Kansas Judge Denies DA's Motion To Disqualify Planned Parenthood Attorneys From Abortion Case

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 21 Jan 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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A Kansas judge on Wednesday denied a motion filed by Johnson County, Kan., District Attorney Phill Kline (R) to have two attorneys and their firm barred from representing Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri in the criminal prosecution brought by Kline, the Kansas City Star reports. Kline alleged that Comprehensive Health attorneys Pedro Irigonegaray and Robert Eye could not serve as counsel because he planned to call the lawyers as witnesses on his charges that Comprehensive Health "manufactured" records. (Kansas City Star, 1/16). Johnson County District Judge Stephen Tatum said that Kline did not provide sufficient evidence to support disqualifying the lawyers (AP/Washington Examiner, 1/16).

In October 2007, Kline filed more than 100 felony and misdemeanor counts against Comprehensive Health for unlawfully performing post-22-week abortions and keeping inadequate records, among other crimes. Kline, while serving as state attorney general in 2004, subpoenaed the records of 90 women and girls who had post-22-week abortions in 2003 at Comprehensive Health or Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, Kan. The state Supreme Court in February 2006 ruled that before Kline could have access to the records, he must go before Shawnee County District Court Judge Richard Anderson and present his reasons for seeking the subpoenas, and if Anderson decides that Kline could have the records, all identifying information must be removed first.

Anderson turned the redacted records over to the attorney general's office in the fall of 2006 (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/19/07). Anderson testified on Wednesday that he had some concerns about the records provided by Comprehensive Health in 2006 (Kansas City Star, 1/16). Irigonegaray said that the allegations the records were changed are false (Gross, AP/Wichita Eagle, 1/16).

The records in question are the same documents that current Attorney General Paul Morrison (D) reviewed when he cleared PPKM of wrongdoing last year.

Reaction

Irigonegaray said that Kline filed the motion to disqualify the attorneys to draw publicity about the criminal charges. "It was a complete waste of the court's time and everyone else's," PPKM President Peter Brownlie said, adding that Kline "produced absolutely no evidence of anything that would disqualify our attorneys so clearly he had some other reason for it."

Kline said he wanted to present the information now so PPKM could not appeal a verdict on the basis of ineffective counsel. "These documents were manufactured and are false information, and counsel represented them to be something they are not," Kline said (Kansas City Star, 1/16). Irigonegaray disagreed, saying, "We were very disturbed by Mr. Kline's efforts to put on the record information that's not only erroneous, but without any basis in fact" (AP/Wichita Eagle, 1/16).

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