The Wyandotte County district attorney’s office offered no facts, only speculation, in its claim all the county’s judges are biased and cannot preside in a case involving the death of a jail inmate, a judge has ruled.
District Attorney Mark Dupree’s office had asked to disqualify all 16 of the county’s judges from presiding over the case of Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Fatherley, whom Dupree has charged with second-degree murder/reckless or, in the alternative, involuntary manslaughter in the asphyxiation death of inmate Charles Adair July 5.
Fatherley was helping other deputies restrain a combative and medically compromised Adair, 50, while they tried to remove his handcuffs as he was bent over his cell bunk, according to a Kansas Bureau of Investigation report.
Sources have told The Heartlander the KBI doesn’t believe a crime was committed in Adair’s death, citing both the deputy’s actions and Adair’s numerous medical difficulties. The KBI’s report doesn’t even cite a law that may have been broken.
The Heartlander is aware of at least seven criminal cases Dupree has prosecuted against Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department uniformed officers; in none of those cases did his office seek to disqualify the county’s judges.
Nonetheless, the case has attracted particular attention due to the deputy being white and the inmate being black.
As The Heartlander previously reported, Dupree’s motion to disqualify the judges cited no specific evidence of any actual or perceived bias on the part of any of the judges – only an alleged vague favoritism for deputies since they provide courthouse security for the judges as well as inmate transportation to and from the courts.
Atchison County Chief District Judge Joan M. Lowdon, ruling on the motion this week in lieu of Wyandotte County judges, took note of that fact as well in her dismissal of the motion.
“[Dupree] provides no facts supporting his request for disqualification,” the judge writes. “He speculates that every single Wyandotte County judge possesses ‘psychological interest’ or ‘inexorable pressure’ in this case without providing a single example of that occurring. He fails to establish any basis or expertise for how he even assessed the ‘psychological interest’ of every single Wyandotte County judge.
“An affidavit in support of a motion to disqualify a judge must contain facts and reasons that give fair support for the belief that, because of the bias or prejudice of the judge, the affiant cannot obtain a fair trial …
“I conclude that the affidavit of disqualification is legally insufficient.”
Judge Lowdon noted Dupree’s own staff, like the judges, depends on deputies for courthouse security – and so would any judge from outside the county, if one were brought in to hear the case.
“It is unclear, then, how under [Dupree’s] logic,” the judge writes, “the entire judiciary of Wyandotte County would be unable to conduct a fair and impartial trial, but he and his office are capable of professionally and ethically prosecuting the same case, with the exact same reliance on the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department.”
The KBI report lists a number of Adair’s medical issues as “contributory causes” to his death, including “hypertensive cardiovascular disease and hepatic cirrhosis due to chronic alcoholism.”
The report also notes untreated diabetes, leading to a prior hospital recommendation that his leg be amputated, “but he has refused.” The report also says Adair told the jailers of a pacemaker; blood clots in his left arm; high cholesterol and elevated fat levels in his blood; hypertension; and schizophrenia.
