TOPEKA, Kan. — Former Kansas prosecutor Phill Kline told a state ethics panel Thursday that an allegation that he misled a Kansas City-area grand jury investigating an abortion clinic rests on "mass confusion" about what he and his subordinates told the group.
The allegation is part of a professional misconduct complaint against Kline. It stems from actions by Kline, an anti-abortion Republican, during investigations of abortion providers from 2003 to 2007 while he was attorney general, and in 2007 and 2008 when he was Johnson County district attorney.
Kline resumed testifying in his own defense Thursday. He took the witness stand Wednesday, after the state's attorney disciplinary administrator finished presenting the case against Kline. A three-member panel of the state Board for Discipline of Attorneys hopes to wrap up its hearings Friday.
The complaint alleges Kline and his staff mishandled patients' medical records and misled other officials to further potential prosecutions of abortion providers, which he strongly disputes. The ethics panel will recommend to the Kansas Supreme Court whether he should face sanctions — although the court has criticized Kline in past decisions in abortion cases.
Among other things, the complaint alleges that Kline and his staff in the Johnson County district attorney's office gave incomplete and misleading information to a grand jury that convened in late 2007 to investigate a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. The allegation came from the group's presiding juror, who already has testified.
"This is one of the areas where there's mass confusion," Kline testified.
Kline was voted out of both the attorney general's and district attorney's offices and is now a visiting assistant law professor at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. The university was founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell.
In October 2007, Kline filed 107 criminal charges against the Planned Parenthood clinic, alleging it falsified documents and performed illegal abortions, which it strongly denies. A preliminary hearing to determine whether the case goes to trial is scheduled for Oct. 24-26.
But even as Kline filed those charges, anti-abortion groups used petitions signed by voters to force Johnson County to convene a grand jury to investigate the same clinic. However, the grand jury never issued an indictment.
Kline's attorneys attempted to cast doubt on testimony from Stephanie Hensel, the grand jury's presiding juror. At issue is what Kline and his staff told grand jurors as they considered investigating whether the Planned Parenthood clinic had reported cases of sexual abuse of children to the state, as required by Kansas law.
Hensel testified that Kline and his staff told the grand jury that any abortion involving a child under 16 had to be reported to the state as evidence of child abuse because the state's age of consent for sex is 16. That would be in keeping with legal opinion Kline had issued as attorney general in 2003, but the issue inspired a federal lawsuit and legislators eventually rewrote the reporting law.
One of Kline's former subordinates, who faced an ethics complaint himself, agreed to an informal admonishment last year, acknowledging not giving the grand jury enough information about the law but not intentionally misleading it.
But, questioned by one of his attorneys Thursday, Kline pointed to passages in transcripts of grand jury meetings to contradict Hensel's version of events. He said grand jurors received "a clear and accurate recitation" of the law.
As for Hensel's version of what the grand jury was told, Kline said, "I never said that. There was a presumption, but that's not what was said."
The disciplinary administrator's office has portrayed Hensel as the grand jury's spokeswoman.
Testimony has shown a strained relationship between the Johnson County district attorney's office under Kline and the grand jury, which retained its own attorneys, not wanting to rely entirely on Kline's staff.
One of the grand jury's attorneys, retired District Judge Larry McClain, has testified that Kline's office was "kind of demonizing" Planned Parenthood. He said he also told one of Kline's subordinates, "Look, I just can't trust you anymore."
Kline and the subordinate testified that they didn't recall any such comment from McClain. And, pointing to the lack of disparaging comments about Planned Parenthood in the grand jury transcripts, Kline said he and his staff remained professional throughout.
Kline's attorneys describe the grand jury as beset by internal disagreements, and Kline testified Thursday that the panel was "fractured." No grand jurors other than Hensel have been identified publicly or have testified in the ethics case.
Kline and his supporters also have questioned grand jury decisions, such as negotiating with Planned Parenthood attorneys to obtain records even after issuing a subpoena, which was never enforced.
During a break in testimony, Kline said actions by Hensel and the grand jury's attorneys "killed" the panel's investigation of the clinic. He and anti-abortion groups have made much of an agreement with Planned Parenthood's attorneys to obtain records — drafted but ultimately not followed — that would have limited how the documents could be used, even by the district attorney.
"This procedure was not an investigation," Kline said of the grand jury's work. "I've never seen anything like it in my life."