KU ticket scandal inmate wants judge to toss out sentence.

Its been a year or more the University of Kansas ticket scandal ended but it turns out this thing just wont die.  A co-conspirator in the case that received a 46 month prison sentence has now submitted a motion alleging that his criminal defense lawyer at the time had actually caused him to spend longer in in prison and that he did not provide an adequate defense to the criminal charges.  Here is the article in the Kansas City Star..  Will update as new news comes out.

Ex-KU official wants judge to toss out sentence

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/28/3782560/ex-ku-official-wants-judge-to.html#storylink=cpy

By the Associated Press
WICHITA -- A former University of Kansas assistant athletics director wants a judge to throw out his sentence in a $2 million ticket scalping conspiracy, saying his lawyer did a poor job.Rodney Jones is serving a 46-month federal prison sentence in Oklahoma. He was among seven people snared in the investigation of unlawful sales of Jayhawk season tickets by key athletics officials.

Jones filed a motion Monday in federal court claiming his attorney prevented him from cooperating early with an internal university investigation. Two defendants who did cooperate received probation.  Jones also claims prosecutors did not honor an agreement to recommend leniency for his substantial assistance. He argues his attorney did not provide a vigorous defense, in an effort to avoid offending the prosecutor and jeopardizing the recommendation for leniency.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/28/3782560/ex-ku-official-wants-judge-to.html#storylink=cpy

Richard Cuchli, a Kansas City lawyer that was convicted of murdering his law partner in 2002, is a free man.  In what was an obvious and blatant disregard for the criminal justice process, the prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence and convicted Mr. Cuchli at an unfair trial.  The Court of Appeals has upheld the decision to exclude all evidence that the prosecutor has forcing the DA's office to dismiss the charges.

Irregardless of the defendant's guilt or innocence this just goes to show you that you have to play by the rules, and when you don't sometimes you get caught.

Here is the article in the Kansas City Star.

All charges dismissed in Kansas City lawyer’s murder case 

By: Tony Rizzo

A murder case that roiled the Kansas City legal community for more than a decade has been dropped.

Faced with an appeals court ruling that threw out all evidence in the case, Jackson County prosecutors said Monday that they had dismissed murder charges against a Kansas City lawyer accused in the 2000 killing of his law partner.  The case against Richard Buchli, accused in the beating death of Richard Armitage, had been plagued throughout by problems over evidence being turned over to defense attorneys in a timely manner.  After those problems came to light, Buchli’s 2002 conviction on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action was thrown out in 2006.  And in December, as attorneys prepared for a second trial, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s continued failure to provide all the evidence in its possession had prevented Buchli from receiving a fair trial.

Jackson County prosecutors called that ruling a “de-facto dismissal of the case.”

They asked the Missouri Supreme Court to review that ruling, but last week the high court declined to hear the case, allowing the appeals court ruling to stand.With no evidence left to use, prosecutors filed the dismissal Friday.  “We are happy the state has decided to dismiss the charges,” said Richard Johnson, one of the attorneys representing Buchli. “I have no doubt about Richard’s innocence, and I’m glad the case has ended in his favor.”

Because murder has no statute of limitations and the case could someday be refiled if new information turns up, Johnson said that Buchli did not want to make a comment about the dismissal.  Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker’s office also declined to comment. Members of the Armitage family could not be reached.  Armitage was 49 when he was beaten to death in May 2000 in the 13th floor office he and Buchli shared in the Kansas City Power & Light Building downtown.  After a Jackson County jury convicted Buchli in 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Much of the trial testimony centered on spatters of Armitage’s blood found on Buchli’s shoes and clothing. The prosecution contended that showed he was the killer; the defense countered that the blood was transferred when Buchli attempted to revive his injured partner.  Another key piece of evidence was a piece of surveillance video that prosecutors used to establish that Buchli had time to kill Armitage and clean up afterward before he was seen leaving for lunch.  Only later was it discovered that prosecutors had an entire daylong surveillance tape that had not been disclosed to the defense before trial. As a result, a Jackson County judge threw out Buchli’s conviction in 2006 after he had served about five years in prison.

The full tape showed that Buchli would have had little time to commit the killing and clean up, potentially refuting the longer “window of opportunity” argument that prosecutors made at trial.  The judge’s ruling was upheld on appeal and in 2008, after all Jackson County judges recused themselves from presiding over the retrial, the case was assigned to Nodaway County Circuit Judge Roger Prokes.  Two years later, after Buchli’s attorneys raised additional concerns about evidence they had not received while preparing for trial, Prokes ordered the exclusion of all evidence.  “The rules have been ignored, this court has been ignored and judicial resources have been squandered,” Prokes said. “The judiciary cannot wait while the state dawdles.”
In his order, Prokes noted a long list of similar “discovery” lapses in the case.

“If this case did not have the history that it does, this court may well impose different sanctions for the state’s current violations,” he wrote.  But Prokes found that after 10 years of litigation, “the state still has inexcusably failed to produce a complete discovery set.”  “A decade is enough time. This court is left with but one conclusion: The only effective sanction is to exclude all of the state’s evidence from trial,” Prokes ordered.  Jackson County prosecutors appealed the order, but in December the Missouri Court of Appeals voted 8-2 to affirm Prokes’ decision.

“There is unquestionably a societal interest in prosecuting cases of murder, but this does not give the state free reign to prosecute this defendant for an indefinite period of time, no matter how many decades it takes the state to comply with its legal obligations,” the appeals court ruled.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/07/3599125/all-charges-dismissed-in-kc-lawyers.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/07/3599125/all-charges-dismissed-in-kc-lawyers.html#storylink=cpy

Kidnapper sues hostages, says they had a deal to hide him from the police.

Probably one of the most rediculous cases to come across the web in awhile.  I would assume that motion to dismiss would be granted pretty quickly.

In one of the more audacious and head-spinning lawsuits to hit the courts, a fugitive facing a murder charge who took a couple hostage is now suing his victims for not hiding him from police.

Jesse Dimmick is seeking $235,000 from Jared and Lindsay Rowley in a breach of contract suit involving his 2009 invasion of their home in Kansas, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Dimmick claims the couple, newlyweds at the time, agreed to hide him for an unspecified amount of money."Later, the Rowleys reneged on said oral contract, resulting in my being shot in the back by authorities," Dimmick wrote in a notarised legal document filed last month, the paper said.  "As a result of the plaintiffs breech (sic) of contract, I, the defendant suffered a gunshot to my back, which almost killed me," he wrote. "The hospital bills alone are in excess of $160,000, which I have no way to pay."

The Rowleys are awaiting a ruling on their motion to have the suit dismissed, saying they never accepted Dimmick's offer of money and even if they had, their consent would have been given under duress. According to the paper, Dimmick, who was being pursued by police, entered the Rowleys' home and confronted them at knifepoint.  A neighbour said the couple gained his trust by eating snacks and drinking soft drinks with him while watching the movie Patch Adams, then fled when he fell asleep.  Dimmick was convicted of four felonies, including two counts of kidnapping, and is currently being held in Colorado on a murder charge, the paper said.

The Rowleys have filed a suit against Dimmick seeking civil damages in excess of $75,000.

Article of  http://www.news.com.au/

Kidnapper Sues hostages, says they had a deal

(AP)  TOPEKA, Kan. - Can there be no trust between a kidnapper and his hostages?

A man who held a Kansas couple hostage in their home while fleeing from authorities is suing them, claiming they broke an oral contract made when he promised them money in exchange for hiding him from police. The couple has asked a judge to dismiss the suit.

Jesse Dimmick of suburban Denver is serving an 11-year sentence after bursting into Jared and Lindsay Rowley's Topeka-area home in September 2009. He was wanted for questioning in the beating death of a Colorado man and a chase had begun in in Geary County.  The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that Dimmick filed a breach of contract suit in Shawnee County District Court, in response to a suit the Rowleys filed in September seeking $75,000 from him for intruding in their home and causing emotional stress. Dimmick contends he told the couple he was being chased by someone, most likely the police, who wanted to kill him.  "I, the defendant, asked the Rowleys to hide me because I feared for my life. I offered the Rowleys an unspecified amount of money which they agreed upon, therefore forging a legally binding oral contract," Dimmick said in his hand-written court documents. He wants $235,000, in part to pay for the hospital bills that resulted from him being shot by police when they arrested him.

Neighbors have said the couple fed Dimmick snacks and watched movies with him until he fell asleep and they were able to escape their home unharmed.  Dimmick was convicted in May 2010 of four felonies, including two counts of kidnapping. He was sentenced to 10 years and 11 months on those charges. He was later sent to a jail in Brighton, Colo., where he is being held on eight charges, including murder, in connection of with the killing of Michael Curtis in September 2009. A preliminary hearing originally scheduled for Dec. 6 has been rescheduled for April 12. No plea has been entered in the case.

Robert E. Keeshan, an attorney for the Rowleys, filed a motion denying there was a contract, but said if there was it would not have been binding anyway.  "In order for parties to form a binding contract, there must be a meeting of the minds on all essential terms, including and most specifically, an agreement on the price," he wrote.  Keeshan said the contract also would have been invalid because the couple agreed to let Dimmick in the home only because they knew he had a knife and suspected he might have a gun.

Article found at
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57333238/kidnapper-sues-hostages-says-they-had-a-deal/

Leawood Kansas Cop Shoots suspect during traffic stop

A routine traffic stop suddenly took a violent turn for an officer who had to fire his weapon Sunday. The State Line Road exit ramp was shut down off of east I-435 for several hours Sunday morning as police investigated.

"It is very unusual in Leawood, we don't deal with this very often," said Maj. Troy Rettig with the Leawood Police Department.  A 22-year veteran of the Leawood Police Department had to react quickly after back-up officers who showed up at a traffic stop to assist him suddenly started screaming at him.

"They just yelled, 'Gun. Gun. Gun.' And then the officer that was involved knew what was going on," said Rettig.  According to Leawood police, the officer pulled over a white Mustang for speeding and erratic driving just after 3:15 a.m. Sunday off of I-435 and State Line Road. When the officer was speaking with that driver, a friend of the driver who was in a gray Chevy, parked in front of the Mustang.

As the officer went to speak with the person in that car, officers who arrived to assist saw the driver of the Mustang toss out a gun, and then he suddenly started driving right for the officer who pulled him over. "The initial driver threw a gun out of the car, and the officers who responded let the initial officer know a gun was in play. And that time the initial car drove at the officer and right at him. He shot at the car," said Rettig.

The officer who opened fire was not hurt, but the driver of the Mustang that fled the scene was not so lucky. "We were contacted later by the Kansas City, MO Police Department that they had the driver of the car at Truman Medical Center, and he has non-life-threatening injuries," said Rettig.

The suspect remains in the hospital and will be taken into custody.

In the meantime, Leawood police are relieved good teamwork by the officers at the traffic stop made it possible for police to walk away unharmed.  "They were very alert, and they made sure he was aware at the first sight of that gun," said Rettig.  In the meantime, the officer who opened fire is on routine paid administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.

The driver of the Mustang is in the hospital, and that car was missing earlier on Sunday until it was found in Grandview. Police have not said whether the driver of the other car will be charged in the incident.

Copyright 2011 KCTV. All rights reserved

Man in Kansas City Protests Checkpoints by making a warning sign to drivers.

Kansas City police find they did nothing wrong by taking DUI checkpoint protester's sign

This week's cover story (Recent article in The Pitch) focused on a couple of Kansas Citians spearheading a movement opposing the use of DUI checkpoints by local law-enforcement agencies. One, Michael Mikkelsen, stands along roads near checkpoints holding a sign warning motorists to turn before going through the roadblock.

In the story, Mikkelsen recalled a Kansas City Police Department officer taking his sign during a protest during the summer.  Mikkelsen spent the rest of the night driving to police stations looking for it. He eventually found his sign at a police gas station on Prospect. This annoyed Mikkelsen, and he filed a complaint with the KCPD's Office of Community Complaints.

The police looked into it, and they conceded that they took the sign. But they decided that their officer didn't violate any department policies. The letter sent to Mikkelsen came with something of a warning: "Furthermore, the officers did not cite you, but they could have for you interfering with them conducting official police business — a DUI checkpoint." Read the whole letter after the jump.

Here is a Picture of the Sign.

Here is a picture of the Response Letter.

Tell us what you think in the comment section below...Did the police violate this mans right to free speech?  Is this fair?  Should the police be able to randomly stop drivers?