Tag: Kansas Supreme Court

Kansas Supreme Court issues full opinions on legislative, congressional redistricting cases

Justices outline details of decisions affirming constitutionality of maps

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — The Kansas Supreme Court released full opinions Tuesday of decisions affirming constitutionality of new congressional and legislative district maps for use in the 2022 elections that concluded reliance on partisanship to gerrymander district boundaries wasn’t prohibited.

Justice Caleb Stegall, writing for the majority in the congressional mapping case, said absence of standards in the Kansas Constitution or in Kansas statute limiting the Legislature’s use of political factors when crafting boundaries left the Supreme Court without a basis to reject work of state lawmakers.

“We can discern no judicially manageable standards by which to judge a claim that the Legislature relied too heavily on the otherwise lawful factor of partisanship when drawing district lines,” Stegall said in the 105-page opinion on the congressional map. “As such, the question presented is a political question and is nonjusticiable, at least until such a time as the Legislature or the people of Kansas choose to codify such a standard into law.”

In May, the Supreme Court released a notice reversing Wyandotte County District Court Judge Bill Klapper. He had found unconstitutional the congressional map splitting racially diverse Wyandotte County between the 2nd and 3rd Districts and moving liberal-leaning Lawrence to the rural 1st District.

The state’s highest court let stand the “Ad Astra 2” congressional map drafted by Republican legislators and adopted over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto.

That GOP map contained in Senate Bill 355 was designed to undermine reelection prospects of U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the lone Democrat in the state’s federal delegation.

The Supreme Court also affirmed last month constitutionality of the map outlining districts of the Kansas House and Kansas Senate. In the subsequent analysis Tuesday, Stegall wrote in a 15-page opinion the Legislature’s recasting of the 125 House and 40 Senate districts was “not a perfect plan,” because no “district reapportionment plan ever is.”

He said contents of Senate Bill 563, which applied 2020 Census figures to the remapping task, did comply with the Kansas Constitution.

“The Legislature used the procedure required by the Kansas Constitution to pass the bill,” said Stegall, an appointee of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. “The legislative maps contained in Sub. SB 563 also satisfy the constitutional requirement of one person, one vote; they are not discriminatory; they satisfy the requirements of the Voting Rights Act; and they raise no additional constitutional concerns.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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Supreme Court upholds lower court decisions in repressed memory case

The Kansas Supreme Court today upheld decisions from the Kansas Court of Appeals and Wyandotte County District Court concerning an individual who alleged he was sexually abused by a priest in Shawnee County in the 1980s.

In the case, a man stated he had repressed memories of the alleged incidents that happened in the Topeka area, and he recalled it after media published reports about other abuse cases.

The Supreme Court affirmed both the Court of Appeals and the Wyandotte County District Court and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. The lawsuit was in Wyandotte County District Court because of the location of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Eric Rosen noted that further discovery will be necessary to establish the time frame of the abuse and the time frame for discovery of the abuse. These will ultimately be questions of fact for determination in the district court, and the answers to these questions will govern whether the individual, identified by his initials in the lawsuit, filed his petition in time to preserve his cause of action.

A state law requires a plaintiff to start an action no more than eight years after the events that caused harm, but the law had an exception for injuries resulting from sexual abuse. Plaintiffs are allowed to bring an action for childhood sexual abuse up to three years after the plaintiff turns 18 or three years after the plaintiff discovers injuries caused by childhood sexual abuse. In this case, there were questions about the exact years the alleged abuse actually took place.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas argued separately that claims against it were time-barred because the statute exception applied only to suits against individuals, not against institutions. The Supreme Court rejected the argument, holding the statutory exception focuses on harm resulting from abuse, not on perpetrator liability.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Caleb Stegall, joined by Chief Justice Marla Luckert, agreed with the outcome but disagreed with the majority’s determination that the statute contains no requirement that a defendant must have been the active perpetrator of the abuse. The concurring justices would find the statute ambiguous but would hold the Archdiocese potentially liable under a theory of aiding and abetting.

Kansas Supreme Court works to clarify state law for lawsuit filed by former KHP colonel

U.S. judge asks for help sorting through statute called ‘not a model of clarity’

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Former Kansas Highway Patrol Col. Mark Bruce’s attorney went before the Kansas Supreme Court to argue state law required his client’s return to the rank of major instead of being ousted three years ago amid a domestic-violence scandal involving the agency’s lieutenant colonel.

A lawyer representing Gov. Laura Kelly; Will Lawrence, the governor’s chief of staff; and KHP Col. Herman Jones argued the claims by Bruce in a lawsuit lacked merit because he voluntarily signed resignation and retirement papers after being informed his services were no longer needed in the Kelly administration. In addition, the governor’s attorney said Bruce was misinterpreting state employment law.

A U.S. District Court judge handling the Bruce lawsuit against Kelly, Lawrence and Jones said he was so perplexed by the applicable Kansas law — “not a model of clarity” — that he took the unusual step of requesting the state Supreme Court resolve disputes about interpretation of the state statute. The analysis could include work to understand intent of the Legislature when it tinkered with the Kansas Civil Service Act in 2018.

State Supreme Court Justice Dan Biles said during oral argument Wednesday night in Great Bend that Kansas law on this point was so garbled the state’s highest court would have to enter the “minefield” of legislative intent to figure out what lawmakers attempted to achieve.

He said Topeka attorney Alan Johnson, who represented Bruce, and Topeka attorney David Cooper, who represented the three defendants, were struggling with the poorly articulated statute.

“This is the biggest mess of statutes that I can remember. This just doesn’t make sense,” said Biles, who was appointed to the court in 2009. “Aren’t we just stuck with legislative history?”

In March 2019, Bruce was told by Lawrence that he would need to step down as KHP superintendent. He complied with that directive and retired from the Kansas law enforcement agency after 30 years of service.

The motivation for the move was an allegation Bruce improperly used his authority at KHP to shield the second in command, Lt. Col. Randy Moon, who was investigated for a 2018 assault of a woman at a hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Moon left the highway patrol along with Bruce.

Bruce’s lawsuit in federal court asserted Kansas law required Bruce to be returned to the rank of KHP major if removed as superintendent of the law enforcement agency. Johnson, his attorney, claimed the Kelly administration caused Bruce’s “constructive discharge from employment” by denying him what amounted to a property interest in that job without due process.

In response, Cooper said the Kelly administration considered the job of KHP colonel, lieutenant colonel and major to be unclassified, or at-will, positions in which employees served at the pleasure of the governor. Unclassified personnel in state government can be dismissed at any time.

Bruce’s theory that he was entitled to employment at the rank of major with permanent status in the classified service “cannot withstand scrutiny,” Cooper said.

If KHP majors were found to be part of the classified employee system, Cooper said, Bruce would be obligated by state law to complete a six-month probationary period after transitioning to the rank of major. During that probation, KHP leadership would have the authority to dismiss Bruce. Johnson said his client shouldn’t have to be part of the probationary system.

Bruce was hired by KHP in 1989 and promoted to major in 2008. Gov. Sam Brownback selected Bruce to be superintendent of the agency in 2015. Three years later, Kelly was elected governor. She retained Bruce as the KHP’s commander.

But in March 2019, Bruce was summoned to Lawrence’s office and told he would be replaced as colonel of KHP. He officially resigned in April and retired in May of that year.

Johnson, Bruce’s attorney, told the Supreme Court that all KHP majors became eligible for higher salaries in 2016 if they surrendered their civil service job protections to become unclassified state workers. He said an individual major accepting that offer of a pay raise in exchange for giving up job protections of classified state workers didn’t mean others serving as a major, such as Bruce, would be considered unclassified employees.

In 2018, Bruce lobbied for the Legislature to pass a bill to prevent dismissal of majors unless a civil service hearing affirmed the decision. The resulting state statute was written in a way that was open to disagreement and a puzzle to federal and state courts.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/04/07/kansas-supreme-court-works-to-clarify-state-law-for-lawsuit-filed-by-former-khp-colonel/