Former AG Phill Kline files federal lawsuit over license suspension

Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has filed a federal lawsuit against the Kansas Supreme Court over the suspension of his law license, contending among other things that a disciplinary panel was biased.

The court suspended Kline’s license indefinitely in 2013 after an ethics complaint regarding his investigations into abortion providers, including Wichita’s George Tiller, who was killed inside a church by an anti-abortion activist in 2009.

“By a selection process whose workings are unknown to the public and to Kline, the Kansas Supreme Court somehow allowed the selection of an attorney panel to hear Kline’s case even though two of the three attorneys had previously donated to Mr. Kline’s political opponents,” the brief written by Kline’s attorneys states.

The lawsuit makes several references to Paul Morrison, a Democrat who unseated Kline, a Republican, in 2006 after a bitter campaign and who later resigned amid scandal. Kline’s attorney, Tom Condit, said Morrison could be deposed at some point depending on how the case goes.

Speaking outside the Kansas Judicial Center in Topeka, Condit contended that the court’s decision to suspend Kline’s law license should be voided because five of the court’s seven justices recused themselves and had to be replaced. Article 3 of the Kansas Constitution states that all cases should be heard by “not fewer than four justices.”

“The judgment’s void,” said Condit, an attorney from Cincinnati. “Phill Kline’s law license was never suspended … he still has a license. People just don’t know it.”

It was Kline’s attorneys who had first called for justices to recuse themselves during the original proceedings.

The state high court said Monday that it had not been served with a copy of the complaint and would not comment until it could review the documents, according to a staff attorney.

The lawsuit recounts the findings against Kline that resulted from the initial ethics complaint. He was deemed to be deliberately dishonest, abusive to his public office and unfit to practice law.

Kline’s attorneys say he was the victim of a double standard.

“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,” the brief states.

Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, a lawyer who supports abortion rights, noted that Kline could have filed papers with the Kansas Supreme Court next year to have his law license reinstated. To do that, he would have had to admit fault and detail his rehabilitation. Ward contended that Kline had pursued the case in federal court instead because he is incapable of showing remorse.

Condit said Kline would not pursue reinstatement because the requirements are too vague and standardless. He said Kline needed to file a lawsuit to ensure vindication.

“We don’t know what it means to get back into the good graces of the Kansas Supreme Court. … Is he going to have to admit that he lied? He’ll never admit that. He never deliberately lied to anybody,” Condit said.

‘Never-ending case’

Laura McQuade, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, called Kline “a nationally recognized example of what happens when a public official abuses their power for a personal crusade.”

She said in an e-mail that Kline had sought “and failed to end safe and legal abortion in Kansas through state-sanctioned harassment.”

Julie Burkhart, who worked for Tiller during Kline’s investigation and who now runs the Trust Women Foundation, called this a “never-ending case.”

“We’re looking at 12 years of, frankly, turmoil,” Burkhart said. “He’s really worked to stir the pot. He really went after, of course, Dr. George Tiller and Planned Parenthood. I feel that his actions worked to incite violence, which we saw with Dr. George Tiller’s murder in 2009 … and now he has the audacity to ask for his law license back when he clearly – it seems like the evidence was quite clear – that he was deceiving the court.”

Kline said at the time that his case against Tiller was focused on protecting minors who had potentially been sexually abused. He accused Tiller’s clinic of failing to report cases to the proper authorities. Burkhart said that most of the records Kline sought were for women over the age of 18.

‘Tiller would be alive’

Kline’s attorneys said his efforts were meant to ensure that cases of possible sexual abuse for girls 14 and under were reported to the proper authorities. Kline’s attempts to prosecute Tiller were unsuccessful; a misdemeanor case brought by his successors resulted in an acquittal.

Condit contended that Tiller’s acquittal – rather than Kline’s very public investigation – incited Scott Roeder to murder the doctor.

“If Phill Kline had been allowed to prosecute Tiller for crimes instead of having the Kansas Supreme Court tying him up for three years, Tiller would be alive. He’d probably be behind bars, but he’d be alive,” Condit said.

Condit is joined by Richard Peckham, an Andover attorney and chairman of the Kansas Judicial Review, an organization that wants to change how Kansas Supreme Court justices are selected. Peckham said Kline’s case was evidence that the state should move to direct election of justices or direct appointment by the governor.

Now, a nonpartisan commission sends recommendations to the governor.

Kline hasn’t lived in Kansas for five years and did not join his attorneys in Topeka. He teaches law at Liberty University, a Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell in Virginia.

Condit said Kline has not obtained a license to practice law in Virginia.

This story was originally published October 19, 2015 at 10:36 AM with the headline "Former AG Phill Kline files federal lawsuit over license suspension."