Category: Johnson County

Two Olathe men guilty of bank robbery

Two Olathe, Kansas, men are facing prison sentences after taking part in a pair of bank robberies.

A federal jury in Kansas City, Kansas, convicted Michael Shiferaw, 22, of Olathe of two counts of armed bank robbery, and two counts of discharging a firearm in connection with a bank robbery.

Kenya Breakfield, 23, of Olathe pleaded guilty to one count of armed bank robbery and one count of discharging a firearm in connection with a bank robbery.

According to court documents, in October 2018, Shiferaw and Breakfield went into a Wells Fargo bank in Leawood, Kansas, wearing face masks and carrying handguns.

Shiferaw fired a shot into the ceiling upon entering. He then pointed a gun at the tellers and forced them to fill a duffel bag with money. The men fired another round into the ceiling, yelling “happy holidays” before fleeing the bank with the money.

In March 2019, the men robbed the Commerce Bank in Roeland Park, Kansas. This time Breakfield remained in the vehicle as the getaway driver, and Shiferaw entered the bank alone.

Shiferaw fired four rounds during the robbery, including one aimed at a customer trying to enter the bank.

The defendants were arrested shortly after the second robbery, and law enforcement recovered the firearm used in both crimes. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against Breakfield in connection with the Commerce Bank robbery in exchange for his guilty plea in the Wells Fargo case. Shiferaw elected to go to trial.

A bank robbery conviction carries a maximum of 25 years in prison for each count. A conviction of discharging a firearm during a bank robbery carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, consecutive with any other sentence.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Olathe Police Department, Leawood Police Department, Roeland Park Police Department, and the U.S. Marshals Service investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Flannigan prosecuted the case.

Who can tell you to wear a mask in Kansas as COVID surges? It’s complicated

As the delta variant pummels Kansas, there’s confusion about who has the authority to issue pandemic restrictions that could curb the spread of COVID.

by Abigail Censky, KCUR and Kansas News Service

Topeka, Kansas — The delta variant of the COVID-19 virus has 84 of the 105 counties in Kansas caught in a regional hot zone.

Meanwhile, more than half of all eligible Kansans are not vaccinated.

That leaves Gov. Laura Kelly faced with whether to use emergency powers to fight the resurging public health crisis even as that authority remains in legal limbo.

A Johnson County judge’s order found a new law limiting her emergency powers flawed. While that case awaits the outcome of appeals, Kelly has yet to take forceful action in response to the resurging pandemic — like mask mandates that could slow the state’s economic recovery and that would surely draw strong resistance.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported more than 2,000 new COVID cases since Monday, 99% the result of the new ultra-contagious delta variant.

But on Wednesday Kelly stopped short of issuing another statewide mask mandate. Instead, she chose to coax.

Even vaccinated Kansans, she said, ought to wear masks indoors in 84 of Kansas’ 105 counties. Her guidance mirrored earlier advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She did require most state workers to wear masks on the job.

“I’m as frustrated as any other vaccinated Kansan,” Kelly said. “I feel like I did my part. And one of the rewards of that was not having to wear a mask.”

“But that option has now been taken away,” she said, “because of the delta variant and how much more contagious it is, and how few Kansans unfortunately, have gotten vaccinated.”

State employees unable to social distance at work and visitors at state and federal buildings will be required to wear masks beginning Monday. But for all other Kansans, the recommendation is toothless.

That’s largely because over the course of the pandemic, the conservative supermajority in the state Legislature passed laws shifting the state’s pandemic response to local county commissions, hamstringing the ability of Kelly and local health officials to respond.

In late March, the governor compromised with state lawmakers, agreeing to give up some of her power. When she issued another statewide mask mandate, a panel of state lawmakers voted it down 5-2. The number of counties with mask mandates dropped from 57 in February to seven by early April.

That was, in part, because the new law required speedy judicial review for anyone with a grievance of a mask policy or restriction issued by a school board or local government. In the case of a disagreement between a parent and a school board, a court had to hold a hearing on the issue in three days, and issue an order within seven.

Kelly’s power atrophied so greatly under the law that Republican leaders were able to supersede her requests to extend the state of emergency in early June.

However, some power could be restored if a Johnson County judge’s ruling that deemed the law unenforceable stands.

Johnson County District Judge David Hauber ruled the Legislature was stepping on the toes of the judicial branch and depriving local governments of due process.

“It is the ultimate legislative stick intended to goad and/or supplant judicial rules and functions,” he wrote. “It promotes the equivalent of legal anarchy.”

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has said he’ll appeal the ruling.

Schmidt contends the ruling prompted “unnecessary and disruptive confusion,” potentially making it difficult for the state to respond to a future disaster emergency. He said it “invited the very sort of ‘legal anarchy’ that troubled the court.”

That court fight has left confusion about the power of the governor or local public health officials to impose rules aimed at combatting the pandemic.

In her Wednesday press conference, Kelly deflected questions about whether she thought local health officials had the authority to respond to the pandemic.

“I’m gonna leave that to the local units of government and the school boards to decide how they want to interpret what the judge’s ruling does,” Kelly said.

A later statement said, “Our office does not want to speculate until a decision is reached by the Kansas Supreme Court, which we anticipate will happen soon.”

Dennis Kriesel, executive director of the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, said that the district court decision likely doesn’t apply statewide.

“We already know that the attorney general has submitted the appeal,” he said, “so I’m assuming we will get a statewide decision in a few months.”

Jay Hall, general counsel with the Kansas Association of Counties, agreed.

“Until the appellate courts rule,” Hall said, “we don’t have any sort of statewide established standard because another court in the state could rule differently than the judge in Johnson County did.”

Local health officers can do things like issue a mask mandate and limit the size of gatherings with or without the law. But the law struck down by the Johnson County judge would require those health officials to first get permission from their county commissions.

“In terms of the ability to issue orders we have more flexibility now than we did two months ago,” Kriesel said. “That being said, I don’t think we’re going to see nearly the amount of aggressive ordering that we saw in the fall of last year because of the backlash.”

Regardless of who has the authority to respond, Kriesel said, public health officials are looking for political cover.

“You could probably, on one hand,” he said, “count the number of local health officers that would be willing to issue an order without knowing what their commissioners’ stance was.”

Abigail Censky is the political reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter @AbigailCensky or email her at abigailcensky (at) kcur (dot) org.

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.

Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-07-30/who-can-tell-you-to-wear-a-mask-in-kansas-as-covid-surges-its-complicated

Judge strikes down Kansas COVID-19 emergency powers law, rejects challenge to school mask rule

by Kyle Palmer, Shawnee Mission Post and Kansas News Service

If the ruling stands, local governments would have more power to enact rules in response to a pandemic.

A Johnson County judge has ruled that a law passed this spring to curtail local governments’ emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic is unconstitutional.

In the same ruling, Judge David Hauber sided with the Shawnee Mission School District in dismissing two parents’ complaints over not being given public hearings under the law to challenge the district’s mask rules last school year.

Hauber ruled that the law’s accelerated process for allowing citizens to raise grievances against COVID-19 policies deprives local governments — including school districts — of due process and violates the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches.

A spokesperson for Attorney General Derek Schmidt said his office plans to appeal the decision.

The ruling comes as COVID-19 case numbers are again rising in Kansas, the Kansas City area and beyond, driven by a surge caused by the more contagious Delta variant.

Local school districts are deciding what, if any, pandemic protocols will be in place when students return to in-person classes next month, including mask rules.

While other Johnson County public school districts have already said they plan to make masks optional, SMSD has yet to finalize its policy for next school year.

In responding to the judge’s request for a brief in the case, Schmidt contended that SB 40 is now moot, following the expiration of the statewide disaster emergency on June 15, and a ruling on its constitutionality was not needed.

But Hauber rejected that reasoning, in part, because he said some of the law’s provisions could be used again if another disaster emergency, whether pandemic-related or not, is issued in the future.

Hauber explicitly mentioned the Delta variant in his decision, suggesting a sudden increase in case numbers could lead to a new state of emergency, in which some of SB 40’s provisions could be in play again.

For these reasons, Hauber said SB 40 still raised “significant due process issues.”

Most critically, Hauber said SB 40’s truncated process for allowing citizen grievances violated local governments’ due process rights.

“Under the guise of giving local governments the authority to address specific pandemic issues, SB 40 actually hobbled local pandemic measures by ensuring that lawsuits would be filed, aided by swift court action. Many local units of government simply capitulated under the pressure, Hauber wrote.

He noted that SB 40 required local governmental bodies, like school boards, to take up citizens’ challenges within 72 hours and then gave them seven days to reach a decision.

Similarly short timeframes governed how quickly local courts had to hear appeals to local governments’ decisions to such challenges.

Hauber said this “hurry up and decide” method essentially gave the advantage to complaining citizens and “dangles default (judgment) as the ultimate stick.”

Schmidt admitted as much in his brief defending SB 40, contending that if a school board was not able to justify its COVID-19 restrictions within the timeframe laid out by SB 40, then “judgment should be entered in favor of school children.”

But Hauber sided with local governments in dismissing that notion, citing SMSD’s own brief, which argued that SB 40 never addressed the “best interests of students” but solely focused on “adult, political concerns.”

Ultimately, Hauber said SB 40 is “unenforceable” because of the quick timeframe laid out in its provisions.

Hauber also sided with SMSD against two parents who had brought suit against the district for not giving them a public hearing under SB 40 in order to challenge the rule that masks be worn inside school buildings at all times last school year.

The judge noted that neither parent was harmed by the district’s mask policy.

One parent received a medical exemption for her child. And the second parent chose not to obtain an exemption, Hauber said, “preferring to attack the mask policy” instead.

“The Court is not critical of any parent who feels strongly that government action might be regarded as arbitrary or even harmful to one’s child,” Hauber wrote. “But there are existing legal procedures to address such potential violations.”

What happens next: Schmidt’s office says it plans to appeal Hauber’s ruling.

In a statement Thursday, Clint Blaes, the director of communications for the attorney general’s office, said:

“On its own volition, the district court created a controversy about the statute where none exists now that the state of emergency has ended. Attorney General Schmidt strongly disagrees with the ruling in this case. We plan to appeal to defend the validity of the statute as it was enacted by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Kelly.”

SMSD also did not immediately return a request for comment on how the ruling could impact the school board’s upcoming deliberations on COVID-19 protocols going into the new school year.

Read the judge’s full ruling:
https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/05/f4/b4d4bb7c4cadb19b6fc2dbb9e82d/haubersb40ruling.pdf
This story was originally published on the Shawnee Mission Post.

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.