Posted on 02/12/2007 8:46:37 PM PST by Huntress
The former prosecutors and investigator who were terminated by Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline are no longer being paid by the county, the county’s legal counsel said Tuesday.
A federal judge on Thursday dissolved a temporary order from a District Court judge that had allowed the salaries to stay in place, chief counsel Don Jarrett said. The salary payments stopped Friday, he said.
The county had been spending more than $2,000 a day to cover salary costs for the eight employees. Kline dismissed them without warning Jan. 8, the same day he was sworn in as district attorney.
Jarrett said he wasn’t sure whether the former employees would still receive the two weeks severance pay that Kline said he would provide in early January.
The eight filed a lawsuit against Kline Jan. 16 after he refused to participate in county grievance hearings they requested. The lawsuit contends he is depriving them of their due process rights.
That same day, the eight told a Johnson County District Court judge that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if he did not order Kline to participate in the grievance hearings. The judge granted a temporary restraining order directing Kline to participate.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kathyrn Vratil overruled that order. She said that Johnson County was free to hold grievance hearings without Kline’s participation.
County commissioners are expected to take up the matter Thursday.
Kline’s attorneys, Holbrook & Osborn of Overland Park, are being paid by the Kansas attorney general’s office.
State statutes require that the attorney general provide representation to any district attorney who is sued, said Ashley Anstaett, spokeswoman for Attorney General Paul Morrison.
Morrison recused himself from representing Kline; he was Johnson County’s district attorney until Jan. 8.
Now there's some delicious irony.
"That same day, the eight told a Johnson County District Court judge that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if he did not order Kline to participate in the grievance hearings."
What a bunch of wussies.
I'm only vaguely familiar with this whole brouhaha, but what does firing the entire D.A's office do to pending criminal cases? Are criminals going to be walking the streets because their cases will not be pursued properly?
The folks who think President Bush should have fired all the Clinton holdovers when he assumed office can see a microcosm of what would have happened right here. The courts would still be jammed with mewling, whining libs.
Kline didn't fire the entire DA's office. He fired several assistant DAs and some other personnel, while bringing in his own people in at the same time.
He fired about a third. I'm sure that it might delay some pending cases, but it won't have any major impact. We're not going to have judges releasing criminals left and right over this.
I'm not sure how many remaining ADAs are actively looking. I've heard that most are but haven't seen anything to confirm that. We'll see what the next few months bring.
Not really. The irony would come if Morrison's office wasn't allowed to recuse itself and was forced to defend Kline.
I could have sworn there was a Constitutional right to be an Assistant District Attorney.
I'll have to double check my version of the Constitution.
Is this not Kline's prerogative? Why should he keep on a bunch of people that hate him and will sabotage his office?
It is, which is why this whole lawsuit is so stupid. It is a normal occurrence for a new DA to bring his own people and fire some staff from this predecessor's regime, especially in cases like this one, where there so much animosity between the two. This suit isn't about free speech or job security; it's about politics, pure and simple.
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