University Daily Kansan
Friday, October 27, 1971
7
Vern Miller's stance firm on all issues
By TOM RAMSTACK
Staff Writer
Vern Miller is a kaleidoscope of a man. The way that you choose to twist the kaleidoscope determines the colorful pattern you will see.
To some, his place in Kansas history is beside people like Carry Nation who, in the early 1900s, began a vigilante campaign for prohibition by drinking cruelest establishments with an axe. To ob'rs he is a criminal for truth, justified for truth, and the American way.
Miller called the Kanan reporter "dad," and made certain he didn't talk too long because, "I told the kids I'd take them to the circus."
As you speak to Miller, it is hard to believe that this fiftyish, energetic, father figure is the man whose nighttime raids on Lawrence landed 40 people behind bars on drug charges, or the man who once had an addiction, or the man offer $2,500 to anyone who could kill him.
He began a career in law enforcement as a motorcycle con in 1959.
MILLER'S SPARE time activities include
the boxing matches and riding dirt
kits
In 1966 he was elected sheriff of Wichita. In 1970 he became the first Democrat in 80 years to be elected Kansas attorney general.
Miller received his law degree by correspondence from Washburn University in
In 1974 he made an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Robert F. Bennett in the race for the governor's office. He is now the district attorney in Wichita.
In 1971, 1972 and 1973 he and about 70 Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents and police officers conducted nighttime drug raids on private homes in Lawrence and University residence halls. Each time about 80 prisoners were arrested on drug-related charges.
In 1974, he uncovered instances of bribery in the state architect's office involving the grant of a construction project on a KU Medical Centefe building.
IN THE spring of 1970, Miller came to KU to maintain order on a campus torn by violent Vietnam demonstrations. Many accused Miller of inciting more and bitter violence. That same spring, an incendiary device exploded in the Kansas Union, causing $2 million worth of damage and National security were called out to inhibit further violence.
Miller has received sharp criticism
that the state for overzealous and
dilutious reasons.
On three occasions as attorney general, Muller hid in the trunk of an undercover agent's car as part of a plan to seize violent criminals. In a Sept. 23, 1974 speech at KU, Muller called his actions in the cases, "one of the most awful political moves anyone ever made."
As attorney general Miller issued 1,700 "special agent" cards deputying untrained people as law officers. Rep. Mike Glover, D-Mich., introduced the new Vern Miller and his private Gestao."
MILLER HAS also been responsible for rails on pornographic theaters, massage parlors, bingo games, racetracks where gambling was prevalent, trains traveling and commercial airplanes where liquor was served entering or leaving Kansas.
Whether from modesty or a sense of grandeur, several times throughout the following interview Miller refers to himself with the plural pronoun "we."
Kansan- How do you think you will be tuded in Kansas history?
Miller — I really think that I can relate to the record of my terms in different offices. When we were sherif, we were an active office. We initiated new investigations into fraud and abuse, as well as promotion. When I was sherif we made the first heroin purchase cases ever made in Kansas. When I was attorney general, we initiated the largest drug raids in the history of this state ever. We had large gambling machines here. We stopped the playing of bingo. We stopped the playing of slot machines in country clubs. We stopped the parimutuel betting at the Anthony捕捉和其他 backs where it has always been a way of life.
We wanted people to vote on the issue of whether gambling should be lawful. They voted on bingo and chose to make bingo legal. This is not because the reason that law is the way it is now is because of the stand we took, and our stand was that if it is a law and it is on the books, then everybody should be treated equally and just those people who weren't big shots.
Kansan> Do you think that you've been overly zealous in enforcing some of the laws? For example, enforcing laws which require you to be served in planes flying over the state.
Müller—Let me tell you what we find out in law enforcement. Generally, there's someone who is being abused by unfair law and has been subjected to abuse; the buses were being abused because they were competing with Amtrak and the airlines and could not serve liquor. So naturally, I went to Amtrak and tried to trak and the planes are going to serve liquor, then the buses have the right to serve liquor. And then cabs have the right to serve liquor and right on down the line. The law requires that liquor be served.
Our enforcement of that law was to see that everybody was treated equally. Some people, though, did not treat it but it was a very important thing. It involved multiple other corporations and organizations with dollar wages.
Kansas—I'm sure that you know that Lawrence cannot mollymantan may have kept the government.
Miller—I don't think there any question about that. That's where we suffered our last blows.
Kansan-- Do you think that was a reaction to the drug raids?
Miller — I think so. I know when I can for governor, I lost by some 3,000 votes. They tell me over in Lawrence that they beat me on the campus by around 12,000 to 15,000 votes. There were only a few counties that we lost in. We lost heavily in Manhattan, in Emporia and heavily in Lawrence, the campus towns. But you know, that sure didn't mean that we could say now that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, to be beat in that race.
Miller—Because it let me come back to Wichita, start a law practice, become financially independent, do as I want to do, get married, adroit a little boy, run for district attorney when I could afford to, when I realized that I was in the 100 percent since that loss.
**Kanban** - Do you think the losses in the campus areas were a direct result of the
Kansan—Why is that?
Miller—I think it was just the attitude the students should rebel against the authority of the school.
They probably didn't like the way it was done either. A raid is kind of a harsh thing. A lot of people resented the fact that we had the courage to come on campus. Of course, you recall when they were having some of the Vietnam demonstrations. I went to Lawrence and helped break up a demonstration or two. That caused a lot of hard feelings because they felt we shouldn't take force to break up those demonstrations.
Kansan - in retrospect, do you think that it was justified to break up the Vietnam War?
Müller—Yes. The question isn't whether the war was right or wrong. The question is, whether it was right. The question is, and threaten people and stand in the street and violate our law? The question of the war had nothing to do with the violations of the law. It was ultimately arrested or charmed in those cases.
Kansan—Do you think your law enforcement efforts in Lawrence should have gone further than they did, that more people should have been arrested?
Miller—I think we were right in our move against protesters. If you recall, I was over at the rally and I was blocked and it was time to break it up. They had broken some windows, I saw a fire had been started and some action needed to be taken. I just went over and kind of helped in the process.
Drugs are a different thing. I think we would have been more effective if we had more money and more personnel available to arrest the suppliers of drugs. But we could only do so much because of the numbers of people we had.
Kansan- How well do you think you've on the drug supply coming into Kansan
Miller—I don't know whether we've cut down very much or not, but we've put a number of people in jail that were suppliers to the company. It seems to going to put some more in jail before too long.
Kansan- How important do you think drug enforcement is?
Miller—I believe that the majority of our crimes are caused by drugs and the abuse of drugs, alcohol, and other illicit homicides and we work robberies and rapes. The majority of our heavy crime is
Kansan—Recently the attorney general suggested that the penalties for marijuana violations be reduced so fewer cases will be thrown out of court. How you feel about
Miller—"that's a fallacy and it shows that he hasn't been involved too much in the prosecution of marijuana cases if he says that. The fact is that most young people on first try are not prosecuted, unless they always, or are paroled with a small fine. There's great laxity given the courts in the penalty they might assess. And there's no need to go in and reduce the maximum. The facts show that any reduction in the penal sentence would be used of more marijuana. That's a proven fact."
Kansan—How do you feel about allegiance to the Vampire? How would you be good policeman, if you were a Werewolf?
Miller—At the time they were made, probably that was true. I came right out of the sheriff's office and went into the attorney general's office.
Kansan- What deficiencies do you see in Kansas laws now?
Miller--I think we need some laws changed in the area of consumer protection. Particularly the law that allows liens to be paid for damages that can panies when the lawyer has paid a contractor
to do the work. You'll get in and unscrupulous contractor who will come in and do work on an old person's home, the old person will pay him not knowing the releases he should obtain, the contractor will pocket the money and not pay the lumberyard. The lumberyard will file a lien on the lumber and force the old person to sell his house. It's a bad
Vern Miller
I think there needs to be some state law revision in the area of sexual crimes. We've been talking about it since 2016, but it, I understand they're still allowed up in Topenka. I think it ought to be uniform
Kansas—Should they all be shut down?
Miller—Personally, yeah. I think when you get a situation where you just hire some good looking girl to come in off the street to massage a man in a little offbeat place down the road, there is no way more than just a good massage. We know it to be true. There's no need to kid each other. If those places are unlawful, then they will get their own lawyervised so you keep out drugs and prostitution.
Kansan- Do you agree with the court injunction which prohibits you from taking the names of people in a threater where pornographic films are being shown?
Miller—No, I don't agree at all. If a person is in a place and the police need their names he should not be able to right to take their names. I think if we would have appealed that case to the Supreme Court, we would have won. But it wasn't worth the money involved. I thought the police were too much.
Kansaan—But isn't the fight to show morpheography, however disabling it may be, proclaims Ms. Gustave.
MILLER — Absolutely not. The First Amendment in no way protects pornography. We have a state statute which clearly says it is against the law to distribute it and to sell it. Our state law has not been held unconstitutional. Those cases are now on appeal to the Supreme Court of the state of Kansas. But so far, the law on pornography does not apply to show core pornography.
Miller always dominates his office
Kansan- You've been criticized for being too flamboyant on occasion, for example jumping out of the trunk of cars to arrest suspects. Are those criticisms ljustified?
Miller—It is true that on occasion I have concealed myself in the trunk of a car. I did that perhaps three times while I was an attorney general. Each time involved the purportation of being known to be carrying guns and individuals who were known to be dealing in large amounts of money. There was no other way for surveillance. What would happen is that the drugusher would meet our agent at a location and then take him into custody. It happened that an agent met a pusher in Kansas City. We hid in the trunk in Kansas City and we ended up at a farm near Louisburg and we seized them after we had come out of the trunk. We took them to the hospital, taking to a buy a huge supply of hashish and Colombian marijuana and arrested several people there. They were all armed with shotguns. It was the only way to do it. I didn't feel like putting my officers' lives in danger because it would not happen. On every occasion, that's what happened.
Another occasion was that her ponderus in Wichita. He was a dangerous fellow. After he got out of the trunk we had to chase him down and there was a little bit of shooting.
In another case, we hid in a trunk while a member of a gang sold a stolen truckload of beef. We chased him. There was some shooting then and the man was almost killed, shot through the stomach. But he survived. The man was unharmed by the shooting. It was a quite a thing.
Sometimes, and I've always tried to live this way, if I'm going to take a job and get involved and be the leader of this law-enforcement group, I'm not going to push on someone else a responsibility I wouldn't accept. If I couldn't handle it, why it happened.
Some people might have thought 'Why is he doing that,' and it might have lost us some votes. I was doing that because in my experience, when someone else could be done and safely, I felt that it
there was going to be some射击 or if there was going to be fighting, perhaps I'm the best one to be there to see it and make sure someone doesn't get hurt unless it's necessary. But that's why I did it. And I am not going to do it again. I have no problem with it.
Kansan - How pervasive do you think organized crime is in Kansas?
Miller—I don't think it's strong at all. Organized crime is only successful where you have open violations of law. Where you have open gambining, open prostitution and other criminal activities, they can't invite the public to participate so they can make huge sums of money. If you don't have open narcotics trafficking, you're not going to see many organized crimes. You're not there. The pushers are too afraid to really get out and sell, because if they sell to a stranger they're going to get busted, because he's probably some narc. So all you can do is keep a heavy concentration of flak activities so they don't get a foothold.
Kansan--Have you ever been threatened by Mafia figures or had a contract out on
Miller—I've had some contracts out on me, but I don't know whether they were
Kansan - How much were the contracts for and by whom?
Miller--The most I ever heard of a contract for $2,000 from a fellow named Pepper Jackson, who was killed on by another fellow named Glendale Ryder who we just brought in for killing an owlman here. He's in Larned now undergoing evaluation
Kanan- Have you ever had contracts out on you specifically for the enforcement of law?
Miller—I've heard that I have. But I don't know. The FBT's notified me of contracts that've heard, but I don't know for sure.
Kansan- What are your plans for the future? Perhaps governor?
Miller—I don't think so. I sincerely want to get back into private practice. It's very lucrative for me and I really enjoy it. I wouldn't give it up. I wouldn'vld have any idea what it might be.
Kansan- Who do you think will win this year's gubernatorial race?
Miller—I think it's going to hard to beat Billen. I personally think Carlin would make a much better governor. He's more of a nationalist, and I'm confident of living has affected us all because of his approach to spending. Anyone can look at the way he lives with the finery that accompanies him in the governor's office and then see some of our governmental spending.
Kansan- What first got you interested in bein a policeman?
Miller—When I was a kid, I always had a lot of respect for policemen. When I got back from the Army, I needed a job and they had some openings at the sheriff's office. I just took an hour to walk here. I became very involved with it and really got to liking it and stayed with it.