Judge again refuses to drop shooting charges against Kansas political candidate
Criminal proceedings will continue in the shooting case against a Wyandotte County woman who is running to represent Kansas’ 35th District.
Wyandotte County District Court Judge Michael A. Russell on Wednesday denied candidate Lisa Walker-Yeager’s motion to dismiss the charges against her, which include aggravated battery and unlawful discharge of a weapon in city limits.
He also denied an alternative request to give Walker-Yeager’s counsel another chance to prove she shot her contractor in an act of self-defense, and would therefore be immune from prosecution.
Walker-Yeager, her counsel and state prosecutors will next meet for an Aug. 12 status conference, after which the court will determine whether, or when, she’d be scheduled for a jury trial.
That hearing will come about a week after voters decide if Walker-Yeager will be the Republican candidate in the running to represent District 35, which encompasses Wyandotte County’s historic northeast corner, in the Kansas House of Representatives.
She is challenged by Alex Sanchez in the primary election. Whoever wins that race would face incumbent Democrat Wanda Brownlee Paige in the general election in November.
The result of her criminal case would also affect her candidacy, given people convicted of a felony in Kansas may not hold public office while serving the terms of their sentencing.
The charges Walker-Yeager faces are linked to a 2024 incident during which she shot her contractor, Noble Bey, after a dispute that began with dissatisfaction over how much she paid him for services on her home that allegedly turned aggressive.
Throughout the case against her, Walker-Yeager has maintained that Bey attacked her daughter, Vern’e McClelland, and that Walker-Yeager shot Bey in order to save her daughter’s life. She also claims that the state intentionally withheld case evidence and interfered with her Constitutional right to a fair trial.
The state disputes those claims.
Matthew Fredrick, an attorney representing Walker-Yeager, pressed Russell to reconsider his decision to deny those motions. He said the state, by not ensuring that a video from Bey’s phone and a photo depicting McClelland’s injuries that night made it into evidence, committed a Brady violation.
A Brady violation is when prosecutors fail to share evidence with the defense team that could help the defendant’s case.
Russell argued that the defense had earlier opportunities to submit that new evidence, which it received earlier this summer, into the case file before Wednesday’s hearing.
He also said that those items of evidence would’ve shown information that was already included in the defense’s testimonies and wouldn’t have affected his ruling during an October hearing during which he ruled Walker-Yeager didn’t qualify for self-defense immunity.
Frederick countered that the defense was not granted a separate evidentiary hearing to review those pieces of case discovery. He objected to Russell’s ruling and said he planned to file a motion to add that evidence to the case file.
Russell also ordered the prosecution to ensure all possible case evidence has been submitted to the defense before the next hearing, to which David Grace, the state’s attorney, said they had already done and will check again.
