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Arguments Conclude in Bizarre Case of Abortion Giant Suing Kansas Prosecutor

"It's the only case we've ever seen of in the entire nation, where the criminal defendant gets to sue the prosecutor"

By Peter J. Smith

TOPEKA, Kansas, June 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kansas district attorney Phill Kline defended himself yesterday before the Kansas Supreme Court in a lawsuit brought against him by Planned Parenthood - the defendants in a criminal investigation by Kline's office for violating the state's abortion laws.

Planned Parenthood sued Kline, demanding the return of redacted abortion records he obtained as Kansas Attorney General, the central pieces of evidence for the 107 criminal counts Kline has filed against its Orchard Park clinic. Kline transferred the records from his Attorney General's office to his new District Attorney's office in Johnson County, where in his new position as DA he had jurisdiction to pursue Planned Parenthood's violations of the state ban on late-term abortions. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/oct/07102503.html)

"It's the only case we've ever seen of in the entire nation, where the criminal defendant gets to sue the prosecutor," Kline told LifeSiteNews, "in a case in which every judge has now probable cause to believe the defendant has committed crimes and they are suing me personally - for prosecuting them!"

Planned Parenthood requested the high court to charge Kline with "contempt of court" for transferring the records, although Planned Parenthood and its ally, the Kansas Attorney General's Office, conceded the procedure itself was entirely legal and routinely done by law enforcement agencies. They objected that Kline was essentially sending the records to himself, assuring that the criminal case against Planned Parenthood would not die when Kline was replaced by Paul Morrison as Attorney General in 2007.

Kline, however, argues that when still the Attorney General, he received permission from Judge Richard Anderson to forward the records to the Johnson County District Attorney's office, with the court's full knowledge that Kline had been appointed to that post. Planned Parenthood secretly sued Kline to get the records back, a suit that was joined first by Morrison, and then by Attorney General Stephen Six after Morrison resigned amidst a sex and corruption scandal. (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050504.html)

Caleb Stegall, Kline's attorney, told LifeSiteNews that he and Kline believe oral arguments before the state high court yesterday went well, as they presented what they believe is an unassailable argument. Stegall said that they demonstrated that Planned Parenthood had no legal remedy in this instance, and that their factual allegations were simply untrue.

"Virtually everything about this case is unusual," admitted Stegall.

"I don't know of any other instance in which a criminal defendant has been allowed to sue his own prosecutor and put his own prosecutors under oath for hours and days, and inquire into those prosecutors' thought processes and prosecutorial decisions."

The lawsuit has cost Kline personally in excess of $200,000.

Stegall said that Planned Parenthood has attacked Kline so aggressively, because his case "represents the only time since Roe v. Wade in which a prosecutor has come this close to prosecuting a major abortion provider for abortion violations."

"Phill Kline is the only prosecutor to ever obtain abortion records from inside a Planned Parenthood clinic. So this is an extremely unique case right at the very forefront of these kinds of efforts."

"The message PP is sending is don't cross us, because we have the strength, we have the political clout, we have the money to bury you," added Stegall. "I would argue they don't make a pretense of supporting the rule of law. It is simply 'do not cross us, we are above the law; do not investigate us, or we will bury you.'"

The Kansas Supreme Court has now to deliberate the case.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Huge Victory: Kansas Supreme Court Unseals Secret Abortion Suit
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050504.html

Unsealed Court Records Show Attorney General Actively Undermined Planned Parenthood Prosecution
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08051401.html

Pro-Life Group Accuses Kansas Judge of Involvement in Illegal Abortion Cover-Up
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08042908.html

Commentary: In Defense of Phill Kline
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08022502.html

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