Attorney: Kansas prosecutor’s false statements during murder trial were not intentional
Jacqie Spradling’s conduct as a prosecutor may have been wrong, but it was appropriate, her attorney said during opening statements of a disciplinary hearing that is expected to last at least one week.
Attorney LJ Leatherman said Spradling, a former Shawnee County prosecutor now practicing in Allen and Bourbon counties, did not knowingly make false statements during a 2012 double murder trial in Topeka.
Spradling appeared Monday before a three-attorney panel at a hearing overseen by the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office. Several witnesses viewed the proceeding via Zoom because of COVID-19 rules issued by Shawnee County.
The panel will hear testimony about two criminal cases Spradling prosecuted.
In 2012, Dana Chandler was found guilty of killing her ex-husband and his fiancee, and sentenced to life in prison. Her conviction was overturned in April 2018 by the Kansas Supreme Court, who found that Spradling had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct.
The disciplinary office alleges Spradling made seven errors during the 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.
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.
Leatherman said the term for a protection from abuse order may have been interchanged with restraining order.
While “mistakes were made,” he said, it was done without intent.
Also at issue is Spradling’s conduct during a rape trial in Holton, a small town north of Topeka.
The Kansas Court of Appeals has already said Spradling misstated evidence about DNA and made comments intended “to inflame the passions and prejudices of the jury” during the 2017 trial of Jacob Ewing.
During the trial, Spradling said that Ewing enjoyed “autism abuse pornography” and that one of the victims was “low-functioning.”
No evidence was presented during the trial to substantiate the claim that the woman was “low-functioning.” Leatherman, however, doubled down on Monday saying that it was “obvious” the victim was low-functioning.
Ewing and Chandler both await re-trials.
Charles Kitt, the deputy district attorney in Shawnee County, is one of the attorneys prosecuting Chandler’s second trial. He was the first witness called in the disciplinary hearing. Allegations that Spradling presented during the first trial — including the existence of the protection from abuse order, that Chandler conducted an internet search on how to get away with murder and that she drove through Nebraska after committing the murders — could not be substantiated when he reviewed the evidence, Kitt said.
Deputy disciplinary administrator Matthew Vogelsberg said, as an example of misconduct, that Spradling knew a protection from abuse order did not exist when it was raised during the Chandler trial.
The disciplinary office alleges that Spradling violated the rules of professional conduct in several areas, including truthfulness, candor, fairness to the opposing party and competence.
The disciplinary panel could issue an admonishment, recommend disciplinary action up to disbarment, or find that Spradling did not commit a violation.
This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 1:48 PM.
