Ethics hearing for Kansas prosecutor accused of misconduct ends; decision pending
A week-long disciplinary hearing concerning misconduct complaints against a Kansas prosecutor concluded Friday with a three-attorney panel in Topeka announcing its decision will come at a later date.
Jacqie Spradling, a former Shawnee County prosecutor who now practices in Bourbon and Allen counties, was accused by the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office of misconduct in a Topeka double murder trial and a Holton rape case.
The complaints were brought to the disciplinary panel this week in a hearing at the Kansas Judicial Center. The panel’s decision could result in Spradling’s law license being suspended or revoked. It comes more than four years after the first ethics complaint was filed against her.
Convictions Spradling won in the murder and rape cases were overturned after higher courts found fault with Spradling’s actions during trial.
She was accused of using “misstatements and misdirection” to persuade juries in both cases and making references to evidence that did not exist.
The disciplinary office alleged that, in the 2012 double homicide case against Dana Chandler, Spradling made seven errors, including erroneously claiming that Chandler’s ex-husband had taken a protection from abuse order against Chandler before he was killed. No such protection order existed.
Keen Umbehr, an attorney who filed a complaint against Spradling for her actions in the Chandler case, said a detective testified during the hearings that he had told Spradling he couldn’t find evidence of a protection order.
Umbehr, who has worked on Chandler’s case, said he hopes to see Spradling suspended indefinitely by the panel and believes the disciplinary office made a good case for such action.
“The right to a fair trial is sacrosanct,” he said. “If we’re not going to hold that in high regard we’re all lost.”
In the 2017 trial of Jacob Ewing in Holton, north of Topeka, the board alleged, Spradling misstated evidence about DNA and falsely claimed one of the victims was “low-functioning.”
In closing statements Friday, Spradling’s attorney LJ Leatherman said Spradling’s conduct was not intentional. At the time of the Chandler trial, he said, Spradling did not know there wasn’t a protection from abuse order.
“She was wrong, not lying,” Leatherman said.
After closing statements ended, the disciplinary panel announced it would take evidence under review before issuing a decision.
The panel could issue an admonishment, recommend disciplinary action up to disbarment or find that Spradling did not commit a violation.
