)

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 [...

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 [...

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