This Kansas City-area county has problems with wrongful and ‘rightful’ criminal cases
It’s awesome that rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation helped raise $1 million to probe wrongful convictions in Wyandotte County. The thought of an innocent person behind bars should haunt us all.
But perhaps someone should raise funds to help promote “rightful prosecutions” in the county, too. Judging from acquittals and dropped cases, either some innocent people are being wrongfully charged or plenty of guilty people are walking free. In either case, it denies justice to victims and their families. And allowing suspects in violent crimes to walk may endanger the entire Kansas City metro.
We warned about that last year in a pair of editorials detailing Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree’s office losing or just dropping an alarming amount of very serious cases including murder and more — and the toll it is taking on victims and their families.
Even victorious defense attorneys reported being aghast and concerned: Citing lax plea deals and such, defense attorney James Spies said last year, “You come to a realization this is not good for the community as a whole. You start realizing something’s wrong.”
But another and no less serious symptom of the problems in Wyandotte County surfaced last month when a judge summarily acquitted a defendant in a high-profile misdemeanor case — even before the defense had a chance to present its side.
“It’s very rare,” Spies, the man’s attorney, said of the instant acquittal. “Is it an embarrassment? Yeah, I think in this case it’s a bit of an embarrassment.”
Spies is being diplomatic. It’s a huge humiliation for Dupree’s office — and a flapping red flag about charging decisions being made there.
About the case: In January, Dupree had announced in a blustery news conference he’d charged several law enforcement officers for supposedly interfering in an investigation into an alleged hit-and-run by Wyandotte County Sheriff’s investigator Michael D. Simmons on Dec. 13, 2019.
But the misdemeanor “official misconduct” charge against Sheriff’s Maj. Andrew Carver utterly collapsed at trial when Wyandotte County District Judge Aaron T. Roberts ruled the prosecution’s case didn’t even justify a response from the defense.
Unfounded accusation against law enforcement officer
There may have been misconduct on the part of other officers in the case. But Carver did nothing to obstruct the investigation and, in fact, offered help to it.
It was only a misdemeanor charge, certainly. But it was a reckless, unfounded accusation against a law enforcement officer whose reputation has now been unfairly tarnished.
“I don’t know from a criminal standpoint why Carver was charged,” says Wyandotte County Sheriff Don Ash. “However, once he was issued the summons I put him off work while we had an (outside) investigation completed, which is our standard policy, to determine if any crimes or sheriff’s office policies had been violated. That investigation revealed nothing inappropriate or criminal occurred. Then he was reinstated.”
Sloppy police work contributed mightily to the miscarriage of justice in this case, Spies says: Information on Simmons’ whereabouts and home address, which officers sought from Carver at his home that night, was readily available from dispatchers.
“I think this whole prosecution of Carver is a travesty,” he says. “What do you think this (prosecution) does for him? How do you explain that away? The amount of stress this has put on him and his family has been awful.”
As for the DA’s office, Spies says, “I just can’t believe that any reasonable person looking into this would’ve thought that Andrew Carver committed a crime.” A judge sure didn’t.
But it’s by far not the only odd and unsuccessful prosecution coming from this office.
‘Horrible, horrible investigation by the police’
Last month, Dupree’s office lost yet another murder case: A jury found Daniel Kidwell not guilty in the shooting death of 25-year-old Jeff Rogers in April 2008. Authorities say four men invaded Rogers’ home, beating, stabbing and shooting him.
And it took a jury less than an hour in July to acquit Laron E. Betts, 45, of second-degree murder in an April 2020 shooting death in Kansas City, Kansas. Again, Spies was the defense attorney and, again, he says there’s plenty of blame to go around for the quick acquittal. In particular, the prosecution produced just three witnesses — and nothing from first responders or crime scene investigators.
“It was a horrible, horrible investigation by the police,” he says. “They just did nothing whatsoever to follow up on, investigate, test the veracity of this witness’ statement that my client did it. Prosecution was just lackluster, to say the least.”
In another botched prosecution of a law enforcement officer, Dupree’s office recently earned a not-guilty verdict and mistrials on other charges against Michael Mastel, a Wyandotte County sheriff’s deputy charged in 2019 with rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and three counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The case was so bungled that one of Dupree’s assistants was called to testify about potentially exonerating evidence that had been withheld by the prosecution.
That evidence, I’ve learned, is that the prosecutor was told early on by the alleged victim’s own family that a photo being used against him had not been taken by Mastel. The family says the prosecutor ignored them.
Dupree’s office did not respond to a request for comment about these cases.
Wyandotte County appears to have a problem getting convictions.
But many more folks never should have been prosecuted. They avoided becoming a wrongfully convicted inmate only because someone — a judge, jurors or a defense attorney — prevented a miscarriage of justice.
And others walked when they rightfully should be behind bars.
Wyandotte County sure seems to have a devil of a time getting it right.
