High court upholds rulings

Decisions regard fatal shootings

in 1997, 2001

By Tim Carpenter

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

The Kansas Supreme Court has rejected appeals filed by men convicted of fatally shooting people on Topeka city streets.

The court affirmed the conviction in Shawnee County District Court of Michael Mattox, found guilty three years ago of aiding unintentional second-degree murder in the death of John Lane, 20, of Topeka. Lane was found slumped over in the driver's seat of a car in the 1100 block of S.E. Deer Creek Parkway in 2001, the victim of an apparent road-rage attack. He had been shot twice in the head.

In a 6-1 ruling, the court's majority reversed a Kansas Court of Appeals decision that incriminating statements by Mattox to three Topeka police detectives should have been suppressed by the district court.

"The result is that the district court decision is affirmed," said Ron Keefover, spokesman for the Supreme Court.

Mattox, who was sentenced by District Judge Jan Leuenberger to 14 years in prison, had told officers that Robert Gigger shot Lane. However, Mattox refused to testify against his co-defendant at a separate trial. Gigger was acquitted of criminal discharge of a firearm and of first-degree murder.

In the second Supreme Court ruling, justices issued a unanimous decision upholding a Shawnee County District Court judge's sentence in the case of Levi Love, who was found guilty in 1997 of the first- degree murder of LaTonya Ward and the attempted first-degree murder of Darryl Peppers.

On appeal, Love argued his 68-year sentence should be reduced. Love, who was on probation at the time Ward and Peppers were shot, claimed he was unfairly ordered to serve the murder and attempted murder sentences consecutively with the old sentence that had landed him on probation.

Justices ruled that District Judge Franklin Theis, who gave Love the maximum sentence under state law, acted properly. Love was convicted of shooting Ward to death and of wounding Peppers with a bullet to the leg before running him over with a vehicle near S.E. 23rd and Ohio.

Tim Carpenter can be reached

at (785) 295-1158

or tim.carpenter@cjonline.com.

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