Supreme Court weighs in

In February 2008, The Kansas Supreme Court gladdened the hearts of the abortion industry and the local media when it agreed to consider Tiller’s request to quash the grand jury subpoenas.  This, of course, delayed the Wichita grand jury in its attempt to review the redacted records. 

The high court cited the concerns of Attorney General Six over the red herring of “patient privacy.” The Wichita Eagle naively described Six’s concern as “similar to the issues raised by lawyers for Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.”

Delay has been an essential part of the legal strategy in both Johnson County and Wichita. In Johnson County the end game pivots on January 2009, the expiration of Kline’s term. In Sedgwick County, lawyers are running out the clock on the dwindling weeks left in a 3-month extension to the original 3-month term of the Tiller grand jury.

In May 2008, however, the Kansas Supreme Court unsealed its records, and in two separate rulings offered hope that the rule of law may not be dead yet in the Sunflower State.  In the first case, the court ruled that Kline, as District Attorney of Johnson County, had proper legal clearance to keep possession of the Planned Parenthood patient files he had subpoenaed as attorney general.

During the transition from attorney general to district attorney, Kline was sufficiently wary of sabotage from remaining Morrison staff that he kept the patient files in a secure location outside of the office, a fact that his critics would later make much ado about.

Judge David King, who reviewed the transition at the request of the Supreme Court, consistently rejected the claims of the attorney general’s office that Kline had been reckless with the patient files—however unorthodox the chain of custody--or indiscreet with the information that they contained.  King was struck, however, by the willingness of the AG’s office to come to conclusions about Kline “based on suspicion and assumption that are not supported by facts.” 

In the process of acknowledging legitimacy of Kline’s custody, the Supreme Court rejected the supposed “clearance letter” from former Attorney General Paul Morrison that Planned Parenthood had been waving like a pennant for the past year. This case is due back in court June 12.

In the second case, the court ruled that the grand jury process was constitutional.  It thus declined to quash the subpoenas and granted the Sedgwick County grand jury access to abortion records in its investigation of Tiller.

The court did, however, rule that the judge could choose a lawyer and doctor to oversee the redaction of identifying information in the subpoenaed files.  This ruling only encouraged stalling tactics, given the limited term of the grand jury.  The ruling also suggested that abortion records must be treated differently than other medical records routinely subpoenaed in court actions. 

More problematically, the court refused to allow Judge Anderson to testify in the Planned Parenthood case, a ruling that is being challenged by Kline as this article goes to press.

Bishop admonishes governor

Embarrassed by the abortion industry’s indifference to the state’s abortion laws, the Kansas House and Senate took action in its spring 2008 session.  The result was the Comprehensive Abortion Reform (CARA), passed by significant majorities in both houses.  Ironically but predictably,

 Page [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]