September 25, 2018

Seeking Nominations for Kansas Water Legacy and “Be the Vision”


Professional Abstracts, Student Posters and Photo Contest entries also being sought

Manhattan, Kan. - The Kansas Water Office (KWO) is accepting nominations for the Water Legacy Award as well as the “Be the Vision” to be presented at the Governor’s Conference on the Future of Water in Kansas November 13-14, 2018 in Manhattan, Kansas.

The Water Legacy Award recipient will be selected based on significant contributions and lasting impacts on the future of water in the state. Past recipients of the award include Wayne Bossert in 2015, Joe Harkins in 2016 and Pat Sauble in 2017.

“Be the Vision” recipients, which can be individuals, municipalities, companies or organizations, will be selected as an entity or individual taking extraordinary measures to conserve, reuse or adopt better practices to help ensure the future of our state’s water resources.

In addition to these awards, professional abstracts, student posters and photo contest entries are being accepted. Each of these will be part of the upcoming conference.

For more information to register for the conference or about each of these nominations and deadlines, please visit www.kwo.ks.gov.

The Governor’s Conference on the Future of Water in Kansas is hosted by the KWO, K-State /Kansas Water Resource Institute. Major sponsors for the event include Black & Veatch, Burns & McDonnell and Great Lakes Dredge & Dock. 

Judge OKs Class Action In Leavenworth Taping Case That Could Affect 1,000 Attorneys

Attorneys say their privileged meetings and phone calls with clients at the Leavenworth Detention Center were unlawfully recorded.
REBEKAH HANGE / KCUR 89.3
Leavenworth, Kan. Attorneys alleging their meetings and phone calls with clients at the Leavenworth Detention Center were unlawfully recorded can move forward with a class-action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled last week.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough found that a class action was the best way to proceed because “(i)t would be judicially uneconomical for the Court to entertain hundreds if not thousands of individualized claims” over the same issue.

That issue is whether the private operator of the facility, CoreCivic, and its provider of telephone and recording services, Securus Technologies, unlawfully intercepted privileged attorney-client communications in violation of federal and state wiretap laws and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

“This has always been a real important case to us in terms of the underlying implications of constitutional rights and the American criminal justice system,” said Michael A. Hodgson, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit.

“We took this case because of the nature of the privileged conversations themselves and the importance of the attorney-client relationship,” he added. “So I would say we’re cautiously optimistic and encouraged by the court’s ruling.

We’ve got a long ways to go … but this was a great first step in that process.”

In his ruling, Bough wrote that he "acknowledges the importance of the attorney-client privilege and recognizes the sanctity of what is at stake in the present controversy — public trust in the legal system and the administration of justice."

Hodgson said the class certified by Bough could eventually number as many as 1,000 attorneys. 

The case, which was filed in 2016, is one of two class-action lawsuits spawned by disclosures that privileged attorney-client phone calls and meetings were recorded at the Leavenworth facility. The other case was filed on behalf of detainees and is in the midst of settlement negotiations.  

Both suits, which contend the recordings violated federal and state wiretap laws, have the potential to expose CoreCivic and Securus to millions of dollars in damages.  

A spokeswoman for CoreCivic, the largest private operator of prisons and detention facilities in the United States, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

CoreCivic owns and operates Leavenworth Detention Center, which houses pre-trial detainees and has more than 1,100 beds.

The company insists it did nothing wrong because it says outgoing calls subject to recording were preceded by a pre-recorded message to that effect. But in-person meetings were recorded as well, and neither clients nor their attorneys were warned that those might also be recorded.

The recordings first came to light in a criminal case alleging that guards, inmates and outside parties had smuggled drugs and contraband into the Leavenworth Detention Center.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson, who is overseeing that case, appointed a special master – an independent third party – to investigate the extent of the problem and whether the recordings were provided to law enforcement officials and prosecutors.

In court filings, David Johnson, the attorney who filed the class action case on behalf of attorneys who say they were unlawfully recorded, says that data provided by Securus show that nearly 19,000 calls to 567 attorneys on a list compiled by the special master were recorded. And Johnson says that probably understates the number, since calls were also made to attorneys not on the special master’s list.


Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.

Kansas Could Cut Back On Felonies For Property Crimes

A graphic from the Pew Charitable Trusts shows the trend in property crime and larceny in Kansas. The shaded side of the graph shows rates since Kansas raised the bar for getting a theft-related felony in 2004.
A graphic from the Pew Charitable Trusts shows the trend in property crime and larceny in Kansas. The shaded side of the graph shows rates since Kansas raised the bar for getting a theft-related felony in 2004.
Topeka, Kan. - Kansas could end up handing out fewer felonies — and more misdemeanors —  for certain property crimes.

That could mean sending fewer people to state prison, though some might end up in county jail instead.

Until 2016, stealing $1,000 worth of property was the threshold between misdemeanor and felony theft. Then Kansas raised the dividing line to $1,500.

A criminal justice commission looking at prison overcrowding in the state voted this week to ask the Legislature to do the same for a host of other crimes. They include criminal property damage, stealing mislaid property, counterfeiting and Medicaid fraud.

As of August, both the male and female prison populations were above capacity. The proposed changes would free up an estimated four beds a year and spare people a black mark that can make finding work difficult for the rest of their lives, says Scott Schultz, executive director of the Kansas Sentencing Commission.

It can be harder to find employment with a felony record because many employers require disclosure of felonies.

Getting a misdemeanor instead of prison means potential time in county jail, but not state prison. That doesn’t necessarily translate to less incarceration time. In some cases, people could spend more time behind bars in a county jail than they would have in a state prison.

The Kansas Sentencing Commission is making its case for the change based on research from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Pew found dozens of states have made similar changes since 2001. That didn’t lead to more crime. Rather, property crime and larceny rates fell in states that changed their thresholds. It dropped slightly more in states that didn't change, but the difference was statistically insignificant.

Kansas has raised its threshold for felony theft before — in 2004 — and related crime continued to decline, Pew says.

CREDIT PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.