• Mar 30, 2025

Manhattan – Wichita criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat was honored with the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization’s annual meeting in Manhattan, Kan., on March 28. Monnat, who has been a member of KACDL since its inception in 1989 and served as president from 1992-1995, has taught numerous CLE seminars for the organization on such topics as illegal search and seizure, the frailties of narcotics drug detection dogs, and the defense of accusations of child sex crimes.


Throughout his 36-year association with KACDL, Monnat also has served numerous times as a member of KADCL’s Strike Force – a pro-bono team of attorneys who defend fellow attorneys facing the threat of legal action for aggressively representing a client.

“I am exceedingly humbled by the generosity of this lifetime achievement award, and fortunate to work with distinguished peers in the criminal defense bar,” Monnat said. “Criminal defense is often unpopular, bone-grinding work. I am grateful for each of my KACDL colleagues because I know we will always stand together, bound by our dedication to our clients, our respect for each other, and our passion for protecting the Constitution we hold dear.”

Practicing for nearly 50 years, Monnat has built a national reputation for high-stakes criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, appellate defense and bet-the-company litigation. His cases have garnered major media attention for the defense and acquittal of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller; the defense of an innocent man wrongly accused of being the notorious BTK; and acquittals and exonerations of clients in shaken baby murder and other murder, sex and white-collar prosecutions.

For his achievements, Monnat has been named five times to the Top 10 List of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers and has been included among the Top 100 Missouri & Kansas attorneys for nearly 20 years. He has also been named among the Best Lawyers in America for more than 35 years.

Monnat is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, the American Bar Foundation, and the Kansas Bar Foundation. He is a Life Member and past Board Member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Monnat also currently sits on the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association’s Board of Editors and is the Criminal Law Chair.

A graduate of California State University, Monnat earned a Juris Doctorate from Creighton University School of Law and is a graduate of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyer’s College.

Monnat & Spurrier was founded in 1985 by Monnat and legal scholar Stan Spurrier. Today the firm has four lawyers and a national reputation for its work in all sectors of criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, and criminal appeals.

  • Mar 04, 2025
  • KAKE
  • -
  • by Nick Nelson

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) – A memorial in the neighborhood where a shooting happened Friday night, is in honor of a one-year-old girl, who lost her life due to gunfire.

“I was about ready to cry,” says neighbor Amanda Willis. “Whenever I see the kids, I cry. My kids were once young like that.”‘

Prosecutors have charged the girl’s father, 25-year-old Michael Tejeda, with first-degree murder in the commission of a felony.

When police arrived they found the 1-year-old with a gunshot wound to her upper body, she died at the hospital. Authorities took another child in the home into protective custody.

Police will not confirm who fired the gun that killed the little girl.

Criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat explains the charge against the girl’s father is different from a typical murder charge.

“In a felony murder situation, the need to prove a specific mental state is supplanted by evidence that the accused was committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing from an inherently dangerous felony. What is an inherently dangerous felony? Well, all of them are listed in the law,” Monnat said.

Under state statute, ‘aggravated endangering a child’ is listed as one of the ‘inherently dangerous felonies.’ Tejeda is charged with two counts of aggravated child endangerment that resulted in the girl’s death.

Monnat said that this statute is in place to hold someone accountable for a wrongful death.

“The person did intend to participate in an inherently dangerous felony, which itself breeds the possibility of death, and because the person has chosen to participate in that dangerous felony, it is thought to be just that that person bears responsibility for any death that occurs by the creation of an inherently dangerous situation,” Monnat said.

Tejeda’s being held in the Sedgwick County Jail on $500,000 bond.

See the full story at KAKE.com.