Monnat & Spurrier | Monnat & Spurrier Attorneys at Law

Jul 28, 2008
by Ron Sylvester

A trial date for George Tiller will likely be set Tuesday, his lawyers said today, after a judge refused to dismiss 19 misdemeanor charges against the Wichita abortion provider.

But lawyer Dan Monnat said this afternoon that any trial would follow hearings over the legality of how the Kansas Attorney General’s Office obtained the women’s abortion records from Tiller’s clinic that led to the charges against him.

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens ruled earlier this afternoon that the case against Tiller should proceed, after he found the Kansas abortion statute is constitutional.

Owen’s ruling came more than a year after the Kansas Attorney General’s Office filed the charges, accusing Tiller of breaking a 1998 state law requiring that a second, independent Kansas physician sign off on most late-term abortions.

Prosecutors say Tiller relied on Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus, of Nortonville, for his second opinion for abortions in 2003, and she had a financial relationship with him that is against the law.

By RON SYLVESTER

Jul 05, 2008
by Roxana Hegeman

With time running out, the grand jury investigating abortion provider George Tiller has yet to see any medical records subpoenaed directly from the doctor, the judge overseeing the panel said.

District Judge Paul Buchanan told the Associated Press that independent experts reviewing the records have gotten fewer than 20 redacted medical files so far in the first installment from Tiller. Jurors have not yet received them.

The two experts, a doctor and a lawyer, will review the material before it goes the grand jury. Buchanan said he expects to eventually receive a sampling of between 160 and 170 redacted files dating from Jan. 1, 2004 to the present.

The grand jury’s term expires July 8, and under Kansas law cannot be extended again, said Judge Michael Corrigan, the county’s chief judge.

“They have a lot to do by July 8 and it is questionable how quick it will take to get something done,” Corrigan said.

Buchanan, who is overseeing the grand jury, said Tuesday that he anticipates jurors will have some medical files before their term runs out. But when pressed about whether they will have enough time to make a decision before the clock runs out, he replied: “I have no idea what is in these records or what evidence they have received otherwise.”

In Kansas, judges do not supervise the day-to-day investigation of a grand jury.

Dan Monnat, one of the attorneys representing Tiller, said redacting the medical records is a “time-consuming process” for the law offices and the clinic.

“We are not trying to run out the clock,” Monnat said. “We are trying to timely comply with the court’s order while at the same time guaranteeing the privacy of the patients to the degree permitted by the court’s orders.”

Meanwhile, a separate criminal case against Tiller also appears stalled one year after then-Attorney General Paul Morrison filed 19 criminal charges against him.

His predecessor, former Attorney General Phill Kline, had filed 30 misdemeanor charges against Tiller in Sedgwick County in December 2006, only to see a judge dismiss them the next day for jurisdictional reasons.

Morrison, who defeated Kline in the 2006 election, charged Tiller in June 2007 on allegations of failing to get an independent second opinion on some late-term abortions in 2003.

Prosecutors do not anticipate the trial on that case to go forward on June 16 as scheduled, said Ashley Anstaett, spokeswoman for Attorney General Stephen Six.

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens has yet to rule on defense motions asking him to dismiss the case and to expand the number of jurors, she said.

In addition, prosecutors are still waiting for copies of transcripts and other documents so they can provide them to the defense, Anstaett said.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN

Jul 03, 2008
by Ron Sylvester

The grand jury investigating Wichita abortion provider George Tiller adjourned Wednesday afternoon without a criminal indictment.

Retired Sedgwick County District Judge Paul Buchanan, assigned to preside over the grand jury, said the panel returned a finding of “no true bill,” meaning criminal charges would not be filed.

The grand jury was convened in January through a petition drive by anti-abortion groups seeking an investigation into whether Tiller violated state abortion laws.

In a statement released by the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, the grand jury said:

“After six months of conducting an investigation that included hearing extensive witness testimony, reviewing volumes of documents and medical records of patients of Women’s Health Care Services (Tiller’s clinic), this Grand Jury has not found sufficient evidence to bring an indictment on any crime related to the abortion laws.”

Lee Thompson, a lawyer for Tiller, said the Wichita grand jury had received 160 records from the clinic — the result of a lengthy legal battle that found its way to the Kansas Supreme Court.

The state’s highest court limited the number of records the grand jury could subpoena and still protect the privacy of women who had abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy.

The grand jury indicated in its statement that it struggled with a complex Kansas law regulating late-term abortions.

The law says that after 22 weeks of pregnancy, doctors must first determine if a fetus can survive outside the womb. If a fetus is determined viable, then an abortion can be performed only if two independent doctors determine that carrying the pregnancy to term would cause “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

The Kansas Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have interpreted that to include the mental health of the woman.

The grand jury said it found “questionable late-term abortions” but said Kansas law needs to be clearer before any investigation is likely to yield criminal charges against Tiller’s clinic.

“As the current law is written and interpreted by the Kansas Supreme Court, late-term abortions will continue for many circumstances that would seem, as a matter of common interpretation, not to meet the definition of ‘substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function,’ ” the grand jury said in its statement.

Tiller is one of only a handful of doctors in the country who perform late-term abortions.

The law allows doctors to make medical decisions, Tiller’s lawyers said.

“To a lay person, it could be indigestion,” Tiller’s lawyer, Laura Shaneyfelt, said, “but to a trained medical professional it could be a heart attack.”

Thompson commended the grand jury for not “substituting a common interpretation or personal feelings” for the law.

A spokeswoman for Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six said the grand jury’s statement validated his office’s decision to pursue only 19 misdemeanor charges against Tiller.

In a case filed last year, Tiller stands accused of not getting a second opinion from an independent physician, but rather one tied to him financially. Tiller has denied any wrongdoing in those cases.

Those charges await a ruling by Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens before continuing to trial.

Following Wednesday’s decision, an anti-abortion group said the government isn’t aggressive enough in limiting Tiller’s practice.

Kansans for Life, which led the petition drive for the grand jury, blamed Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston for not giving the grand jury proper legal guidance.

Mary Kay Culp, Kansans for Life’s executive director, said her organization would work to help re-elect Phill Kline, an anti-abortion advocate, as district attorney in Johnson County and to defeat Foulston, who is up for re-election here.

“The law doesn’t need to be changed. The enforcers of the law need to be changed,” Culp said.

A Johnson County grand jury under Kline’s guidance returned a similar finding in March. Kline blamed the judge presiding over the grand jury for its finding that no criminal charges were appropriate against an abortion clinic run by Planned Parenthood.

Dan Monnat, a lawyer on Tiller’s legal team, said the repeated attempts against Tiller ultimately cost the public.

“It’s unfortunate for the taxpayers of the state of Kansas who again and again have to endure the expense of these investigations over someone else’s political agenda,” he said.

By RON SYLVESTER

May 07, 2008
by Ron Sylvester

The Kansas Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday that while a citizen-petitioned grand jury is constitutional, a group investigating a Wichita abortion clinic can’t form a grand jury to go on a “fishing expedition” for patient records.

Abortion rights supporters and opponents both applauded the ruling, which allowed a grand jury to continue investigating George Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic, but required oversight from a trial judge.

Abortion opponents have used citizen grand juries to launch investigations against clinics in Wichita and Johnson County.

The court’s order provided Sedgwick County District Court detailed instructions for how to review a subpoena for thousands of patient records from Tiller’s clinic.

Troy Newman of Operation Rescue West, one of three abortion opponents who helped collect more than 7,000 signatures to impanel the Wichita grand jury, said he was pleased the court upheld the process.

“Tiller will eventually be brought to justice,” he said. “I believe that if he were truly innocent, he’d be doing everything he could to prove that. But he’s doing what guilty men do — throwing up road blocks and red herrings.”

Lawyers for Tiller and his patients expressed satisfaction with the limits put on a grand jury seeking nearly 2,000 of their medical records.

“The Kansas Supreme Court today put the brakes on runaway grand juries,” said Dan Monnat, a Wichita lawyer representing Tiller.

Kansas is one of only a handful of states that allows residents to petition for a grand jury investigation into criminal matters.

In January, the Tiller grand jury demanded records of every woman at least 22 weeks pregnant who had received or sought an abortion at the clinic for the past five years.

But Sedgwick County Senior District Judge Paul Buchanan did not provide detailed enough findings when he granted the subpoena, the court ruled.

“Judge Buchanan’s rulings from the bench were rather cryptic,” said the opinion written by Justice Lee Johnson of Caldwell.

Johnson’s opinion drew distinctions between federal and Kansas grand juries. A federal prosecutor, the court said, is “a licensed attorney subject to professional and ethical obligations” to make sure a grand jury follows the law. Kansas does not provide for that.

A judge, then, must oversee state grand juries to make sure they don’t overstep their bounds.

“The court should satisfy itself that the grand jury has not engaged in an arbitrary fishing expedition,” the ruling said.

The state Supreme Court, for example, questioned why grand jurors would investigate Tiller’s procedures for granting late-term abortions, when he already faces similar charges in a case brought by the Attorney General’s office. That case awaits a decision by another Sedgwick County district judge, Clark Owens.

“The court even asked, why would you need records of every woman who did not have an abortion?” said Bonnie Scott Jones, a lawyer from the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, who represents Tiller’s patients.

Lawyers for the clinic have said it would take 5,000 working hours, at a cost of some $250,000, to remove unnecessary information. Buchanan must determine if that provides an “undue burden” for producing the records.

If the judge makes that finding, then he has to take steps to ensure the protection of patient privacy.

Buchanan has to appoint an independent lawyer and doctor to review the records to further remove any information not relevant to the grand jury’s investigation.

The judge must also fashion an order to ensure that patient information going into the grand jury room doesn’t come out. That excludes any records a prosecutor would need to file criminal charges.

The Johnson County grand jury did not find any illegal activities at a clinic run by Planned Parenthood earlier this year.

The Wichita grand jury has been waiting on Tuesday’s ruling to proceed.

By RON SYLVESTER

Mar 07, 2008
by Ron Sylvester

A Johnson County grand jury refused to indict an abortion clinic in Overland Park this week and called for the state to reconsider a law that allows citizens to call for such investigations.

That grand jury was empaneled in the same manner as one investigating abortion provider George Tiller in Wichita – through a petition of registered voters.

Grand juries are a part of the justice system few people understand. It’s even more complicated in Kansas, because of a 120-year-old law that allows citizens to call grand juries through petitions.

Grand juries meet behind closed doors and act like police. They investigate crimes and decide if charges should be filed.

But Kansas is one of only six states that allow citizens to call for grand juries, as they did in Johnson County and Wichita through petition drives led by anti-abortion groups.

Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Nevada have similar laws.

Tiller’s lawyers say it should be illegal here, as it is in most other states.

They’ve asked the Kansas Supreme Court to strike down an 1887 law that anti-abortion groups used to order the empaneling of a grand jury by petition.

Such petitioning for grand juries, the lawyers argue, interferes with the duties given to prosecutors and law enforcement, who operate under the executive branch of government. It disrupts the balance of powers provided the government in the U.S. Constitution, they say.

On Feb. 15, Attorney General Stephen Six asked the state Supreme Court to review a subpoena for abortion records to his office from the Wichita grand jury investigating Tiller.

On Feb. 25, two Sedgwick County judges defended the grand jury process.

This week, the Johnson County panel said in a statement: “It is the feeling of this grand jury that the current statute that addresses the formation of a grand jury be evaluated as to evidence required to call the grand jury.”

The Kansas Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments for April 8.

The grand jury’s role

Grand juries usually aren’t so controversial.

They were written into the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and are required to indict people on federal charges for serious crimes.

All grand juries are picked from the same pool as those for criminal and civil trials, summoned from driver’s license and voter registration records and sworn in by a judge.

Federal grand juries are run by prosecutors working for the U.S. government.

“Grand juries, whatever they were conceived of originally, they’ve very much become an investigative tool of the prosecutors, especially in the federal system,” said Steve McAllister, professor of law at the University of Kansas.

Some argue prosecutors too often influence grand jurors.

The chief judge of New York state in 1985 suggested grand juries be abolished, claiming in a now-infamous quote that a skilled prosecutor could convince a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”

But in Kansas, citizen grand juries are in charge, although they have a prosecutor available as a legal adviser.

Kansans for Life reported that it spent $20,000 in copying, mailing and other costs to collect about 7,000 signatures needed to convene the current grand jury in Wichita.

“Here, it’s citizens who want to do something, and the local prosecutor may not want this at all,” McAllister said. “So it’s convened and it sort of takes on a life of its own.”

The law in Kansas doesn’t specify that a prosecutor has to pick up an indictment by a citizen grand jury. It simply says that the indictment must be filed with the court.

“At the end of the day, it’s not clear who is accountable to the grand jury,” McAllister said.

Past and present meet

The law empowering citizen grand juries has its roots in frontier justice, says an expert on Kansas history.

It was designed to give the public a voice in government decisions during the Populist movement of the 1880s, said Craig Minor, a professor of history at Wichita State University.

“They thought there were too many checks on the popular will of the people,” Minor said.

Some 120 years later, social conservatives say citizens need that kind of control again because the government has ignored their cries to enforce Kansas’ late-term abortion laws.

“There are serious improprieties and appearances of improprieties, and we’re looking for the grand jury to take an independent look at these laws,” said Troy Newman, leader of Operation Rescue.

Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion rights groups don’t like that Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston blocked efforts in 2006 by then-Attorney General Phill Kline to file criminal charges against Tiller.

Foulston said Kline had no jurisdiction in her district. A judge agreed.

Dan Monnat, a Wichita lawyer representing Tiller, said the Wichita grand jury went too far in January when it subpoenaed five years’ worth of clinic records for 2,000 women who had sought abortions after their 21st week of pregnancy.

Calling the subpoena an invasion of privacy, Tiller’s attorneys asked a judge to stop the proceedings. Retired Judge Paul Buchanan ordered the records produced. Tiller’s lawyers appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, which has halted the subpoena while it reviews the case.

That includes asking the state’s highest court to review the constitutional nature of citizen grand juries.

But Sedgwick County Chief Judge Michael Corrigan and Buchanan argued in papers filed last month with the Supreme Court that grand juries aren’t required to return an indictment.

That is among the strengths of the grand jury system, the judges say. It removes the grand jury from influence by the special interests that may have petitioned for it.

That’s what the Johnson County grand jury did with the Planned Parenthood case this month.

The Sedgwick County judges also noted that one function of a grand jury is to exonerate the innocent.

They point out that the grand jury asked for records from Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic, where some of the women did not ultimately obtain abortions.

“In other words, the subpoena sought records which would reveal that…Tiller and WHCS complied with the law,” wrote David Cooper, a Topeka attorney representing the judges.

Six says he wants the Supreme Court to decide if the subpoena interferes with patients’ right to privacy.

Chief Justice Kay McFarland put the attorney general’s subpoena on hold–as she had with the order for Tiller–until the justices can sort out the case.

By RON SYLVESTER

Mar 01, 2008
Associated Press

TOPEKA – The Kansas Supreme Court said Friday that it will hear arguments April 8 in three cases challenging subpoenas from a Sedgwick County grand jury for patient records from physician George Tiller’s Wichita abortion clinic.

The court also kept its earlier order blocking enforcement of the subpoenas and ordered the two judges handling the grand jury proceeding to not issue additional subpoenas for patient records.

It’s rare for the court to have a special session for a single case. The last time that happened was when it considered school finance legislation in 2006. Normally, the court considers cases on regularly scheduled hearing dates.

The court consolidated the challenges by Attorney General Stephen Six, Tiller’s clinic and attorneys representing clinic patients, since they made similar arguments and are seeking to have the subpoenas quashed by the justices.

Chief Justice Kay McFarland gave no indication in the order when the court might rule.

“We are very pleased that the highest court of the state views the privacy rights of women patients so protectively as to undertake a careful examination of the important issues involved,” said Dan Monnat, one of the attorneys representing the clinic.

Likewise, Bonnie Scott Jones, Center for Reproductive Rights attorney representing two patients, said she was glad the court is going to hear the cases so soon.

“It seems to me they are trying to address this matter promptly and that is appropriate,” she said. “These patients, many have obtained abortions in tragic circumstances so they are devastated they may have to relive these intimate times in the company of the grand jury.”

Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, on Monday asked the court for permission to file a friend of the court brief. But the justices by Friday hadn’t given permission to do that.

“As long as it has gone this far, this will give our side a chance to display in open court the arrogance of this late-term abortionist’s thinking that he is above the law,” said Mary Kay Culp, the group’s executive director.

Culp said she’s concerned the grand jury’s 90-day life will expire the same day as the court hearing. But the grand jury can be extended by the judges overseeing it.

Abortion opponents accuse Tiller of violating a 1998 law restricting late-term abortion. His attorneys repeatedly have said such allegations are unfounded.

The grand jury subpoenaed the medical files of about 2,000 women, including some who decided against having abortions. It also subpoenaed information about current and former employees and referring physicians.

It’s seeking all health care records of patients who aborted a fetus determined to be 22 weeks or older from July 1, 2003, through Jan. 18 at Tiller’s clinic, Women’s Health Care Services. The grand jury also wants the health care records of patients who did not have abortions but were at least 22 weeks pregnant when they consulted with a physician at the clinic.

Associated Press

Feb 16, 2008
Associated Press

TOPEKA – Attorney General Stephen Six is resisting a subpoena from a Sedgwick County grand jury investigating Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

Six asked the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday to quash the subpoena or at least temporarily block its enforcement. The grand jury demanded the records of 60 patients from Tiller’s clinic, which the attorney general’s office had obtained as part of an earlier investigation.

Attorneys for Tiller, one of the few U.S. physicians who performs late-term abortions, already have asked the Supreme Court to block three other subpoenas that the doctor received from the grand jury. One of them seeks the records of about 2,000 patients from Tiller’s clinic.

The Supreme Court ruled last week that the subpoenas to Tiller couldn’t be enforced until the justices decide whether to quash them. The court said Tiller’s legal challenge raised “significant issues” about the grand jury’s authority and patients’ privacy.

Six said the records sought from his office are covered by the subpoenas the grand jury served on Tiller — and therefore are covered by the Supreme Court’s order. He also questioned whether the grand jury had the authority to issue the subpoenas and said patients’ privacy could be in jeopardy.

“We simply want to give the Kansas Supreme Court the opportunity to examine these issues,” said Six spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett. “Our subpoena deals with a subset of the medical records involved in the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.”

Six disclosed last week that he had received two subpoenas from the grand jury. He complied with one, which sought testimony gathered previously from a doctor who worked with Tiller on some late-term abortions.

Dan Monnat, a Wichita attorney, said Six’s request to the Supreme Court is encouraging.

“Dr. Tiller’s foremost concern is always protection of his patients,” Monnat said in a statement. “Dr. Tiller is pleased to hear the voice of the top law enforcement officer in the state join in his call for protection of patient privacy.”

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said she is appalled. Her group had been wary of Six because of his appointment by Sebelius, an abortion rights supporter.

“They switched names, they switched faces, but it doesn’t appear as if anything else has changed,” she said. “All the signs had been pointing a certain way, but this is more than a sign. It’s a slap in the face to the people of Kansas.”

Six’s petition to the Supreme Court named as defendants District Judge Michael Corrigan, Sedgwick County’s chief judge, and retired Judge Paul Buchanan, who’s supervising the grand jury.

The attorney general said in documents filed with the court that the grand jury subpoena ordered him to turn over the patient records by Feb. 20. Six said he asked the judges to quash the subpoena, but they refused.

Six also asked the Supreme Court to consolidate the case he filed with Tiller’s legal challenge to the grand jury subpoenas he received.

Associated Press

Feb 06, 2008
The Wichita Eagle
-
by Ron Sylvester

The Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed a grand jury’s subpoena for George Tiller’s clinic to turn over medical records of 2,000 women who have sought late-term abortions.

In the order, Chief Justice Kay McFarland said the subpoena “raises significant issues” of both patient privacy and a grand jury’s authority to issue subpoenas.

The order was in response to a petition filed by Tiller’s lawyers, who appealed a judge’s order to turn the records over to a grand jury.

The grand jury convened in January, following a petition from nearly 7,000 residents asking for an investigation into late-term abortions at the Women’s Health Care Services clinic in Wichita.

Tiller, who runs the clinic, is one of the few doctors in the country who perform late-term abortions.

Two weeks ago, the grand jury subpoenaed records for any women who were at least 22 weeks pregnant when they sought or received abortions at the clinic from July 1, 2003, to Jan. 18.

Tiller’s lawyers asked retired Judge Paul Buchanan, assigned to oversee the grand jury, to stop the subpoenas. Buchanan refused and ordered the files be turned over.

The state’s Supreme Court received an appeal Friday and issued its order Tuesday, preventing files from being provided to the grand jury until the justices could make their decision.

“Dr. Tiller is very pleased that 2,000 distraught women and girls will sleep much better tonight knowing that the Chief Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court has halted the grand jury’s unsupervised prying into their medical files,” said Dan Monnat, a lawyer representing Tiller.

Abortion rights opponents who helped collect signatures to empanel the grand jury were upset.

“This is more than a delay tactic,” said Troy Newman of Operation Rescue in Wichita. “This is an abuse of process to allow the statute of limitations to run out on some of these crimes and to exasperate the patience of the grand jury.”

McFarland recognized that grand juries are limited to 90-day terms, but also said that those terms can be extended.

Because of the time limits, the court ordered Buchanan and district Chief Judge Michael Corrigan to file any objections by Feb. 11.

They have until Feb. 25 to justify Buchanan’s order.

Among the issues the state Supreme Court will consider:

• Whether the grand jury has shown sufficient reasons why it needs to see individual medical records

• Whether Buchanan’s order sufficiently guarantees the privacy of the women who visited the clinic

• Whether producing the records will unduly intimidate women trying to exercise their right to seek an abortion

On Friday, lawyers argued on Tiller’s behalf that removing the women’s names from the files provided no assurances of privacy. They alleged that two years ago, then-Attorney General Phill Kline was able to identify some of the women in the files, even when their names were stricken from the records.

Kline, now Johnson County district attorney, denied through a spokesman that he was ever able to identify any women.

But Tiller’s lawyers on Friday produced a document showing that the attorney general’s office during Kline’s term had cross-referenced details in the redacted medical files with a guest roster at a motel near the Wichita clinic to determine patients’ names.

If it can happen once, Tiller’s lawyers argued, it can happen again.

Kansas law allows late-term abortions if two independent doctors conclude that if a pregnancy continues, the pregnant woman or girl could face “substantial and irreversible” harm to “a major bodily function.”

In Johnson County, lawyers for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park are watching what happens with the Wichita case.

A citizen-petitioned grand jury there also has subpoenaed similar records. A hearing before Judge Kevin Moriarty to stop the subpoena is set for Feb. 15.

Planned Parenthood attorney Pedro Irigonegaray said if the judge denies that request, he would also consider an appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday “clearly sends a signal and the signal is that our court takes very seriously the issue of privacy,” Irigonegaray said.

“Medical records must be protected because they represent one of the most private aspects of our lives.”

In a related development, the Center for Reproductive Rights of New York filed a petition Tuesday with the justices, also seeking to have the subpoenas quashed. Bonnie Scott Jones, the center’s senior attorney, said her group represents two women — identified only as Jane Doe and Ann Roe — and “similarly situated patients.”

“It is a parallel action, which I assume the court will consider together,” she said. “The patients have a strong interest at stake. It is their privacy that will be violated if these records are released.”

Contributing: Kansas City Star, Associated Press
Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or [email protected]. All content © 2008 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

Feb 01, 2008
The Wichita Eagle
-
by Ron Sylvester

A noon deadline passed Thursday, and a grand jury received nothing from abortion provider George Tiller. Instead, his lawyers rushed to appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court an order to surrender the medical records of 2,000 women.

And they sought and received another hearing this morning to seek further privacy protections in Sedgwick County District Court.

The state’s high court could postpone further proceedings until it studies the appeal Tiller’s lawyers expect to file today.

“We’re seeking an order to quash the subpoenas and to disband the grand jury,” said Dan Monnat, a Wichita lawyer representing Tiller.

Kansas for Life, which initiated petitions that resulted in the grand jury, said the legal moves are a stall tactic.

“He’s trying to protect himself, not the women involved,” said Mary Kay Culp, state executive director. “Their names and identifying information are going to be removed by a third party.”

The 15-member grand jury was empaneled earlier this month based on petitions signed by nearly 7,000 Sedgwick County residents. It had been asked to see whether Tiller obeyed state laws governing late-term abortions. He is one of the few doctors in the country who performs them.

The grand jury had subpoenaed the records of women who sought abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy over the past five years.

Tuesday, lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York City announced they were representing the rights of the patients whose records have been subpoenaed.

Wednesday, retired Judge Paul Buchanan ordered the identifying numbers of the files to be given to the prosecutor overseeing the grand jury by noon Thursday.

The district attorney’s office will use a computer to put the identifying numbers in random order, then send the numbers in batches to Tiller. Tiller must turn over the matching files to a lawyer and a doctor whom Buchanan will name.

That process will be repeated until all files are turned over. Patients’ names and other identifying information will be removed before the files are submitted.

Buchanan will hear the latest request from Tiller’s lawyers and the Center for Reproductive Rights this morning.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri filed a similar action to stop a subpoena by a grand jury petitioned to investigate its clinic in Overland Park.

The grand jury there has ordered 16 records from 2003 of abortions performed at the Comprehensive Health clinic.

A hearing is set for Feb. 15 before Johnson County District Judge Kevin Moriarty.

Both clinics say the subpoenas ask for more information than the state Supreme Court said was allowable two years ago during an investigation by then-Attorney General Phill Kline.

Kline is now district attorney of Johnson County.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or [email protected].

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

Jan 23, 2008
The Wichita Eagle
-
by Deb Gruver

Marking the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a small group gathered Tuesday morning at George Tiller’s clinic and called the doctor a courageous man for giving women a choice.

An Operation Rescue truck sat parked in the background, featuring pictures of aborted fetuses. That group has been pushing for criminal charges against Tiller.

Wichita Stands with Dr. Tiller, described by spokeswoman Diane Wahto as a coalition of abortion-rights groups, lauded Tiller for his service to women despite facing what they termed harassment, intimidation and violence from abortion opponents.

The group held a short news conference, Wahto said, to remind others that challenges to Roe v. Wade “will never stop women from seeking control over their own bodies.”

On Monday, Troy Newman, the leader of Operation Rescue, held a news conference accusing prosecutors of not enforcing laws governing late-term abortions.

Tuesday, Wichita lawyer Dan Monnat, who has represented Tiller in grand jury investigations into his practice at Women’s Health Care Services, said Roe v. Wade “might just be pages in a dusty law book” if not for people such as Tiller.

Doctors such as Tiller, Monnat said, use the “power of Roe v. Wade to help women with excruciating decisions.”

Lee Thompson, another Tiller lawyer, pointed to a line between the driveway to Tiller’s clinic on East Kellogg Avenue and a public street.

“This is the front line for the battle of abortion in America,” he said.

Operation Rescue planned a candlelight vigil and prayer service at Tiller’s clinic to mark the anniversary.

By DEB GRUVER
The Wichita Eagle

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