Category: Wyandotte County

Supreme Court upholds murder conviction

The Kansas Supreme Court today upheld a murder conviction from Wyandotte County, while overturning a provision ordering lifetime postrelease.

A Wyandotte County jury convicted Loviss Todd on charges of felony murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated battery, and aggravated assault. Todd was convicted of the December 2008 murder of Vincent Green.

On direct appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court, Todd challenged the jury instructions, claimed prosecutorial misconduct, and contended that cumulative error denied him a fair trial. Todd also challenged the district court judge’s imposition of lifetime postrelease supervision as part of his life sentence. The court affirmed Todd’s convictions and sentence, with the exception of the provision ordering lifetime postrelease.

The court identified error with the district judge’s failure to instruct the jury on the caution it should exercise in evaluating an accomplice witness’ testimony, but held the error was harmless. The court also held that the district judge should not have instructed the jury that the degree of certainty expressed by an eyewitness is a factor to be weighed in assessing reliability of the identification. But, because the eyewitnesses in this case did not express a degree of certainty on the identification of Todd, the instruction was not clearly erroneous.

The court held that retroactive application of the 2013 amendments made in a state law, which eliminated lesser included offenses of felony murder and expressly provided for retroactive application to cases pending on appeal, does not violate the federal ex post facto clause. Accordingly, Todd was not entitled to a second-degree murder instruction.

The court rejected Todd’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct and cumulative error. The state conceded that Todd’s lifetime postrelease supervision portion of his sentence was improper, and the court vacated that portion of his sentence.

To read the decision, visit http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/opinions/SupCt/2014/20140425/106021.pdf.

Storms possible this weekend

Elevated fire danger Friday afternoon. (National Weather Service graphic)

Sunny and clear weather for Friday may be followed by a chance of showers and thunderstorms on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Today’s high will be 79, and the wind will be 6 to 15 mph, with gusts up to 21 mph. There is an elevated fire danger this afternoon because of the wind and low humidity, although recent rains will prevent a widespread threat for significant fires.

Multiple rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms are possible this weekend, the National Weather Service said.

Saturday’s weather will include a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms between 4 a.m. and 1 p.m. Winds will be 10 to 18 mph changing from south to east in the morning. Winds may gust as high as 28 mph. The temperature will be 85 on Saturday.

Severe thunderstorm risk (National Weather Service graphic)

The storms early Saturday will include the possibility of small hail. After a break in the weather Saturday afternoon, several rounds of strong to severe storms are expected late Saturday night through Sunday night.

Risk of severe weather Saturday. (National Weather Service graphic)

Strong extreme wind shear and moderate to high instability on Sunday will be favorable for multiple tornadoes, very large hail and potentially widespread damaging winds, according to the weather service. The highest chances for severe storms will be late Sunday afternoon and early evening.

On Saturday night, the chance of storms increases to 40 percent, and will be 70 percent Sunday, according to the forecast.

Risk of severe storms on Sunday. (National Weather Service graphic)

Monday will be mostly sunny, but Monday night will have a 30 percent chance of showers and Tuesday, a 50 percent chance of showers.

For more weather information, visit www.weather.gov.

UG examines overtime pay

The Unified Government Commission tonight went into overtime to discuss public safety overtime pay and out-of-class pay.

The special meeting started at 5 p.m. and went over the two-hour time slot, and resumed later after the regular 7 p.m. meeting.

Mayor Mark Holland said that costs were up significantly because of overtime and out-of-class pay.

Costs were up by millions in overtime and out-of-class pay for three public safety departments, the Police Department, Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department, he said. There was also an increase of personnel.

“We have a major fund balance crisis right now,” he said. “We are at risk of losing our credit rating if we do not find a way to curb some spending.”

He said his goal is to do a comprehensive third-party look at all three of these departments, as well as a compensation classification analysis, to make sure the UG is functioning as efficiently as possible while delivering the same services and not compromising safety.

That $5 million spent on overtime and out-of-class pay to some employees in the three departments is enough to give a 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment to each UG employee, he added.

Sheriff Don Ash, Fire Chief John Paul Jones and Assistant Police Chief Terry Terry Zeigler appeared before the commission to explain what is driving the overtime costs. They described staffing shortages in their departments, with employees being asked to cover vacancies or unscheduled leaves such as illnesses and family emergencies. They described their departments’ situations in detail.

The department heads told the commission that they were bound by contractual agreements on the issues of overtime and out-of-class pay.

Chief Jones told the commission there were currently 14 vacancies in his department and it will probably go up to 25 later in the year with retirements. The new recruit class will not be available until the end of the year, he said. The Fire Department is currently a little below national standards recommending 4 persons per truck, he told the commission. As the situation is now, he said to eliminate overtime would be a cut in service.

The commission threw out the idea of reducing the number of fire station in the city, and the mayor discussed assigning three to a truck and having a fourth arrive at a scene from another fire station.

Sheriff Ash, whose department had more than a million dollars of overtime, presented three options to the commission, including one that would save more than a half-million dollars.

He told the commission that if he could add employees, he could reduce the amount spent on overtime and out-of-class pay. Commissioner Ann Murguia asked about the possibility of adding a few part-time deputies.

Assistant Chief Terry Zeigler said late and extended calls were driving overtime in the Police Department, with officers staying on the scene to complete their work.

He said contract language had driven the staffing costs. In 2012, the department spent more than $500,000 on overtime because of contract language, he said. In 2014 a letter of understanding was signed by the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Department that addressed the issues and the amount spent on overtime is not as much currently. About $254,000 is projected for overtime this year. Commissioner Mike Kane suggested the other departments might want to work together with the unions on contract language to reduce overtime.

The commission also discussed trying to reduce overtime associated with officers having to attend court.