Victim-witness coordinator cites defense-friendly pleas in endorsing

By MICHAEL RYAN

The Capital-Journal

The news surprised her so much that Shawnee County District Attorney Joan Hamilton initially didn't believe it.

Suzanne James, Hamilton's victim-witness coordinator, early Friday evening popped up on a radio advertisement endorsing Hamilton's opponent. She had resigned from her job in the D.A.'s office at 5 p.m., just 20 minutes before the first radio spot aired.

In endorsing lawyer Robert Hecht, James cited what she said was mismanagement of the D.A.'s office and a pattern of defense-friendly pleas.

"I have nothing to gain, and a whole lot that I'm losing and giving up, by doing this," James said in an interview. "I haven't been promised anything by anybody. Nothing has been inferred."

James said she felt she had lost her effectiveness in fighting for victims' rights in the D.A.'s office because complaints from victims that she forwarded to Hamilton seemed to go nowhere. The victims' complaints included such things as poor communication, delays in case filings and "cheap pleas" --- sharp reductions in charges, particularly in sex crimes, that defendants would be "crazy" to pass up, James said.

Hamilton is seeking a third term in the Nov. 7 election, while Hecht is seeking to return to the office he held from 1965-69.

Contacted at home Friday evening, Hamilton said she was saddened by the resignation of James, who she called a "wonderful person" but who had problems working with lawyers in the office. Hamilton said she had received complaints from some victims and their advocates on how James treated them.

Hamilton initially wouldn't believe James had endorsed her opponent. But when read a transcript of James' radio commercial in which James said, "I would urge each of you to support Robert Hecht for district attorney," Hamilton expressed dismay. She said Hecht opposes seeking victims' consent in plea agreements and said that kind of attitude "is exactly what (James) fought against eight years ago" in joining Hamilton's campaign.

Hamilton said other staff members questioned James' work ethic, and that James was telling victims they were crazy, addicted or needed counseling. She said one correspondent to the office called a letter from James "condescending."

As for James' complaints regarding sexual assault pleas, Hamilton said that was a result of a personality conflict between James and the assistant district attorney who prosecutes such crimes. Hamilton said she once urged the two in an e-mail to "grow up."

Hamilton said if victims had had problems with what was going on in her office, "I would've jumped on that in a second."

Two other victims' advocates joined James in criticizing the district attorney's office late this week.

Kay Coles, executive director of the YWCA, which oversees the Battered Women's Task Force, said Friday that prosecution of domestic violence cases in Hamilton's office has been "inconsistent," and that prosecution of sexual assault cases has been "almost non-existent."

"There has been a pattern of continually not wanting to take sexual assault cases to trial," Coles said, "and instead pleading them down to a lesser charge. It's a very troubling pattern, particularly to victim advocates."

Coles acknowledged that her allegations haven't been widely known in the public until now because, she said, of Hamilton's efforts to portray herself as a victims' advocate. But Coles said Hamilton's problems in cases involving battered women and sexual assault are well known in the women's advocacy community.

"It really is time that those of us who are advocates for those victims to speak out about that situation," Coles said. "I believe we have a responsibility to let the public know what really goes on in the district attorney's office. We're going to have rapists walk the streets free, potentially to rape again."

Coles said the situation also makes it less likely that future victims of sexual assault would come forward to press charges.

As for domestic violence cases, Coles said the D.A.'s office has no written policies and procedures for them, despite a 1996 state law requiring it. She noted that after Topeka police Maj. Roland Whye was charged earlier this year with battering his girlfriend, rather than domestic battery, she asked Hamilton for clarification on how cases will be handled involving intimates who neither live together nor have children together. In 61 cases during the previous year, Coles said, Hamilton's office had leveled charges of domestic battery in such circumstances, but not in Whye's case. When asked to explain, she said Hamilton responded "with a screaming tirade."

"Obviously there needs to be some change in the D.A.'s office," Coles said. "If the election doesn't produce that change, I hope the D.A. will be willing to sit down and listen to victims' advocates."

Hamilton said Coles has been upset ever since the Whye case was charged as battery rather than the more serious domestic battery, which Hamilton said is in line with the law.

"This is a subject dear to my heart," Hamilton said. "I haven't had victims or victims' families come to me and say my cases are non- existent."

Another victims' advocate, Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center nurse Ric Hudson, said she started an interagency program of collecting photographic sexual assault evidence involving a "colposcope." The technique helps spot tissue damage the naked eye might have missed.

But Hudson said she and other nurses quit the program after they concluded it wasn't being used by Hamilton's office in sexual assault cases.

Hudson said she had testified in other northeast Kansas cases, but never in Shawnee County. She said that at the first meeting on the program, Hamilton said it would never work, and that Hamilton's office "never looked at any of these slides." When Hudson asked an attorney in the office about the lack of use of the program, Hudson said, "she just went off" and asked Hudson why she was questioning how she did her job.

"They're not doing their job," Hudson said. "You can't have 200 cases and have not one go to court. Something's not right there."

Hudson stressed that other agencies cooperated well with the program, including law enforcement and Court Appointed Special Advocates, which helps young victims understand the court system. But, Hudson said, "I felt like the ball was getting dropped in the district attorney's office."

"That's a lie," Hamilton responded.

While saying she can't address someone else's conversation with Hudson, Hamilton said others in the program had asked her office to write a letter to the hospital expressing support for the program.

In addition, Hamilton said, just because there is no testimony doesn't mean the evidence wasn't used. She said it can be a powerful tool to extract a plea from a defendant.

Hamilton said there is no reluctance on her office's part to go to trial, and that the assistant who prosecutes sex crimes is experienced. She said Shawnee County district judges put constant pressure on her staff to work out plea agreements rather than go to trial, saying judges have been known to call her assistants at home on weekends to inquire about the possibility of pleas.

Hamilton said she didn't know how many sexual assault cases had been taken to trial in the past few years. But she said a trial isn't necessarily the measure of a successful case.

Several former assistants in Hamilton's office said they, too, noticed a pattern of low-level pleas in sexual assault cases.

Bobby Hiebert, a former assistant district attorney, said a felony sexual assault case that was reduced to disorderly conduct "was kind of an office joke." He said he thought victims were "muscled" into accepting weak plea agreements because the prosecutors didn't want to go to trial.

When a serious sexual assault case was filed, James said people in the office would joke, "We know how that will turn out --- two counts of battery."

Hiebert said by the time he left the office, he was so discouraged that "I was ready to stop the practice of law." While he said staff members and others are afraid of incurring Hamilton's wrath, criminals aren't afraid of the D.A.'s office.

Several former assistants, who asked not to be identified, also said they were alarmed by the state of prosecutions in the D.A.'s office. They said there are 4,500 unfiled cases in the office. And they said it is odd that Saline County, with a lower population and much less crime, sent more people to prison last year than Hamilton's office, according to state figures: 167 to 147.

Hamilton said that difference could be the result of the fact that Shawnee County's major crime problems are burglaries and thefts, for which offenders aren't generally sent to prison. She also said it might result from differences in sentencing by judges in the two counties.

She said a better comparison would be Wyandotte County. She said her office's conviction rate is 17 percent higher. When told that state statistics show Wyandotte County sent 409 people to prison last year, Hamilton cited a possible higher incidence of imprisonable crime in that county.

"You can't blame it on the D.A. alone," she said. "Just because one county puts away more people than another, that doesn't mean the other county isn't doing their job."

Hamilton acknowledged there are thousands of unfiled cases in her office, but she put the number at about 3,000 rather than 4,500.

Hiebert, who handled juvenile cases, said that at one point when 300 to 400 unfiled cases had exceeded the statute of limitations and victims were being notified of that, Hamilton sent out an office e- mail instructing her staff not to notify victims. Hiebert said the automatic victim notification forms were thrown away or shredded.

Hamilton said that wasn't possible.

"I was the one who legislated that victims have the right to know when their case is declined," she said.

Hamilton also discounted Hiebert's ability to know what was going on in sexual assault cases since he was assigned to juvenile cases. She said she didn't care to respond to Hiebert's accusations. "I don't want to respond to Bobby Hiebert," she said. But she said Hiebert had left her office with bad feelings and a "mess" that former assistant district attorney Cheryl Whelan had to clean up. Whelan was unavailable for comment.

Former assistant district attorney Gwynne Harris said she supports Hamilton and the competence of both Hamilton and her assistants.

"You can't please everybody (as D.A.)," Harris said. "I have confidence she cares about victims and truly does care about crime in the city. She can't do it by herself."

Hecht, who said James' advertisement was to air this weekend on WIBW 97 Country radio, then on KMAJ 107.7 beginning Monday, said he understands that some observers will see James as a tainted witness now that she has jumped onto his bandwagon. But he said she had approached him about a week ago, and that "you could just see the emotion and conflict in her."

"It's purely voluntary on her part," he said. "She has been offered nothing. She has asked for nothing."

James acknowledged the politically sensitive timing of her switch to supporting Hecht. But she said she recently concluded she couldn't continue to support Hamilton's administration.

As James put it: "I can't look myself in the mirror anymore and say I'm not going to speak out against cheap pleas, whether they involve thefts in grocery stores or sex crimes against children."

Hamilton said her steadfast policy is that victims are consulted on pleas, and that "All I can tell you is we're making (criminals) accountable."

To what degree, though, James asks.

"She can honestly say that they've been held 'accountable,' " James said. "The issue here is whether they've been held appropriately accountable."

Mike Ryan can be reached at

(785) 295-1199 or mryan@cjonline.com.

See D.A., page 6-A

D.A.

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