Prosecutors Downplay Racial Element in Kansas Murder Trial

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 10/10/02 | Jim Burns

[kattracks]

Editorial note: Readers may find some material in this article objectionable.)

(CNSNews.com) - Prosecutors in Wichita, Kan. are seeking the death penalty for two African-American brothers accused of murdering five white people and wounding a sixth in a shooting spree that has become known locally as the "Wichita Massacre" and the "Wichita Horror."

Some residents in the area claim the murders would have been prosecuted as hate crimes had the skin color of the alleged gunmen and their victims been reversed. However, Sedgwick County, Kansas District Attorney Nola Foulston reportedly said she would not charge the suspects with committing hate crimes because she believes the murders were motivated by robbery and not racial hatred.

Foulston noted that the state of Kansas does not have a hate crime statute. She refused interview requests from CNSNews.com for more comment on the story.

A spokesman for Foulston said the district attorney is under a gag order not to talk about the case until it's over. Attorneys Val Wachtel and Jay Greeno representing the defendants, Jonathan and Reginald Carr, confirmed they were also under a gag order.

A spokesperson for Sedgwick County District Judge Paul Clark, who is the presiding judge in the case, told CNSNews.com that the gag order was imposed during the jury selection and other pre-trial activity and was not in effect now.

Meanwhile, trial testimony continued Thursday.

The Carr brothers have been charged with 113 counts of murder, robbery, rape and other crimes. The two are accused of unleashing a crime spree that began Dec. 7, 2000 when they allegedly kidnapped a 23-year old man from a Wichita convenience store and robbed him.

Several days later, according to prosecutors, the Carrs shot a female outside her Wichita home. She died several days later from her injuries.

On Dec.14, the Carrs allegedly broke into the home of three young men who were hosting two female guests. Later that night, prosecutors said the Carrs drove the five people to a deserted soccer field, forced them to kneel in the snow and shot each of them in the back of the head.

Prosecutors said the brothers then drove a truck over the four dead bodies.

The surviving female, whose name is not being released, testified Wednesday that she ran naked for over a mile in freezing temperatures to the nearest house to get help. She also testified that a plastic hair clip deflected the bullet and prevented it from entering her skull.

She identified both Jonathan and Reginald Carr as the armed intruders who attacked her.

Her four friends who died were identified as Jason Befort, a local high school teacher; Brad Heyka, a director of finance with a local financial services company; Heather Muller, a local preschool teacher; and Aaron Sandler, a former financial analyst who had been studying to become a priest.

The trial is expected to last four to six weeks. It has sparked debate within the Wichita citizenry.

"If this had been two white males accused of killing four black individuals, the media would be on a feeding frenzy and every satellite news organization would be in Wichita doing live reports," said Trent Hungate of Wichita in a recent letter to the Wichita Eagle newspaper.

The Wichita Eagle itself, in its Thursday editorial, wrote "reliving horrible crime is hard for the community."

"The defendants are being fairly treated by the court and aggressively defended by their lawyers. We must presume their innocence until they are proved guilty. They are getting their day in court. So are the victims," the paper stated.

"The randomness of the attacks was especially chilling. It could have been anyone. But we go on with our work, hold our loved ones a little closer, and face down our fears as best we can. The survivors are showing us how," the editorial concluded.

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[republicman]

Well we wouldn't know because the DEMOCRAT (curious since we are always told of the great concern that DEMOCRATS have for the NEED for hate crime laws) DA refused to investigate whether it was racially motivated

http://www.newnation.org/Archives/NNN-wichita-press-08.html

http://www.newnation.org/Archives/NNN-wichita-press-09.html

[republicman]

---Or maybe they could work for passage of a hate crime statute in Kansas......---

Ha are you kidding, like the DEMOCRAT DA would ever use it when white people are the victims of hate crimes.

Oh palllllease!

Might as well work for campaign finance reform and after its passed watch democrats try and steal every election.

[junta]

FYI one of the five triggers for a Fed. hate crime investigation is the use of excessive force in the committing of a crime. I think this case fits the bill.

[RAT Patrol]

Foulston noted that the state of Kansas does not have a hate crime statute. Without a statute I don't think she can charge them. Does anyone here think Kansas needs a hate crimes statute? I certainly don't.

Give 'em the death penalty, but for murder, rape and robbery, not thought!

[Psycho Francis]

Does it, indeed.

How does one enhance the death penalty?

...nor investigating whether there was racial bias involved which under Kansas law enhances penalties....

[Psycho Francis]

Yes.

Ha are you kidding...

[republicman]

Looking around here are the two e-mail addresses I found

da@feist.com

foulston@sedgwich.gov

I am writing her now, I hope others will do the same.

[Psycho Francis]

Should we start the letters with something like:

Although we understand that you are now at trial, busy with the prosecution of this heinous crime, please take time away from that to.......?

[republicman]

My letter to Nola Foulston

Ms. Foulston you have said that in the case of the two Carr brothers that there is no hate crime statute,

However your party, the democrat party and its organizations used the deaths of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd as rallying cries for the NEED for hate crime laws. So why in an equally, perhaps more heinous murder of several whites, is there no rallying cry for hate crime enhancements? Has your party, the democratic party, dropped its advocacy for the existence of such laws?

And as I understand it there IS an enhancement in the state of Kansas for bias crimes during the penalty phase. When this was posed to you, your response was that it is a death penalty case so there is no need. Perhaps, but wasn't the dragging death of James Byrd a death penalty case as well? Yet again, from the democratic party, your party, we heard all about the need for hate crime enhancements in Texas even so. Has your party, dropped its advocacy for the enforcement of hate crime enhancements?

Hmm probably not. Your party has made hate crime laws a big part of their agenda, yet, you as a democrat, have refused to investigate racial animus, and sealed records (which many have speculated reveals the racial animus of the defendants)

Do you have an explanation for this remarkably contradictory behavior? If so I would like to hear it

Sincerely,

[republicman]

---How does one enhance the death penalty?---

I don't know. WHy don't you ask all the liberals that said there was a need for hate crime enhancement in the DEATH PENALTY dragging case of James Byrd Jr.?

[Black Agnes]

I'm not sure I buy the hate crime element either. It would seem these were opportunistic evil killers. We will see what comes out in trial. The whole 'hate crime' mantra is just stupid...what exactly would a 'love crime' be? 'Would you rather they was pushed out of windows little girl?' to quote Archie bunker on gun control...Equality before the law *was* one of the foundations of our legal system. The 'hate crime' legislation debunks that. I'm not comfortable with that. If the victims are tortured before death, then prosecute for that too, there's no way to get in the brain of killers to determine *why* they did something. Just get them for everything they *did* do to the victims. *sigh* Wish I were older as I don't like where this country is headed longterm.

[Psycho Francis]

As I suspected..... ;>)

I don't know.

Sorry, don't know any. I'll stick with asking you why you think there needs to be a hate-crime enhancement for this particular crime........

WHy don't you ask all the liberals that said there was a need for hate crime enhancement in the DEATH PENALTY dragging case of James Byrd Jr.?

[republicman]

---Should we start the letters with something like:

Although we understand that you are now at trial, busy with the prosecution of this heinous crime, please take time away from that to.......?--


Hmm. No, How about starting the letter saying, "If you will not prosecute lawbreakers equally, regardless of race, you have no business being the DA."

I, for one, am going to find out who her opponent is in the next election and send them a check.

[republicman]

I guess you don't get it do you?

Most of us disagree with the concept of hate crimes. But if there is to be such a thing, then they must exist in cases where blacks attack whites as well as whites attacking blacks.

[Conagher]

I agree. While hate crimes are prima facie absurd, they, just as all other laws, ought to be applied equally to all. What's good for the goose ought to be good for the gander.

[republicman]

Psycho Francis signed up 2002-10-01.

Why, Francis, did no one at Democrats.com know the answer?

[Psycho Francis]

Dead is dead, baby. Dead is dead....

Not to be confused with:

Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.

Hmm. No, How about starting the letter saying, "If you will not prosecute lawbreakers equally, regardless of race, you have no business being the DA."

[Black Agnes]

Of course I 'get it'. Instead of consigning ourselves to defeat on the PC altar of 'hate crime' terminology I say we fight to eliminate the terminology from our dialect. It's ridiculous really. People should be tried for what they actually *do* when they commit a crime, not for what they may or may not have been thinking when they committed it. We have to stop playing the game of the left.

We also have to do more to get our side out in the media. The fact that this case hasn't gotten nationwide attention is despicable. I say if these guys are for some reason acquitted we send them to Peter jenning's and/or Dan Rather's neighborhood. 'Good huntin' in there boys...have at it...' What's good for the goose is *indeed* good for the gander.

[Psycho Francis]

republicman signed up 2002-07-12

Sounds like you know the folks, perhaps you should go ask them...

[republicman]

--Dead is dead, baby. Dead is dead....--

According to this

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/764357/posts

"The brothers, 24-year-old Reginald and 22-year-old Jonathan, face 113 criminal counts..."

If dead is dead, then why all those counts? I bet less than half of those 113 would have been enough for the death penalty. Why not stop counting counts when you get high enough for the death penalty and stop there?