What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

Recent Posts from What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

• Common Law: Flying fugitives back to jail

  Bringing back fugitives wanted on felony warrants falls on the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Judicial Division. Deputy pilots Steve Saffell and Nathan Bevis fly on the sheriff’s airplane to retrieve some 200 inmates a year. What…

• Common Law: Out of county, off his meds

  Previously on Common Law, public defender Lacy Gilmour showed how jail overcrowding in Wichita can inhibit talking to clients about their cases. This time, moving inmates to smaller counties prevented a mentally ill client from…

• Common Law: Terms of probation

  We’ve received several questions about what happens to people getting probation. As we’ve explained before, it’s not a free walk. While people don’t stay locked up, their life is restricted. Most of the people we’ve…

• Common Law: A shot fired into the air

  A bar bouncer with no history of breaking the law got involved in a fracas, faced with two threatening patrons. The bouncer pulled a gun and fired a warning shot into the air. He now…

• Common Law: Domestic violence or just a “stupid” act?

  Jeremy Thompson and his wife got in an argument. She was driving. He grabbed the steering wheel. A police officer saw the car swerve off the road and stopped it, finding the couple’s child in…

• Common Law: Not only a sex offender registry

  It used to be only sex offenders had to register their addresses. Since 2006, people in Kansas convicted of some drug and weapons offenses also have to keep their whereabouts current with the sheriff’s department.…

• Common Law: Preparing for trial

  Public defender Lacy Gilmour expects one of her cases to go to trial next week. Her client is accused of stealing money from an elderly woman. He said she loaned him the money for school.…

• Common Law: A father’s trust betrayed

  He had sex with her on Mother’s Day and after her best friend’s birthday. She was 14 years old. He was her father. Did he deserve a harsher sentence because of that relationship? No judge…

• Common Law: Will prison help an addict?

  If mental illness seems like a recurring theme here, that’s because it often surfaces in our courts. A majority of Kansas prison inmates suffer from a mental disorder. Mark McGee was one of them. He…

• Common Law: A quick verdict of ‘not guilty’

  Public defender Lacy Gilmour compares her case to that of the prosecution in a recent theft trial before Judge Kaufman, and how it won an acquittal for her client. (Watch video after the jump)