BA THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 14 2002
NEWS
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2002
Sebelius announces state analysis project
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Gov-elect Kathleen Sebelius has created five teams to conduct her long-promised top-to-bottom review of state government. The Democrat's team leaders include a corporate executive and a Republican legislator.
Sebelius said she hopes the teams will find some efficiencies quickly enough that she can include them in her budget recommendations she will send legislators for fiscal year 2004
But Sebelius also said the review will be ongoing and examine eliminating, consolidating and restructuring programs and entire agencies.
Eventually, she said, it could result in a permanent commission with independent auditors.
Teams will examine social services, general government, public safety, economic development, and agriculture and natural resources agencies. A sixth team for education has yet to be named.
Sebelius had a Statehouse news conference to outline her plans. She callue of the groups a Kansas Budget Efficiency Savings Team, or Kansas BEST for short. She expects team meetings to begin next week.
"They are not to be hampered by some kind of preset conclusions, and we really want these recommendations to be as creative and strategic as possible." Sebellius said.
While she said she would include recommendations in her budget proposals for fiscal 2004. Sebelius again said she will leave budget problems in the current
year to outgoing Gov. Bill Graves
year to outgoing Gov. Bill Graves.
Those problems include a projected deficit of $310 million on June 30, which probably will require cuts in the state's $4.4 billion budget. Graves already trimmed $41 million in spending after legislators approved $252 million in tax increases in May.
"The governor is working on that," she said, "I will continue to work with the governor. My focus is on '04. His focus is on '03."
Heading the economic development team is Lt. Gov.elect John Moore, a former executive vice president for the Cessna Aircraft Co. Leader of the general government team is Howard Fricke, chairman of the Security Benefit Group financial services company.
The leader of the public safety team is Sen. David Adkins, R-Leawood, former chairman of the
"I was committed to get this process up and running as
quickly as possible.' Kathleen Sebelius Kansas Governor-elect
Kansas Youth Authority, which drafted legislation overhauling the juvenile justice system in 1996. He also narrowly lost a GOP primary race to Attorney General-elect Phill Kline.
Sebelius said participants will be volunteers and noted that Kansas law allows her to tap state agencies' staff for support.
"I was committed to get this process up and running as quickly as possible," she said. "And the state clearly doesn't have additional resources to spend doing it, so we wanted to put together a process that could work quickly and not cost anything."
Sebelius planned a news conference on Thursday to announce a toll-free telephone hot line and e-mail address that residents can use to contact the teams.
She said each team may have public hearings, but said much of their discussions will be closed.
"We want to make sure that they can operate with as much independence and ingenuity as possible, and sometimes that's a big hamper if they're being observed by people they may be critical of," she said.
During her gubernatorial campaign. Sebelius promised the top-to-bottom review of government when asked how she would handle the state's budget problems. Some legislators, particularly Republicans, who have majorities in both legislative houses, were skeptical that the effort would result in significant savings.
Outgoing Lt. Gov Gary Sherer, a Republican, said he applauds Sebelius for having "new eyes looking at old ways." But he said he doesn't think it will help her deal with a projected budget deficit of $310 million on June 30.
"Are there better ways of doing things? Yeah," Sherrer said. "Are there $250 million worth of better ways of doing things?" Doubtful."
Sebelius acknowledged that skepticism and that some critics view the review as a mere "PR gimmick."
Jury deliberates Carr trial verdict
The Associated Press
WICHITA — Jurors will begin deliberations today on whether to recommend two brothers convicted of killing five people, including four shot execution style in a snow-covered soccer field, be put to death.
In their closing arguments yesterday, defense attorneys said just one juror can decide to show Reginald and Jonathan Carr mercy and save their lives. Should they not receive a death sentence, the brothers would spent at least 50 years in prison if given the minimum possible sentence for their crimes, the attorneys said.
"Any one of you can decide to save this young man's life," said Tom Evans, Jonathan Carr's attorney. "You can decide there is some good there. There is something worth saving. You don't have an opportunity to do that very often in this life — to save another life. Our instinct is to preserve life. It is there in all of us." Jay Greeno, the attorney for Reginald Carr, said his client will be 25 on Thursday and is the product of an abusive household. "This crime had to be committed by a damaged individual or individuals," Greeno said. "We just don't grow up that way."
Jurors convicted the brothers for the Dec. 15, 2000, deaths of Aaron Sander, 29, Brad Heyka, 27, Jason Befort, 28, and Heather Muller, 25. All four were shot execution style in the back of the head as they knelt side-by-side in the field. They were also convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting of another woman, Ann Walenta, four days before the quadruple murder.
Prosecutors urged jurors to show the brothers the same mercy they showed the four killed in the field.
"What murder would warrant the death penalty, if it is not this? It defies reason to think tortuous slaughter of these four young people who gave no fight," said Deputy District Attorney Kim Parker. "They submitted hoping for life and they got death. You cannot bring these young people back, but you can you can go back and deliver a just and legal punishment."
The brothers were also convicted of attempted first-degree murder of Befort's girlfriend, then a 25-year-old teacher, who also was shot in the head but survived, as well as forcing the five friends to engage in sex acts with each other and repeatedly raping the women.
District Attorney Noia Foulston told jurors in her closing arguments the brothers were convicted of 23 sexual crimes. She said the victims were made to suffer as no one should suffer and were humiliated before they died.
"That crime made their lives end in the most gruesome and vile way," Foulston said. "It made their lives end after degrading them."
Greeno told jurors that Reginald Carr should be locked up forever. But he said jurors should also think about the impact his execution would have on Carr's three young children.
"If you execute Reginald Carr, you create a whole new set of victims," Greene said.
Evans urged jurors to remember Jonathan Carr is only 22 and had no serious criminal record prior to these offenses.
A radiologist testified yesterday that brain scans prepared for the Carr's defense showing alleged brain damage had been manipulated and the results skewed.
"There is good in this young man," Evans said. "He is not a monster. He behaved monstrously that night."
Dr. Norman Pay said his analysis showed the brothers both had normal brains. He testified for the state as a rebuttal witness in the penalty phase of the capital murder trial.
Juror-misconduct claim may cause re-trial
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Lawyers say there was misconduct by the jury foreman in an unusual criminal defamation case against a small free distribution newspaper and they've asked a judge to grant a new trial or dismiss the case.
The case decided last July involved erroneous claims published in The New Observer that Carol Marinovich, mayor of the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kan., and Wyandotte County, actually lives in the more affluent Johnson County.
The mayor and her husband, Wyandotte County District Judge Ernest Johnson, live in the Rosedale area of Kansas City, Kan. Both are required by law to live in the county where they serve.
The six-member jury which deliberated four hours after two days of testimony found Observer Publications Inc. as well as publisher David Carson and editor Edward H. Powers J guilty on seven counts each of misdemeanor libel. The penalty could be up to a year in jail.
Attorneys for the defendants told Judge Tracy Klinginsmith of Jackson County, Kan., on Tuesday about the alleged juror misconduct. They said that the foreman, Ronald D. Myers II, failed to disclose that he was dating an intern for the Wyandotte County district attorney's office, which filed the defamation charges.
Further, they said the intern is related to administrative assistants for Judge Johnson and for Dennis Hays, the Unified Government administrator. They argued that the jorir ties to the intern and the intern's ties to Hays and Johnson tilted the foreman toward the prosecution.
The defense attorneys told the judge what 20 witnesses would testify to regarding the alleged juror misconduct.
Assistant special prosecutor Pat Henderson of Atchison argued that even if juror misconduct occurred, Carson and Powers failed to show that their rights were substantially prejudiced. Henderson said that if the defendants' attorneys had asked more thorough questions during jury selection, they would have discovered the relationships.
"That is absurd."
Mark Birmingham
Attorney of defendant Edward H. Powers
Jr.
Henderson also said at least one defense attorney knew of the relationship between Myers and the intern. Henderson asserted that the defense did not say anything so that it would have the basis for an appeal should there be a conviction.
"That is absurd," said Mark Birmingham, Powers' attorney.
He said that the defense did not become aware of the relationship until the jury had selected Myers as foreman and had begun deliberating. He said they could not verify it without hiring a private investigator.
Klinginsmith, who was appointed to hear the case after Wyandotte County judges recused themselves, said he would examine transcripts of the jury selection to determine what questions were asked. He scheduled a conference call with the attorneys for Thursday to let them know what he found. He could rule then whether the
issue of juror misconduct warranted a formal hearing.
Powers and Carson are both disbarred lawyers who use their periodically distributed tabloid to disseminate their political views. They have long been critical of Marinovich and Nick Tomasic, the Wyandotte County district attorney. Tomascite filed the defamation case the day after a primary election last year in which Marinowich led a field of five candidates in her re-election bid.
After being assigned to the case, Klinginsmith appointed a special prosecutor because of a "history of contentiousness" between the defendants and the district attorney.
Criminal defamation laws are rare in the United States. To be constitutional, they require a showing of "actual malice," meaning that a story would not just have to be wrong but that the publisher would have to know that or show reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. At the trial, the defense said Powers and Carson believed the report that Marinovich lived outside the county was true.
Police say suspects familiar with victims
Three men held in fatal Garden City robbery
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) Three Liberal men suspected of robbing a Garden City family and killing one victim were in custody yesterday after the third suspect surrendered in Salina, police said.
At least two of the men were acquainted with the victims and had visited their home before Monday's pre-dawn robbery, according to police.
The Associated Press
Giang Nguyen, 24, turned him-
sell in Wednesday afternoon at the Saline County Jail, according to Garden City Police Capt. Mike Utz. Nguyen's brother, Nam Nguyen, 23, had surrendered about 24 hours earlier to police in Wichita.
The third suspect, Ngum Pham, 48, a parolee convicted of two Wichita homicides in 1982, was arrested Tuesday afternoon at a pool hall in Liberal, Uttz said.
All three suspects worked at National Beef in Liberal, and at least two formerly worked close to Garden City at the IBP packing plant near Holcomb, according to police.
Utz said citizens began calling
The robbers tied up Thai Nguyen, his parents, his brother and their two sisters. The brother Thang Nguyen, 30, tried to escape and was shot twice, according to autopsy results from the Wichita Regional Forensic Center.
with tips hours after the crime, which began when three masked men confronted Thai Nguyen at gunpoint about 5 a.m. Monday as he was leaving for work at the IBP plant.
Police were called when the two sisters ran to a neighbor's house. At least one bracelet and one necklace were stolen in the robbery Utz said.
eal through several citizen calls and the cooperation of Liberal, Wichita and Winfield police and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Utz said.
Nam Nguyen was charged Wednesday with felony murder, six counts of kidnapping, seven counts of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, Utz said. He remained in Wichita on a $1 million bond.
Officers traced Pham to Lib-
Ute said police were seeking complaints from the Finney County prosecutor against Pham, who was held in Finney County on $1 million bond set his probable cause hearing, and against Giang Nguyen.