Kansas City News Blog

Crime suspects are entitled to a vigorous defense. But every once in a while, a defense lawyer takes the concept of innocent until proven guilty and acts like a real asshat.

Renee Pernice, a 35-year-old Northland wife and mother, has been missing since January 2. Since her disappearance, it seems fair to say that her husband, Shon, has acted like a man with something to hide. He has not commented publicly. And he has shown a reluctance to speak with police.

Shon Pernice's lawyer, Kevin Baldwin (pictured), said last week that he had instructed his client to stay silent. Baldwin might have added, "My client maintains his innocence," and ended it there.

Instead, the lawyer has felt compelled to riff on a variety subjects.

Baldwin initially told reporters that Pernice wasn't talking to police because, as The Kansas City Star put it, "Pernice feels he is being blamed for her disappearance."

Well, yeah. Because when a young mother goes missing, the husband she sought to divorce in 2005 is generally a good place to start an investigation. (The divorce case was dismissed in 2007.) Or maybe the cops should just wait for someone to come in and share what he or she knows about Pernice's disappearance.

Baldwin then went on to present his aggrieved client's version of events as fact. Baldwin told The Star that Renee Pernice had told her husband she was leaving at 9 a.m. on the morning she disappeared. Baldwin said his client talked to police the following day and searched the neighborhoods surrounding their home.

Baldwin then went on to describe the rough patch the Pernices experienced after Shon returned home from a tour in Iraq. (A guardsman, Pernice works as a fire fighter in Independence.) "They discussed a possible seperation, but things had gone well during the holidays, and Baldwin said his client assumed everything was fine," a January 7 Star story stated.

Christ. As if Renee Pernice's loved ones aren't in enough misery, they have to read in the newspaper that Kevin Baldwin, action lawyer, has deemed the marriage to be hunky-dory.

The police executed a search warrant on the Pernice home on January 8. Always the expert, Baldwin objected to the form the search took, saying it was, in The Star's telling, "unnecessary that a group of heavily armed tactical officers used an explosive device before entering the house."

You're right, Kev, the muscle and firepower were entirely unnecessary, given that your client is, by your admission, a war veteran with a traumatic brain injury. The police said they removed a defective disabled hand grenade from the house.

I left two messages with Baldwin in the hopes of discussing his representation of
Shon Pernice. An office secretary said he was in trial and would not be able to return calls. 

Anyone with information about Renee Pernice's disappearance is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.

-- David Martin

UPDATE: I spoke to Capt. Rich Lockhart of the Kansas City police department early Wednesday afternoon. He described the grenade removed from the Pernice home as "disabled." Lockhart said the bottom of the device had been hollowed out and said it was comparable to something that could be found at a military-surplus store.