WICHITA, Kan. – Eighteen-year-old Anthony Bluml has filed three handwritten motions in his capital murder case. But Legal Analyst Dan Monnat says it’s not a good idea…. Without legal expertise, Monnat says defendants can unknowingly incriminate themselves and end up paying a big price for it.
WICHITA, Kan. – A Sedgwick County judge is deciding whether an independent expert will be allowed in a room for DNA testing in regards to a double-murder. “If the prosecution can’t give the accused the second test that they’re entitled to, then the accused is entitled to the next best thing: An independent expert being present or videotaping of the prosecution’s one-sided test,” said local defense attorney Dan Monnat….
WICHITA, Kan. – The government is seeking more time to try the case of Terry Loewen, the man accused of plotting to set off a car bomb at the Wichita airport. “The government is saying that it conducted such an extensive, intensive, complex sting against this former United States Marine and long-time Wichita aircraft worker that it can’t even turn over all of its evidence within 120 days of arraignment,” said Attorney Dan Monnat. “Thus, the case should be called complex, and the government excused from the usual legal deadlines….”
WICHITA, Kansas – More Wichita police officers are going to be wearing body cameras.
Says KSN Legal Analyst Dan Monnat, “Recording police-citizen encounters generally preserves civil rights. For one thing, it protects police from false claims of police brutality, and it protects the citizen from false claims of confession or a waiver of rights.”
WICHITA – Police have found the woman who gave birth and surrendered her baby. However, the public release of her photo is drawing fire from supporters of the Safe Haven Law. “It remains to be seen whether dissemination of the mother’s identity, history and photograph violates any provision of the federal privacy of healthcare records act,” said Dan Monnat, a legal expert…
A teen accused of murder wants statements he made at the time of his arrest thrown out. Attorney Dan Monnat says, “Studies show suspects under the influence of alcohol or drugs have impaired recall and thus are susceptible during interrogation to being fed facts they internalize and then make false confessions…”
WICHITA, Kansas — DUI check lanes are legal…drug check lanes appear to be a legal question mark…. “No law enforcement officer has a constitutional privilege to manufacture a traffic violation that did not occur,” says KSN Legal Analyst Dan Monnat. “Such a stop would be an unreasonable seizure.….”
LAWRENCE, Kansas – Freedom of speech. It’s in the First Amendment. Some say it’s been dampened in Kansas. Says KSN Legal Analyst Dan Monnat: “The issue involved in the Board of Regents policy here, brings up exactly the question that has not been decided by the United States Supreme Court. That is, whether the rule restricting speech of public employees applies in academic freedom and scholarship.”
WICHITA, Kansas – A drug abuse assessment form may become one of the factors that determines which welfare recipients will have to take a drug test to receive benefits. But how the test is administered may mean a person could be giving up Constitutional rights just to feed her or his family, says KSN Legal Expert Dan Monnat…
WICHITA, Kan. — Terry Lee Loewen made national news when he tried to blow up his car on the tarmac at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport. Court papers show Loewen reached out to people he thought were Al Qaida….But those people were really FBI agents. Attorneys say entrapment defense likely on tap for Loewen. “For there to be entrapment, two ingredients are necessary,” said Dan Monnat, KSNW Legal Analyst. “One, government inducement. Two, no predisposition by the accused to commit the crime…”
