Kansas City News Blog

Classy.

They didn't help make him look any less dim-witted, only more so if these are his constituents.

It's pathetic that grown 'adults' can't have differing opinions/beliefs without resorting to vulgar language and threats of violence.

YET ANOTHER SCREW UP BY PHIL KLINE’S STAFF. I REMEMBER WHEN HE GOT INTO OFFICE…PEOPLE AROUND HERE SAID, COME TO JOHNSON COUNTY & COMMIT A CRIME, YOU’LL GET AWAY WITH IT B/C DA’S OFFICE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT. PRIME EXAMPLE…

Mistrial declared in Johnson County attempted murder trial
A Johnson County District Court judge ruled Wednesday that a man on trial for attempted first-degree murder was not receiving a fair trial and declared a mistrial.

Kevin G. Hollingshead, 39, was accused of hitting Patrick Metsinger over the head with an ax three times on Sept. 13, 2006, at a Shawnee apartment.

A tape of Hollingshead’s statement to police the day he was arrested was played for the jury. But about halfway through the tape his attorney, Tom Bath, asked that it be stopped. He argued that some of passages, which were supposed to be removed by the prosecution, remained.

“I think he’s got a good motion for mistrial,” District Judge John Anderson III said of Bath, “and I’m going to grant it.”

Bath filed a motion in July regarding the tape. Showing some of the exchanges between Hollingshead and a Shawnee detective violated a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that prohibited a jury seeing a videotape of an officer challenging a suspect’s credibility during questioning, Bath said.

Assistant District Attorney Michael McElhinney agreed in July to remove the passages from the tape before the trial. Bath, who didn’t receive a copy of the revised tape until Friday, didn’t have a chance to see it until it was played in court Wednesday.

Anderson excused the jury and reviewed the transcript from the July motions hearing to determine if his recollection of McElhinney agreeing to remove the passages was correct. It was.

Bath then asked the court for a mistrial because, he said, some of those passages prevented Hollingshead from receiving a fair trial.

Anderson determined that some of the passages were taken out, but not all of them.

McElhinney said even though there was some difficulty editing the tape, which caused the delay in providing a copy to Bath, he believed all the passages that were supposed to be removed were in fact removed.

Brian Burgess, a district attorney spokesman, said McElhinney would not comment.

Burgess said, “We’re looking into this, and we’ll make an appropriate decision about retrying the case.”

| The Olathe News