• May 13, 2024

WICHITA, Kansas — Wichita’s Grace Wu-Monnat – an internationally renowned Master, teacher and judge of professional Chinese Martial Arts competitions worldwide – was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award on May 5, at the 2024 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com competition in San Jose, Calif. Tiger Claw Elite is the largest, most prestigious Kung Fu and Tai Chi tournament on the West Coast and one of the most important competitive arenas in the U.S.

Wu-Monnat has judged the competition for the past 18 years, critiquing Kung Fu, Modern Wushu, Tai Chi and other styles and disciplines. The Life Achievement Award was presented by event organizers to recognize Wu-Monnat for her lifetime career as an international competitor and judge, as a Master instructor in her own school, and for her contribution to promoting the spirit and practice various styles of Chinese martial arts and wude (martial ethics).

Locally, Wu-Monnat is best known as founder of the Grace Wu Kung Fu School at 122 N. St. Francis, where, since 1986, she has taught all forms of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Bagua to children and adults. She also serves as Office Manager for the law firm of Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, which her husband, nationally known criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat, co-founded in 1985. It was through the law firm that Grace and Dan began to share the philosophy of Chinese martial arts beyond the sports world, incorporating the concepts of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” into the firm’s successful courtroom defense strategy.

Taking the concept a step further, the two developed a continuing legal education program to share the strategies and practical legal principles with thousands of lawyers across the country in their seminar, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Kung Fu Strategies for Trial.” The event is standing-room-only each time it is featured at national and regional legal conferences offered by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and others.

“Studying Chinese martial arts has brought physical health, mental strength, joy and better character to me,” Wu-Monnat said. “Wherever I am, it is always my honor to share this treasure of Chinese culture with the world.”

Wu-Monnat, whose family lineage of martial arts prowess stems back generations and multiple Grandmasters, is the daughter of Madame Wang Jurong and Dr. Wu Chengde, two of the earliest pioneers who brought Chinese martial arts and Traditional Chinese Medicine to the United States. Wu-Monnat began training under her mother and her grandfather, Grandmaster Wang Ziping, at age 3. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chinese Martial Arts from Shanghai Teachers University. After emigrating to the United States, she earned a Masters’ Degree in Sports Administration from Wichita State University.

  • May 03, 2024
  • KAKE TV
  • -
  • by Jocelyn Schifferdecker

VALLEY CENTER, Kan. — The Valley Center police department says it will be wrapping up its investigation into the Valley Center boys’ varsity baseball team in about a week.

Police Chief Lloyd Newman told KAKE News the investigators have basically gathered all they can and should be finalizing their findings soon. He says the department is working on getting a presentation scheduled with the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, but it will be about a month before they’re able to meet and the office could possibly set charges.

Dan Monnat, a defense attorney at Monnat & Spurrier, says it might seem like there’s a delay in the process, but this is because the district and city attorney’s offices get hundreds of cases each year that they have to go through and not all cases have the same timeline.

“The case being investigated that poses the greatest danger to the public has to be investigated and charged first,” said Monnat.

Monnat explains there’s no rush for the DA to possibly make charges because there’s no threat to the public and the Valley Center Police Department said there’s no one in custody.

“If a person is imprisoned, then the investigation and charging has to be concluded that much more quickly because you may be incarcerating an innocent person,” said Monnat.

Newman and Monnat say for a case with no threat to the public this timeline isn’t bad or unusual. Especially since there’s a major backlog in the criminal justice system nationwide.

“It cannot be underestimated how backlogged and taxed our national and local criminal justice systems are because of the backlog from the pandemic,” said Monnat. He said low staffing is another reason there’s backlog.

The Valley Center Police Department said it will be wrapping up its investigation into this in about a week.

Last month it said it was investigating the Valley Center boys’ varsity baseball team after getting a report about animal cruelty. Police said a chicken was killed on the baseball field before the team left for an away game.

See the full story at KAKE.com

  • May 01, 2024
  • KSN TV
  • -
  • by Craig Andres

WICHITA – It’s still illegal. Even if the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration moves forward with reclassifying marijuana to make it considered a less serious drug, some point out this will not immediately make weed legal on the state or even federal levels.

“Today’s reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule I substance to a Schedule III substance makes good sense. Right now, it’s lumped in with heroin and LSD as a substance with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use,” said KSN legal analyst Dan Monnat. “On the other hand, in the modern world, we know it has a lower potential for abuse than Schedule I or Schedule II substances, and it has accepted medical uses.”

Why Kansans can’t put marijuana on the ballot

Monnat points out this is only a reclassification by one part of the federal government, the DEA, and it’s not a done deal yet. He also says existing drug convictions will still stand.

“It’s important to remember what has been recommended today has been reclassification,” said Monnat. “However, even if reclassified, this is not going to throw open the doors of the penitentiary.”

Law enforcement says marijuana will still be illegal in Kansas.

“That’s still illegal here, so them changing it to a Class I or Schedule I doesn’t make it legal to use any time you want,” said Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter. “It’s still illegal here in the State of Kansas. So I really don’t see any changes to it. You know, most of the marijuana we get here is the high-grade marijuana coming out of Colorado or Oklahoma, which is the black market. It’s not like it’s being sold legally there, either. That’s the black market stuff that’s coming here in hundreds of pounds.”

Kansas won’t have legal medical pot or expand Medicaid for at least another year

Sheriff Easter says the concern with many law enforcement officers remains the strength of the marijuana being sold on the streets. He says many of the “vape pens” containing marijuana will have a THC content as high as 90%.

“The folks that want to see this stuff passed and the medical marijuana and those types of things, they don’t see the back side of what we see every day. Whether you legalize it or not, we are still going to have drug addicts, robberies, and shootings over it because you are still selling it illegally. And what we’ve seen in these other states is those crimes have gone up. In my opinion it comes down to marijuana is somewhat, I get the argument, is like alcohol especially the old kind of marijuana. Is alcohol addictive? Yes, it is. And so what you’re trying to introduce here is another addictive drug that could be detrimental to society,” said Sheriff Easter.

See the full story at KSN.com

  • Apr 21, 2024
  • KWCH
  • -
  • by Cale Chapman and KWCH Staff

WICHITA — A hearing for the Carr brothers is scheduled to take place Monday. Jonathan and Reginald Carr are seeking to be re-sentenced for several murders in a weeklong crime spree in 2000. The brothers were found guilty of abusing and terrorizing five people, killing Aaron Sander, Brad Heyka, Heather Muller and Jason Befort. They also killed Ann Walenta in a separate incident.

The case has a long history of appeals and has been heard in front of the Kansas and U.S. Supreme Court. Along the way some of the charges the brothers faced have been vacated voided or reversed.

Initially, the brothers were tried and convicted of capital murder together, which is what their attorneys are now trying to change. Attorneys representing each brother have filed for resentencing, but this time they want it done separately.

Defense attorney Dan Monnat, who is not involved with the case, says cases like this one need to be handled the right way.

“Is all that necessary in a death penalty case? Absolutely,” said Monnat. “Whenever government anywhere seeks to render the ultimate penalty, the ultimate degree of care and fairness must be assured.”

Monday’s hearing is considered a status conference to determine the next steps for the attorneys to argue the motion for a new sentencing hearing. The state has filed responsive pleadings in each case opposing the request.

See full interview at KWCH.com

  • Mar 07, 2024
  • KWCH TV
  • -
  • by By Branden Stitt and Matt Heilman

WICHITA — Questions linger after the death of a Wichita man, fatally injured last month after being hit by a police vehicle driven by an officer with the Wichita Police Department. The man’s Feb. 17 death is under investigation by the Kansas Highway Patrol, but FactFinder is learning more about what first responders knew or didn’t know that night.

That question was brought to FactFinder 12, and we pulled the radio traffic. It shows that the police officer behind the wheel of the WPD SUV that hit the man last month never told dispatch that someone had been critically injured.

The crash is now classified as a criminal investigation, so all of FactFinder’s requests for public information have been denied. This public information includes the crash report and basic dispatch information, things we’ve requested and received in the past.

While all our requests have been denied in this case, we have a copy of the radio traffic.

A little before 8 p.m. Feb. 17 at Seneca and MacArthur, the SUV driven by the WPD officer hit and killed 51-year-old Jeffrey Moss.

On his call to emergency dispatch, the officer reported a man down and requested EMS.

According to Sedgwick County and the City of Wichita, a “man down” call is, by definition, a lower-priority call, describing “a person down in a public place.” Reporting a “man down” is not meant for traumatic injuries or crashes.

The officer did escalate the call by requesting the ambulance to use lights and sirens, which typically doesn’t happen on a “man down” call again, because “man down” is, by definition, a lower priority, not reflective of what happened on Feb. 17.

“There appeared to be some irregularities in the procedure heard on the dispatch tape,” said Wichita attorney Dan Monnat.

Monnat has no connection to the Feb. 17 case. He points out that, on the report to 911, the officer never tells the dispatcher that he hit a person or that Moss was critically injured. The officer does, however, call for his supervisor and asks the street to be blocked.

Monnat said the report of a “10-48, injury accident would be a much better communication of the urgency of the situation.”

Here’s why: The officer called in a “man down” and requested EMS with lights and siren, which triggers a response for one ambulance and two paramedics and a firetruck with a minimum of two firefighters, according to the city and the county.

But what happened on Feb. 17 was an injury crash involving a pedestrian in critical condition. Had that call been made, dispatchers would’ve sent an ambulance, an EMS district chief and two firetrucks with at least five firefighters.

That’s not the call firefighters heard on Feb. 17. They didn’t even know what they were responding to.

The dispatched ambulance was also delayed by a train. Even then, nothing was relayed to dispatch that Moss was critically injured; not by the officer driving the SUV that hit Moss or by other WPD officers arriving at the scene. Not until the firefighters arrived did they know how badly Moss was injured.

“Could all of this be explained by the shock and panic of a sudden automobile crash? Maybe, but there are certainly questions that arise from the dispatcher tape that have to be addressed,” Monnat said. “Why does it take so long for someone to communicate trauma, (that a man was hit by a police car?”) Why are no familiar codes for ‘injury accident’ used to express that a human being is lying in the street, severely injured.”

These are questions that police can’t answer yet because of the ongoing investigation. In a statement, Wichita police said, “In the interest of transparency and accountability to the citizens of Wichita and the family of the pedestrian, Chief Sullivan contacted the Kansas Highway Patrol on the night of the incident and requested that it conduct a complete investigation. Once that investigation is completed, a report will be provided to District Attorney Marc Bennett for review.” The department added, “If appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken.”

Until that investigation is complete, questions remain about the night the police vehicle hit Moss and the response in the moments that followed.

Full statement from WPD:

The officer requested that EMS and Fire respond in an emergency manner. In the interest of transparency and accountability to the citizens of Wichita and the family of the pedestrian, Chief Sullivan immediately contacted the Kansas Highway Patrol on the night of the incident and requested that it conduct a complete investigation. Once that investigation is completed, a report will be provided to District Attorney Marc Bennett for review. Pursuant to WPD Policy 902, after the conclusion of that investigation, a Professional Standards Bureau Administrative Internal Investigation will be conducted into all aspects of this case. At the conclusion of that investigation, if appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken. Due to the ongoing criminal investigation and pending internal investigation, consistent with the ALERT protocol, which governs the release of information to the media while an outside agency is conducting an investigation into the actions of a WPD member, Chief Sullivan is prohibited from making any further comment on this matter at this time.

What we know about the crash:

The Kansas Highway Patrol is leading the investigation. We know it was dark and that Moss was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk.

When the Kansas Highway Patrol completes its investigation, troopers will present the facts to the Sedgwick County district attorney for review. As part of FactFinder’s investigation, we’ve been in contact with Moss’ family. Because the Feb. 17 crash is under investigation, they didn’t want to speak on camera.

See full video at KWCH.com

  • Nov 28, 2023

Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, attorneys Sal Intagliata and Eli O’Brien have been named to the prestigious list of 2023 Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers. Intagliata was honored by Super Lawyers for the tenth consecutive year, while O’Brien earned his third straight year of recognition as one of Super Lawyers’ “Rising Stars” among attorneys under 40.

Only 5 percent of eligible attorneys are selected for the exclusive Super Lawyers list, while only 2.5 percent of eligible attorneys are selected as Rising Stars.

Sal Intagliata is a shareholder in the firm and has practiced law for more than 28 years. His career includes 24 years as a distinguished criminal defense attorney in private practice and four years as a Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney prosecuting cases in the Gangs/Violent Crimes Division.

Intagliata serves on the Kansas Judicial Council Criminal Law Advisory Committee and the Kansas Supreme Court Pretrial Justice Task Force. He is a past member of the Board of Governors of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. An active member of the Wichita Bar Association, he has served the WBA in various roles as vice president; Board of Governors member; and chair of the Criminal Practice Division.

Intagliata earned his bachelor’s degree, with distinction, from the University of Kansas, graduating with dual majors in political science and Spanish. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Kansas School of Law and is a graduate of the National Criminal Defense College.

Eli O’Brien has been an associate with the firm since 2017, defending serious felony accusations and DUI/DWI cases across the state.

Prior to joining the firm, O’Brien was a trial attorney with the Sedgwick County Public Defender’s Office. Over the years as a public defender and private practice defense attorney, his jury trials continue to result in multiple acquittals.

A graduate of Washburn University School of Law and the National Criminal Defense College Trial Practice Institute, O’Brien also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Emporia State University.

  • Nov 20, 2023
  • The Wichita Eagle
  • -
  • by Carrie Rengers

As Steve Mank was searching online for funeral details for fellow criminal defense attorney Richard Ney last week, he didn’t find any. But he did discover numerous accounts of what Ney accomplished in a storied legal career.

“It’s amazing when you Google his name what you see,” Mank said. “He’s involved in all these cases that everybody heard (of).”

Ney, who died of pancreatic cancer Nov. 15, had a number of firsts, such as starting the Sedgwick County Public Defender’s Office.

He was the first in Kansas to successfully introduce testimony given under hypnosis while winning an acquittal for Bill Butterworth, who was charged with killing three people in a 1987 murder case that captured the attention of Wichitans for weeks.

His office also was the first to successfully use the battered-woman defense in Sedgwick County. Several juries acquitted several women who killed boyfriends or spouses who had abused them.

Ney “really deserves recognition as a lion of the national criminal defense bar,” said criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat.

He noted that Ney “was one of the few lawyers in the U.S. credentialed to handle federal death penalty cases.”

With a degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, Ney went to law school only to become a better journalist, according to an interview he did with the Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services. He graduated from Boston University School of Law and worked as an investigative reporter and editor before moving on to work in public defender’s offices in Illinois and Vermont.

He came to Wichita in 1984 to start one in Sedgwick County. Ney called it the Wild West for all its opportunity, though the office initially was not popular in the legal community since a lot of lawyers were used to getting those appointments and the pay that came with them.

He quickly got a reputation for fiercely defending his clients.

“You always knew you had to be prepared when you tried a case against Richard because he would be,” said District Attorney Marc Bennett. “He believed in the job he was doing. He was never phoning it in.”

That’s also what Ney taught a lot of young lawyers when they started out in the public defender’s office.

“There were just a whole bunch of really good lawyers that Rich trained,” said Steve Gradert, who was one of them. “Rich was demanding.”

No matter how heinous the crime someone was accused of, Gradert said, “He also wanted us to treat the client with . . . dignity and respect.”

And promptness, even if that person was incarcerated, he said.

“Nothing was to be treated casually,” said Carol Bacon, who worked for Ney as a young lawyer and went on to become a Sedgwick County District Court judge.

“Richard taught me discipline. Halfway wasn’t good enough. Getting by wasn’t good enough.”

Bacon said some people might look at a person accused of something horrific and say, “How can you represent this man?”

According to Ney, she said, “Well, how could you not?”

Brad Sylvester, chief public defender at the Sedgwick County Conflicts Office, worked for and with Ney through the years — they collaborated for one trial that he said established case law for how to handle minors in court — and became friends. He said it was Ney’s level of caring that set him apart.

“It was always like he was on a mission his whole life to represent people who could not afford it. He was just rabid about it,” Sylvester said. “He had a . . . tenacity for just doing everything he could for people.”

Though friends said Ney could be fun when not working — he especially loved traveling to see operas — Ney always seemed to be working. “It was just because in his mind he was just working all the time,” Monnat said.

Ney had high expectations of his team, too.

When Sylvester worked for Ney in the public defender’s office around 1990, he would take daily breaks to play chess in order to decompress from the stressful job. Ney would walk by Sylvester’s door and catch him.

“He’d go, ‘Hrmmph.’”

In the courtroom, Ney could be intimidating — to other lawyers and even to police and detectives. “He was kind of like a big, burly guy,” Sylvester said. “He was always a gruff guy, and people would be just scared of him.”

Bennett said Ney could be aggressive.

“He knew the law well. He knew how to argue it. . . . He had a big, booming voice. He was no wallflower, I’ll say that.”

Sylvester said as a fellow lawyer, it could be irritating to see how quickly Ney could think through something that was said in court and make a formal objection.

“Richard was the most amazing guy to give objections I’ve ever seen.”

He said it wasn’t simply what Ney would say but how he said it, such as his closing argument in one battered-woman’s syndrome case.

“It was the pauses that made it so impressive.”

Gradert said some prosecutors so loathed going up against Ney that they’d try to figure out potential conflicts of interest to get another lawyer assigned to a case.

As stern as Ney could be in court, Sylvester said he was like a marshmallow in “the tenderness he would exude with his children.” Ney and his wife, Judith, had six children.

For a time, Ney left Wichita to work in the federal public defender’s office in Hawaii.

By then, Gradert was working in the federal system, and someone called him to ask about hiring Ney. The person worried he might be a prima donna, only taking high-profile cases.

“He took them because he was the most skilled and qualified person in our office to do the job,” Gradert said. “Those kinds of cases were pretty high pressure.”

Monnat said he always admired Ney.

He said he remembers that Ney took vacation from his federal job to return to Wichita and help win freedom for Lisa Dunn after she spent eight years in prison for a crime spree that Ney contended her boyfriend forced her to be part of.

“I thought it was a great, great, honorable move by a criminal defense lawyer, way beyond the call of duty,” Monnat said.

Per Ney’s wishes, there will not be a service for him. However, his fellow attorneys have been memorializing him in their remembrances of his career, mentorships and friendships.

“The fact that that vital of a person is no longer with us is just sad,” Monnat said.

It’s also a disappointment for anyone who still might have needed his help.

As Mank said, “If I was in trouble, I would want somebody like Richard Ney to represent me.”

  • Nov 14, 2023

Criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat, of Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, has been recognized again on the Top 100 List of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers for 2023. He has been among the overall Top 100 of Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers for 18 years.

Practicing in Kansas and Nebraska for more than 45 years, Monnat has focused on high-profile criminal defense, white-collar criminal defense, appellate defense and bet-the-company litigation. His cases have attracted international media attention, including 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 his clients in shaken baby murder and other murder, sex and white-collar prosecutions.

“The Top 100 attorneys across Missouri and Kansas represent the best of the best — not only in criminal defense — but in every other practice area of law,” said Monnat. “I am honored to be included among this tremendous group of lawyers and particularly proud to stand with those in criminal defense who work to ensure the Constitutional rights of the accused are protected in all our courts.”

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 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, as well as a two-term past president of the Kansas 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 frequent national lecturer and editorial contributor on criminal defense topics, Monnat is the co-author of “Sentencing, Probation, and Collateral Consequences,” a chapter of the Kansas Bar Association’s Kansas Criminal Law Handbook, 5th edition.

  • Nov 02, 2023

(WICHITA, Kan.) – The annual survey by Best Lawyers has awarded Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, with five “Best Law Firms 2024” metropolitan rankings in the sectors of:

  • General Practice Criminal Defense
  • White-Collar Criminal Defense
  • Appellate Practice
  • DUI/DWI Defense
  • Bet-the-Company Litigation

“Each year we are humbled by the recognition and praise bestowed on our firm by clients and fellow members of the bar,” said Dan Monnat. “It is a privilege to protect the constitutional rights of those accused and ensure they receive the best possible defense.”

“Best Law Firms” rankings are compiled using evaluations by clients who are asked if they would refer others to the firm. Firms are ranked for their responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, and civility. Attorneys in similar practice areas are also surveyed, and rankings reflect this peer input, as well.

Celebrating its 38th year, Monnat & Spurrier was founded by criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat and legal scholar Stan Spurrier. The firm has gained a reputation for its successful defense of such high-profile clients as late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller; the unfortunate innocent person whose home was mistakenly raided by police as being that of serial killer BTK; and most recently, the Western Kansas man wrongly accused of murdering a four-year-old child by cruelly beating or shaking her.

In addition to Monnat and Spurrier, the firm includes shareholder Sal Intagliata, and associates Eli O’Brien and Braxton Eck.

  • Oct 20, 2023
  • Creighton University | Alumni and Friends

If jurors can feel your client’s confusion or her fear or can understand his anger and can feel the injustice of a prosecution, then you have provided one more layer of persuasion to your client’s case. Trying to communicate many of those emotions in song helps me summon similar emotions in service of my client in trial.

Most people probably don’t see a connection between music and defending people accused of serious crimes.

But then Dan Monnat, JD’76, isn’t most people.

The Creighton law alumnus has devoted much of his life to both – criminal defense and music – and the two work hand in hand for him.

A founding partner of a five-attorney practice, Monnat & Spurrier, Chartered, in Wichita, Kansas, Monnat is in his 47th year in criminal defense, locally and throughout the Midwest. He specializes in complex, lengthy federal and state jury trials involving crimes such as conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and murder.

He’s been ranked among the Top 10 Missouri and Kansas Super Lawyers for the fourth consecutive year, and has handled many high-profile cases, including defending an innocent man accused of being the notorious BTK serial killer.

Then there’s Dan Monnat the musician, a vocalist drummer who plays with other 70-something blues musicians at local and regional festivals, restaurants and clubs.

Monnat has been singing or playing music for as far back as he can remember, beginning with singing in the car with his family and then forming a band in high school with friends. He played in California for a while and was even in a band named the Crime Doctors along with two public defenders, a personal injury attorney and “a couple of real musicians.” In 2020 he and two friends formed The House Band. 

His melding of vocation and avocation were recently featured in the American Bar Association’s flagship publication, the ABA Journal: Rock of Ages: This septuagenarian lawyer can beat both his clients’ criminal charges and a drum set. 

For him, music helps connect people to the array of human feelings, from the joy of being alive to sadness and grief.

“Whether you’re just singing fun songs that celebrate life, like ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ or Bruno Mars’ ‘Uptown Funk,’ or sad songs like Ray Charles’ ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ or the tragedy of a drug addict in a cheap motel on the far side of town longing for Carmelita as in Warren Zevon or Dwight Yoakam’s song,” Monnat says, “music helps us connect with each other for better or worse.”

He likes the way poet Maya Angelou put it: “…people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

True, but how exactly does that relate to criminal defense?

Monnat says while there is certainly a place in the practice of law for reason and logic, he also sees a profound role for feelings and emotions and mutual understanding.

“If jurors can feel your client’s confusion or her fear, or can understand his anger and can feel the injustice of a prosecution, then you have provided one more layer of persuasion to your client’s case.

“Trying to communicate many of those emotions in song helps me summon similar emotions in service of my client in trial, I believe,” Monnat says.

Additionally, those songs, those emotions, help him, personally, to be passionate, energized and alive.

“If we are going to ask people, jurors, to follow us, we have to be alive ourselves.”

There was even one case he won in which pop music played a key role. He was able to prove that testimony against his client was untrue because of erroneous statements the accusers made concerning a Britney Spears song.

Music is so much a part of his life that it’s automatic. “I sing nearly every day in my office, in the shower, at the piano, in the car,” he says. “In the office, I usually don’t notice it until I see people making funny faces. I’m humming as I walk around and don’t even know it.”

Another corollary between law and music that Monnat adheres to: “For both, practice is essential. As the jazz trailblazer Louis Armstrong said, ‘If I don’t practice for a day I know it, if I don’t for two days the critics know it, and if I don’t for three days the public knows.’”

Monnat with his house band members.

The House Band practices about four hours a week and plays a gig about once a week. “I usually practice drumming by myself an hour on Saturday mornings and Monday and Wednesday nights,” Monnat adds, “when my otherwise extremely tolerant wife is away teaching Chinese martial arts.”

Monnat is proud of his criminal defense work and has no plans to slow down.

“Jury trials are monumentally difficult, win or lose, but the whole constitutional system functions better because of them,” he says.

“Jury trials are good for our system whether the accused is innocent or guilty. Forcing the government to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of ordinary people keeps the government honest and keeps democracy participatory.”

He cites another reason vigorous jury trials are important: “We have too many innocent people in prison in America.”

Monnat says looking at the number of people in the last 30 years who have either pled guilty or been convicted and whose convictions have later been proven wrong by DNA exonerations “shows we have a problem.”

He was always interested in the power of authority and the underdog, which is on full display in the practice of criminal defense, and he thanks Creighton for that.

“Creighton had a lot to do with my becoming a criminal defense lawyer,” he says, citing the names of professors familiar to Creighton law grads: Fenner, Shugrue, Birmingham, Green, Neumeister.

Favorite memories he has include an advanced law seminar with 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Donald Lay, two years of moot court experience, and going to Washington, D.C., “to watch our Creighton professor, Patrick Green, argue 4th Amendment search and seizure concepts to the U.S. Supreme Court in Stone v. Powell and Wolff v. David L. Rice.”

He remembers Professor Richard Shugrue informing students that renowned criminal defense lawyer and multiple-term mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, was defending a gambling conspiracy case in federal court in Omaha.

“Many of us attended that impressive trial and I was inspired to see the criminal defense concepts we were learning in law school displayed in the courtroom. When I left Creighton, I really had everything I needed to begin serious criminal defense trial work.”