Kansas prosecutor who made false statements cried, but does that mean she’s sorry?
Kansas prosecutor Jacqie Spradling seemed to cry a couple of times while testifying on her own behalf on Thursday. This was near the end of a weeklong disciplinary hearing on the two big-deal wins of hers that courts have reversed, saying that her misconduct in the courtroom deprived two defendants, convicted double murderer Dana Chandler and convicted rapist Jacob Ewing, of a fair trial.
When repeatedly asked what she’d do differently in the future, Spradling gave funny answers — “Retire. No, I’m kidding!” — and groveling answers. But then, she also suggested repeatedly that she really wouldn’t do anything differently, and that I believe.
Despite low expectations, I’ve found a few things shocking about this hearing before the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys, which could recommend that the Kansas Supreme Court take away her law license, though prosecutors rarely pay for even the most egregious misbehavior.
Most alarming is the extent to which Spradling led us to believe that her behavior in these cases wasn’t out of the ordinary at all, but on the contrary was standard operating procedure.
“I believed it,” she kept saying, when talking about misstatements she’d made in court that had no underpinning in fact.
You have to rely on what your team tells you, she said, effectively absolving herself, though it’s far from clear that she was ever misled by those around her. She’ll keep right on relying on what she’s told, she said.
She also said it’s like Chiefs fans seeing calls on the field one way, and Raiders fans seeing them another. But no, arguments in court aren’t like that, because whether or not you have evidence to back up those arguments is not a matter of opinion.
Spradling admitted that her argument that Dana Chandler had killed her ex-husband and his girlfriend in Topeka in 2002, then had driven home to Denver by way of Nebraska was really just “the most logical” way one would behave after committing a double murder.
If you thought that prosecutors were basing their arguments in court on a little more than “that seems logical,” then silly you, apparently.
“Normal human beings err, I guess,” Spradling said. Well yes, but when they had to have known that their arguments were based on nothing, that’s not good enough.
‘Widespread and universal belief’ isn’t proof
“I’m not sure anybody could be harder on me than me,” she said. But that’s not a reason to let Spradling, who is now working as a prosecutor in both Bourbon County in southeast Kansas and Allen County, keep her law license.
And her whole thing about how Chandler had researched online how to get away with murder? Turns out, someone named Paul had been reading some common-garden crime coverage before Chandler even went to work for the company where she’d supposedly been doing this nefarious research. Never happened, in other words.
Same with some of the evidence she marshaled against Jacob Ewing before convicting him of rape: She really thought he’d seen the violent porn she entered as evidence, she said, but still has no proof of that.
That Spradling and other prosecutors can put people away for life based on what they thought somebody told somebody is frightening.
For instance, Spradling pretended in court to know what Chandler and her ex-husband, Mike Sisco, had talked about in a five-minute phone call two days before his murder.
The made-up argument that Sisco must have told Chandler he was getting married again during that phone call “was a widespread and universal belief” based on the fact that Quantico investigators figured the call must have been what triggered the murder, Spradling said. There is zero proof of that supposedly universal belief, though, and if that’s what constitutes evidence, God help us.
Spradling’s defense is not really helping her, at least by my lights, by reinforcing what a nationally renowned, brilliant legal mind she is, bopping around the country — often traveling to her favorite state, Alaska — teaching others how to do what she does. That she loves books and cares about abused animals is irrelevant. And if she’s as hard-working and detail-oriented as all of her character witnesses say that she is, then her multiple misstatements in court aren’t mistakes, but crimes.
(Actual question: “Have you ever met anyone else who just loves the law like Jacqie Spradling?” Actual answer: “I really don’t think I have!”)
Also, this is one cozy circle of inquisitors, laughing and joking through the proceedings. Sorry, but those in prison while you guys are yukking it up might not see the humor.
Kansas Supreme Court to make final decision
John Larson, the chair of the panel in this hearing, told Spradling that she is a good prosecutor, and that he was oh-so-happy to hear her say that she was sorry to have deprived defendants of a fair trial.
Did that signal that since she said she’s sorry, all is forgiven? I’m sure any number of people in Kansas prisons would be happy to say they were wrong and won’t do it again; do they get out of trouble now, too?
Another member of the panel, Darcy Williamson, asked Spradling, “Do you hope to rally from this?”
“I’m a stubborn cuss,” she answered, “and rally is my goal.” Rally, really, as if this were a football game? She can only rally professionally if she still has her law license, so I guess that’s a fait accompli?
I haven’t even had time to call back all of the people who have messaged me this week to say that Jacqie Spradling also cut corners in cases that harmed them.
I did meet with her ex-husband, J.D. Spradling, whose views can be boiled down to this: The lady lies. For no reason, any reason, and just to keep her skills up. “The truth is whatever she makes it,” he said.
Life with her was a 28-year “mind f---” he said, with daily games like walking into the house, putting his hat and gloves down, seeing when he wanted to go back out a minute later that the gloves weren’t there any more, and knowing that when he’d come back an hour after that, they’d be back right where he’d left them.
Of those who will recommend whether his wife should be sanctioned, he said, “They all dance in the same circles.” Bucking her up as they are, they certainly make no effort to hide that.
And if this disciplinary panel lets Spradling slide because they’re all friends and she cried, well, that would really be something to cry about.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
