Kansas prosecutor accused of misconduct in murder and rape cases faces ethics hearing
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A Kansas prosecutor will face a disciplinary panel Monday on accusations of misconduct in a high-profile double murder case in Topeka and a sexual assault case that divided a small town.
Jacqie Spradling, a former Shawnee County prosecutor now practicing in Allen and Bourbon counties, faces a hearing at the Kansas Judicial Center in Topeka that could result in her law license being suspended or revoked. It comes more than four years after the first ethics complaint was filed against her.
In that time, convictions in the double murder and sexual assault cases have been overturned as higher courts found fault with Spradling’s actions.
Spradling is accused of employing “misstatements and misdirection” to persuade a jury and of making incorrect statements during closing arguments in both cases.
Her conduct will be the subject of a week-long hearing overseen by the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office, which is responsible for investigating attorney misconduct. The three-attorney panel could issue an admonishment, recommend disciplinary action up to disbarment, or find that Spradling did not commit a violation.
A 52-page complaint filed by the disciplinary office alleges Spradling made seven errors during the double murder trial, including presenting evidence that was not true, making an improper comment in hopes of gaining sympathy, and disregarding a judge’s order to avoid making reference to people attending the trial.
She is accused of violating the rules of professional conduct in several areas, including truthfulness, candor, fairness to the opposing party and competence.
In overturning the double murder conviction of Dana Chandler, who was accused of killing her ex-husband and another woman, the Kansas Supreme Court determined Spradling engaged in prosecutorial misconduct, which exceeds negligence.
“This prosecution unfortunately illustrates how a desire to win can eclipse the State’s responsibility to safeguard the fundamental constitutional right to a fair trial,” the high court wrote.
Also at issue in the disciplinary hearing will be Spradling’s conduct as special prosecutor in a rape case that embroiled the small town of Holton, north of Topeka.
In reversing Jacob Ewing’s convictions, the Kansas Court of Appeals said Spradling misstated evidence about DNA and made comments intended “to inflame the passions and prejudices of the jury.”
The complaint Wendy Ewing, Jacob’s mother, submitted to the disciplinary office forms part of the basis for the hearing.
“I found in our trial with Ms. Spradling that her deceiving word games and accusations misled the jurors and I know she did it on purpose to get a win, not thinking or caring of consequences to anyone but herself,” Wendy Ewing wrote in the complaint.
Spradling did not respond to requests for comment made this week by phone and email.
Chandler trial
Spradling prosecuted one of Topeka’s most high-profile double murder cases after a man and a woman were found fatally shot in July 2002.
The double homicide case went cold for nine years, but gained notoriety when it was featured on the TV show “48 Hours.” In July 2011, prosecutors, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents and news reporters made a 375 mile trip to Oklahoma to witness Chandler’s arrest.
Spradling said Chandler was angry her ex-husband Mike Sisco was planning to remarry. She accused Chandler of driving from Denver, where she lived at the time, to Topeka to kill him and his fiancée Karen Harkness. No physical evidence linked Chandler to the crime.
Spradling told jurors that Sisco had obtained a protection from abuse order, painting Chandler as a dangerous, out of control woman whom Sisco feared. She went on to tell the jury that Chandler had violated the order.
But there was no protection order.
A jury found Chandler guilty in March 2012 and she was sentenced to life in prison.
Attorney Keen Umbehr worked on Chandler’s case after her conviction, investing hundreds of hours of research over several years. In countless visits, he carried his computer, printer and bankers boxes of documents into the jail to pore over evidence with her.
“I believe she’s innocent,” he said. “Injustice just annoys the hell out of me.”
In July 2016, he submitted a six-page complaint to the disciplinary office regarding statements Spradling made during the trial.
Chandler’s convictions were overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court in April 2018. She now awaits a second trial in Shawnee County, though a date has not been set.
Only after the court ruling was handed down did the Office of the Disciplinary Administrator find probable cause on Umbehr’s allegations and issue its own complaint in August 2019.
According to the disciplinary office’s complaint, Spradling knew the protection from abuse order did not exist when she asked a police detective on the stand about it. It also alleges she made improper comments about other evidence regarding Chandler’s motive and whereabouts after the murders.
By then, another high profile case prosecuted by Spradling had also been reversed.
Ewing case
After leaving the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office in 2016, Spradling was hired as a special prosecutor for a controversial sexual assault trial in Jackson County, Kansas.
The case of Jacob Ewing, 26, who was charged with rape, sodomy and other offenses, divided Holton, a town of about 3,300 people. It pitted his well-known family and their sympathizers against survivors and their supporters. As the divide grew, banners went up proclaiming support for Ewing while survivors posted online about the fear they experienced in coming forward.
During the June 2017 trial, three victims gave graphic testimony detailing violent sexual encounters involving Ewing.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 27 years.
But in March 2019, the Kansas Court of Appeals overturned the guilty verdicts, citing errors made by Spradling and the court, which denied Ewing his constitutional right to a fair trial.
Spradling misrepresented DNA evidence found on one of the victim’s underwear. She also alleged that Ewing enjoyed “autism abuse pornography” and that one of the victims was “low-functioning.”
However there was no evidence the young woman was low-functioning.
Ewing now awaits a July re-trial in Jackson County.
Wendy Ewing maintains her son is innocent and said Spradling has “taken the best years of his life from him, sitting in jail just waiting.”
“If you have to lie to do that to somebody,” Wendy Ewing said, “she obviously has no professional ethics.”
Complaints against attorneys
Wendy Ewing and Umbehr said the amount of time it has taken to investigate Spradling is outrageous. If the state’s disciplinary office had acted more quickly in the Chandler complaint, they say, Spradling would not have been brought onto the Ewing case.
“There is no way that should take two years, four years,” Wendy Ewing said. “It’s unacceptable and in the meantime practice and how many other lies has it affected?”
Stan Hazlett, the head of Kansas’ disciplinary office, said waiting was an intentional decision.
“The very issue [the Chandler case] that we would be addressing in the disciplinary hearing was going to be addressed by the Kansas Supreme Court and while people may disagree, it’s a conscious decision on our part to wait until the Supreme Court issued its opinion,” he said.
In Spradling’s case the process was prolonged further when the Ewing case was reversed and the two ethical complaints were eventually consolidated, Hazlett said. The first hearing was scheduled for October 2019, but has been delayed several times.
Umbehr said the office should not have waited for the Supreme Court because the disciplinary office’s role was different than the court’s. He cited Kansas rule 214 which said processing complaints should not be deferred because of pending criminal or civil litigation.
“It is a total abdication of his [Hazlett’s] responsibilities,” Umbehr said. “That system is broken.”
Normally, if a complaint appears to have merit, it is investigated by the office. Evidence may then be sent to the Kansas Review Committee. Three lawyers on that committee decide if there is probable cause that the rules of professional conduct were broken.
From there, a formal complaint will be drafted and a hearing takes place like the one beginning Monday on Spradling’s case.
Both Umbehr and Wendy Ewing said they want Spradling suspended at minimum and would prefer she be disbarred.
At the end of the hearing Friday the disciplinary panel could make a determination in court. Or they may take the testimony under advisement and issue a written decision later.
Any disciplinary action would ultimately be decided by the Kansas Supreme Court.
