1 / 17

Kansas Disciplinary Administrator Uses Abortion Lawyers’ Motion as Template for Complaint against Phill Kline

Kansas Disciplinary Administrator Uses Abortion Lawyers’ Motion as Template for Complaint against Phill Kline. Tiller’s Motion to Dismiss of Sept. 15, 2008. In re Kline Formal Complaint of Jan. 19, 2010. Origin of the first sentence of ¶ 3. Tiller Motion to Dismiss.

arista
Download Presentation

Kansas Disciplinary Administrator Uses Abortion Lawyers’ Motion as Template for Complaint against Phill Kline

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Kansas Disciplinary Administrator Uses Abortion Lawyers’ Motion as Template for Complaint against Phill Kline

  2. Tiller’s Motion to Dismiss of Sept. 15, 2008

  3. In re Kline Formal Complaint of Jan. 19, 2010

  4. Origin of the first sentence of ¶ 3. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  5. Analysis of Complaint: ¶ 3, Sentence 1 Tiller Motion: In November, 2002, abortion-rights opponent Phill Kline was elected Kansas Attorney General. Formal Complaint: In November of 2002, the respondent was elected Kansas Attorney General. COMMENT Notice this subtle editing change: “November, 2002” becomes “November of 2002” To conform to the Complaint format, “Phill Kline” becomes “respondent” Key omission: “Abortion-rights opponent” is dropped: too inflammatory for a disciplinary complaint.

  6. Origin of the second sentence of ¶ 3. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  7. Analysis of Complaint: ¶ 3, Sentence 2 Tiller Motion: During his campaign, Kline pledged to interpret the laws regulating abortion more narrowly than had his predecessors. Formal Complaint: In his campaign the respondent promised to interpret the laws regulating abortion more strictly than previous Attorney Generals. Notice the subtle changes:

  8. Origin of the first sentence of ¶ 4. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  9. Analysis of Complaint: ¶ 4, Sentence 1 Tiller Motion: On April 2, 2003, Kline met with Senior Deputy Attorney General Eric Rucker and Special Agent Tom Williams to formulate a plan targeting Dr. Tiller. Formal Complaint:Shortly after taking office as the Attorney General for the State of Kansas, the respondent met with his then Senior Deputy Attorney General, Eric Rucker and Special Agent Tom Williams to formulate a plan to target WHCS and Dr. Tiller. Minor differences:

  10. Origin of the third sentence of ¶ 4. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  11. Analysis of Complaint: ¶ 4, Sentence 3 Tiller Motion: This meeting was recorded in an internal memo. Formal Complaint:This meeting was captured in an internal memorandum entitled "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION" dated April 2, 2003. COMMENT Parallelism continues. The Complaint picks up the date (omitted from sentence 1), and adds the memo title.

  12. Origin of the fourth sentence of ¶ 4. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  13. Analysis of Complaint: ¶ 4, Sentence 4 Tiller Motion: According to the memo, the meeting was initiated in response to “allegations received by the A.G.’[s] Office that Dr[.] George Tiller . . . continues to perform abortions on females under 16 years of age without filing a report to competent authority concerning ‘abuse of a child’ as required by K.S.A. 38-1522(a).” Formal Complaint:The investigation was initiated in response to “allegations received by the A.G.’[s] Office that Dr[.] Tiller… continues to perform abortions of females under 16 years of age without filing a report to a competent authority concerning ‘abuse of a child’ as required by K.S.A. 38-1522(a).” COMMENT These two sentences are almost indistinguishable. Apart from the introductory phrase in the Tiller motion, and substitution of the word “investigation” for “meeting,” only minor editing differences are discernible. The added brackets and ellipses in the quote are the same in the motion and the complaint.

  14. Origin of the seventh sentence of ¶ 4. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint COMMENT The underlined portions of the sentences are the same. Let’s look at the circled footnotes . . .

  15. Origin of the lengthy footnote in ¶ 4. Tiller Motion to Dismiss In re Kline Formal Complaint

  16. Analysis of the footnote in ¶ 4 The Complaint incorporates verbatim from the Tiller Motion to Dismiss a 138-word footnote describing the Kansas abortion reporting law. Only two trivial differences exist. The Formal Complaint incorrectly omits the article “a” in the second quotation from K.S.A. 65-445(c) (“upon a showing”), and closes up the space between the lettered subsections in the final citation to the code.

  17. To set out and analyze additional parallels between the Tiller Motion to Dismiss and the Formal Complaint would be tedious and cumulative. Many, many more examples can be cited. That the Disciplinary Administrator used the Tiller motion as a template for large portions of the Formal Complaint is beyond dispute. Judge Clark Owens heard six days of testimony on the Tiller motion before entering his order of denial in February, 2009. Undoubtedly the Disciplinary Administrator intends to call many of the same witnesses who testified in that proceeding. Preclusion law prohibits relitigation of the Tiller motion in this hearing. The facts found by Judge Owens in his Order on the motion control this proceeding.* *On the application of collateral estoppel to attorney disciplinary proceedings, see In re Abady, 800 N.Y.S.2d 651, 658 (App. Div. 2005).

More Related