Attorney General files lawsuit against Kansas Supreme Court

Attorneys Richard Peckham of Wichita, left, and Tom Condit of Cincinatti, Ohio, represent former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline in a federal are challenging the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision in 2013 to suspend Kline’s law license indefinitely.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, alleges that the indefinite suspension of Kline’s license was arbitrary and unconstitutional.

“By sitting, voting and entering a decision/judgment in Kline’s case in violation of the unambiguous “four justice” requirement of the Kansas Constitution, the members of the post-recusal court acted without jurisdiction, without the power of the Kansas Supreme Court, and its decision/judgment was void”, the complaint says.

“Meanwhile, Kline’s legal adversaries, the lawyers who composed his disciplinary Panel… were free, with no repercussions, to engage in objectively lawless, deceptive and unethical conduct even as they condemned Kline for things he did not do”, Kline’s attorneys argue.

Back when former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline was defending a legal ethics case over his handling of abortion-related matters, he sought and got the recusal of several justices on the state’s top court.

A news release by Kline’s attorneys said they plan to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Monday to discuss the lawsuit. I have spent enough time with him to know that beyond any doubt.

The ethical complaints against Kline led to a hearing by a panel of three lawyers appointed by the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys.

“Mr. Kline set out to protect young girls from sexual abuse and to enforce the abortion laws passed by the people of Kansas”, Condit’s statement reads. “These egregious errors by the Court join a long line of cases demonstrating the need to change the process of selecting Kansas Supreme Court justices”.

Kline, an ardent abortion opponent, filed criminal misdemeanor charges against Dr. George Tiller, a late-term abortion provider who was later shot and killed while attending church. The investigation provoked successive and extraordinary challenges. Ward contended that Kline was pursuing the case in federal court instead because he is incapable of showing remorse.

After Kline became district attorney, a grand jury investigation into Planned Parenthood resulted in a 107-count indictment against the Overland Park facility. In turn, Kline was charged with a plethora of ethics violations, based on unsupported complaints by those he investigated.

The Kline supporters also claimed that the Kansas Supreme Court applied vague interpretations of professional standards to the complaints against Kline and deemed his personal pro-life worldview to be an “aggravating factor” that made Kline “unfit” to practice law.