Author Archives: «Monnat & Spurrier»

• Mar 18, 1999
• by Robert Short

David Dreier may avoid a prison sentence for the beating of Chris Brannan, who suffered a permanent brain injury.

In a rare courthouse move, the ranking Sedgwick County District Court Judge has removed another judge from a pending criminal case because of accusations of bias.
Judge Rebecca Pilshaw, the judge removed from the case, was never shy about her belief that David Dreier deserved more than probation for the attack on a college student from Wichita’s Vickridge neighborhood.
“He went there to fight, she said during the first half of Dreier’s sentencing hearing earlier this month. “He threw the first punch. He enjoyed the fight.”
The changing of the judges is the latest twist in the story of Chris Brannan, a 20-year-old college student who suffered a profound brain injury after being beaten and stabbed in Wichita’s affluent Vickridge neighborhood in August 1997.
The street brawl sparked by party crashers left Brannan unable to walk and needing full-time care.
The removal of Pilshaw midway through the sentencing of David Dreier – one of four people convicted in the attack – is a blow to the victim’s family, they said. Pilshaw was outspoken in her intent to send Dreier, 20, to prison, a position the family supported.
“We felt judge Pilshaw had conducted a very fair trial, and we are very disappointed they have seen fit to replace her,” said Jim Robinson, Chris Brannan’s grandfather.
Pilshaw’s removal was not the first unexpected twist in the case. That came when Dreier, the son of a minister and captain of his Hesston high school wrestling team, changed attorneys after his trial.
After being convicted by a jury of aggravated battery last year, Dreier let his public defender go and hired prominent criminal defense attorney Daniel Monnat specifically for his sentencing, which was scheduled to take place earlier this month.
Monnat hoped to spare Dreier from prison. Monnat argued that Dreier should not be imprisoned because of severe – even life-threatening – diabetes that cannot be managed well behind bars.
During the first half of Dreier’s sentencing hearing on March 8, Monnat called several witnesses, including the defendant’s coaches, teachers and his parents. Monnat hoped to portray Dreier as a good kid struggling with diabetes who made a mistake one night after drinking.
But halfway through the two-day hearing, Monnat filed a motion with Administrative Judge Paul Buchanan to change judges.
According to the motion, Pilshaw told Monnat that Dreier had “received all the breaks that he ever was going to get,” and that Monnat “had a certain amount of magic, but not enough to keep Mr. Dreier from going to jail.”
Monnat argued that those comments, and her efforts to put Dreier in jail despite his medical condition, showed she could not be impartial.
Pilshaw, a former prosecutor and experienced criminal trial judge who is known to speak her mind inside and outside the courtroom, refused to comment on her removal.
Before the sentencing hearing could resume on its second day, Buchanan reassigned the case to Judge Paul Clark, who is now scheduled to sentence Dreier on March 25.
Monnat and Buchanan refused to comment on the case.
“I changed the judge on the case pursuant to my authority (as administrative judge),” Buchanan said. “I am not going to comment on what another judge does.”
Stan Brannan, Chris Brannan’s father, said Monnat successfully changed the focus of the case from the victim to the criminal.
“It is kind of sickening to be worried about this guy’s diabetes when no one is worried about my son who suffered a severe brain injury,” he said.
“That is a tough deal for a victim’s family to understand. (Dreier) is a very serious threat to society.”
According to police and court records, Dreier was among several young men who went to Vickridge on Aug. 8, 1997, looking for a fight.
Afterward, Dreier told police he pummeled Chris Brannan until his face was “mush” and continued until Brannan was unconscious.

By Robert Short

• Jul 24, 1998
• by Joe Rodriguez

Marcus Shanklin, 20, was charged with killing LaDon Boyd.

Marcus Shanklin – facing life behind bars for a first-degree murder charge – on Thursday heard the news that gave him a start at a new life with his “Big Brother.”
After nearly 16 hours of deliberations over three days, a Sedgwick County jury acquitted Shanklin, 20, of murder and three other charges: aggravated battery, aggravated assault and firing into an occupied vehicle.
The charges stemmed from a Jan. 17 drive-by shooting near 13th and Estelle that killed LaDon Boyd, 22, and left Antoine Christen, 17, without a right eye. Prosecutors said the shooting was gang-related.
As the not-guilty verdicts were read, Shanklin looked straight ahead as one of his attorneys, Dan Monnat, patted him on the back. Family members and friends of Shanklin wept and let out sighs.
Boyd’s family didn’t attend the trial.
Perhaps no one was as relieved by the verdict as Steve Long, who was matched for several years with Shanklin through the Sedgwick County Big Brothers and Big Sister program and came from Tennessee to watch the trail.
“There was never a question in our mind that he had nothing to do with it,” Long said after the verdict.
Long was Shanklin’s Big Brother from 1990 until Long moved to Indiana in 1993. The two built such a strong relationship that Shanklin would spend weeks at a time with Long, his wife, Denise, and their children.
When the Longs found out Shanklin had been arrested, they immediately offered assistance – both emotionally and financially.
“We didn’t want to take the chance that he didn’t get the absolute best,” Steve Long said. The Longs took out a loan and asked Monnat and Sal Intagliata to defend Shanklin.
According to testimony, the shooting erupted after a brief gang confrontation at a convenience store. As the cars were driven on 13rh Street, shots were fired.
Immediately after the shooting, Christon identified the gunman by a nickname and description that matched Shanklin. But by the preliminary hearing in March and during the trial, Christon testified that he couldn’t remember who fired at him.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Connor said Christon’s change wasn’t a surprise because he had expressed concern that he would be the target of retaliation. “It’s not unusual that this happens in a gang-related case.”
Jurors said Christon’s inability to identify Shanklin and the lack of physical evidence were crucial in their verdict.
“Most of us probably had a gut feeling that he was guilty,” juror Delbert White said. “But there wasn’t enough evidence.”
Shanklin said he appreciated the support he received.
“It makes me feel real good that I got people that really love me, that don’t want to see me go down for something I didn’t do,” he said.
With his acquittal, Shanklin will start a new life. He will move to Tennessee with the Longs and their three sons, ages 9, 8 and 5.
“Marcus,” Steve Long said, “is part of our family.”

By Joe Rodriguez

• Jun 18, 1998
• by Joe Rodrigues

Judge Monti Belot did, however, deny acquittal on her convictions on filing false statements on tax returns.

A federal judge on Wednesday granted acquittal for Anita Guidry on 10 charges a jury deadlocked on earlier this week.
In the ruling, Judge Monti Belot refused to acquit her on the three charges of filing false statements on tax returns that she was convicted of.
The ruling essentially means that Guidry, 50, cannot be retired on the 10 bank fraud and money laundering charges. The jury deadlocked on those charges on Monday after about eight hours of deliberations.
“It’s what I expected based on the law,” said Guidry’s attorney, Dan Monnat. “It’s an absolutely correct legal decision on the money laundering and bank fraud counts.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Deb Barnett, the prosecutor, did not return a call seeking comment.
The charges against Guidry stem from the allegation that she embezzled $2.7 million between 1992 and 1997 from Wichita Sheet Metal Inc. while working as the company’s controller.
Prosecutors said she spent more than $1 million of the money on clothes.
Monnat said during his closing argument on Friday that Guidry was wrong to take the money, but her actions were not bank fraud, and if she was not convicted of bank fraud, she could not be convicted of money laundering.
However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Deb Barnett said Guidry did defraud the bank when she wrote herself 289 company checks and pretended the money was being used to pay the company’s federal income taxes.
For Guidry to be convicted of bank fraud, prosecutors had to prove that the banks she took money from lost money, were put at risk of potential monetary loss or were put at risk of civil liability.
“At trial, witnesses from the bank testified that the bank suffered no loss,” the ruling stated. “The government produced no contrary evidence. Additionally, there was no evidence the bank could have suffered a loss.” And during the trial, the president of Wichita Sheet Metal testified that she had not yet sued the bank but was considering it.
As for the money laundering charges, the ruling stated: “Because bank fraud is a necessary predicate to the money laundering charges, the court must grant acquittal on those counts as well.”
The charges of filing false statements on tax returns stem from Guidry’s failure to report the income to the IRS while filling out her family’s income tax forms, prosecutors said.
Monnat had said Guidry was unaware she had a duty to report the money on her tax returns.
But the ruling stated that Guidry – an accounting major – was aware the income needed to be reported.
No sentencing date has been set on the tax convictions.

By Joe Rodrigues

• May 02, 1998
• by Lori Lessner

Grand jury refuses to charge local sellers of Jock Sturges’ photo book of nude children

A grand jury has declined to indict local bookstores for selling Jock Sturges’ photography books of nude children in provocative poses.
The decision disappointed members of the Kansas Family Research Institute, a Christian group that had spent two years protesting the books as a form of child abuse. The institute had collected enough signatures on petitions to require that a grand jury be convened.
The 15 grand jurors reached their conclusion last week in a closed proceeding. Their decision was made public Friday.
The institute or anyone else may collect enough signatures to impanel another grand jury, but, for now, the decision closes the case.
Kathryn Gardner, an attorney on the institute’s advisory board, said the decision won’t stop the group from educating the public about its concerns with the book, or from lobbying the state Legislature.
“Just getting a grand jury convened and getting enough signatures is a pretty good reflection of the community’s standards that they don’t like this,” Gardner said.
Members of the group launched the petition drive after District Attorney Nola Foulston decided not to prosecute. They had first complained to her in April 1996.
The issue for group members is not whether pornography is art. They perceive the black-and-white photos of nude children, some with their genitals exposed, as child abuse and had hoped Sedgwick County would join grand juries in Tennessee and Alabama that handed down indictments.
Sturges, in a statement issued Friday though his Wichita attorney, Dan Monnat, thanked the grand jury for its “high-minded insistence upon freedom of expression and refusal to become involved in a modern-day witch hunt.”
He said his purpose is humanistic, and he does not take or publish children’s pictures without their parents’ consent.
Foulston said Friday that the nudity in Sturges’ photographs is not a prosecutable offense.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has said mere nudity alone is not enough to constitute exploitation of a child and the photographs in this case were of nude people only,” she said.
“We regularly prosecute people who exhibit phots of children who are naked when those photos are exploitive under the law by showing acts of intercourse, so it is not as if this office does not prosecute those cases.”
She said the grand jury’s conclusion validates her office’s decision not to file charges.
The grand jury needed eight hours over two days to hear the evidence and reach a decision. State law prevents anyone involved in the case from discussing how the jurors voted and what evidence was presented. To issue an indictment, at least 12 jurors would have had to agree.
Jack Focht, a former assistant district attorney who has prosecuted obscenity cases, served as special prosecutor for the proceedings. Foulston hired him instead of handling the case herself to avoid charges of bias because she has said publicly that Kansas law does not apply to Sturges’ books. It was not known Friday how much the case cost taxpayers.
State Rep. Tony Powell, R-Wichita, who supported the institute’s protest against Sturges’ books, questioned whether Foulston deliberately chose an attorney sympathetic to her viewpoint.
“Jack Focht is a good guy, an excellent lawyer, but he was not someone the institute would have chosen for this case,” said Powell, an attorney. “I would not be surprised if he just showed the book and explained the law. And that’s not enough to fairly judge the case.”
The grand jury’s decision sets it apart from the grand jury actions in Alabama and Tennessee.
The Alabama indictment involves 17 counts over the sale of one of Sturges’ books. If Barnes & Noble is convicted, the company could be fined up to $10,000 on each count. As of Friday, no court date had been set in the case.
The Tennessee grand jury found that Barnes & Noble did not display the book out of the line of sight of children, as required by local law. A hearing will be held May 18.
Last fall, Wichitans protested the sale of the book at Borders Books & Music and Barnes & Noble Booksellers. The book is now sold out in Wichita.

By Lori Lessner

• Oct 16, 1989
• by Jennifer Benjamin

After dark on May 17, Wichita narcotics officers stood on the porch at 144 S. Chautauqua and yelled, “Police officers with a search warrant.”
A second or two later, the officers used a battering ram to smash through a locked door at the home of Steven Holland Gerber, 40. They seized 106 marijuana plants growing in the basement, several pounds of processed marijuana and a small amount of cocaine.
But a federal judge has ruled that none of the evidence can be used in court because police didn’t give Gerber enough time to open up. Evidence showed the suspect was headed for the door.
U.S. District Judge Sam Crow said in his ruling that a delay of only a second or two before forcibly entering the house was “unreasonable conduct by the police officers … and amounts to a violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The ruling came after Gerber’s attorney asked that the evidence be suppressed on grounds of an illegal search and seizure. The case, still pending, never has been tried because Crow suppressed the evidence.
U.S. Attorney Ben Burgess had no comment on the ruling and said he had not decided whether to appeal. He has until the end of October to decide.

Wichita Police Lt. Mike McKenna, public information officer, said he couldn’t comment on pending litigation.
In general, McKenna said, the supervising officer on a drug bust decides whether to break down a door. After officers knock and identify themselves, the time lapse before breaking in depends on the case, he said. Officers usually make a quick entry, he said, if they think the defendant could be armed and dangerous or could try to destroy the evidence.
“At this time, I don’t feel that there is a need for change in the police policy,” McKenna said.
In Gerber’s case, police provided no evidence that they knew the defendant had weapons or that he would try to destroy evidence, Crow said in his ruling.
Dan Monnat, who represents Gerber, called the decision wise.
“It protects both the citizen and the police,” he said. If people don’t have time to answer the door, he said, they might try to defend themselves against what they think is a break-in.
Also, Monnat said, “Just because you have a search warrant, that doesn’t give you a license to unnecessarily destroy property.”
Otto Privette, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Wichita, said he was disappointed by the ruling – the first of its kind that he can recall in his 19 years in the business. The DEA was not involved in the case.
DEA agents knock and announce their presence and give the defendant a “reasonable amount of time” to answer the door before forcing entry, Privette said. The amount of time depends on the situation, he said.

By Jennifer Benjamin