JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Lawmakers in the Conservative Caucus are blocking work from getting done in the Missouri Senate in protest of a proposed incentives package for General Motors.
The group of Republican senators took turns filibustering overnight and into Tuesday morning.
At issue is an effort by Gov. Mike Parson and others to pass a deal offering GM up to $50 million in tax credits to expand an eastern Missouri plant that makes trucks and vans.
The deal hit a snag when Parson tried to pair it with another tax incentive program and a new scholarship. Both are among the Republican governor’s top priorities this session.
Senate Conservative Caucus members only want to pass the GM tax incentives, not the governor’s other priorities.
JACKSON COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 7p.m. Monday in Jackson County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Chevrolet passenger vehicle driven by June E. Lamothe, 68, Kansas City, Mo., was westbound in the eastbound lanes of MO 350 just east of Sterling. The Chevy struck a 2008 Jeep driven by Isaiah S. Miles, 21, Raytown, head-on.
Lamothe was pronounced dead at the scene. Miles refused treatment at the scene. The MSHP did not have information on Lamothe’s seat belt usage.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have passed a bill that could give parents and guardians greater rights in end-of-life decisions involving children.
Sheryl Crosier photo courtesy Kansans for Live
The House gave final approval Monday to “Simon’s Law” — named for a St. Louis boy with a rare genetic disorder who died at 3 months old in 2010. His parents said they discovered later that hospital employees did not try to save their son’s life because a doctor had issued a do-not-resuscitate order without their knowledge.
The legislation prohibits medical personnel from instituting do-not-resuscitate orders for those younger than 18 without the consent of at least one parent or legal guardian.
Simon’s mother, Sheryl Crosier, emotionally thanked Missouri lawmakers Monday as she watched them vote on the bill.
Kansas became the first state to enact a similar law in 2017.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A court document reveals lurid details of sexual abuse allegedly committed against inmates by a former dental lab instructor at the Topeka Correctional Facility.
Tomas Co -photo Oklahoma Co. Sheriff
The suspect, 73-year-old Tomas Co, is facing seven chargesof unlawful sexual relations with seven different inmates at the women’s prison. The affidavit is based on interviews with 25 inmates during an investigation by a Kansas corrections department special agent. It says Co flaunted his authority over inmates, touched them inappropriately and removed the pockets of his pants to allow one inmate to touch him sexually.
A judge made the affidavit public Friday after The Topeka Capital-Journal asked for its release.
Co taught inmates to make dentures in a program designed to teach them a marketable skill. He was fired in December.
His attorney, Chris Joseph, said no one has independently verified the women’s stories.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Law enforcement officials say 219 people were arrested and 583 warrants were cleared during a crime-fighting initiative in Kansas City, Kansas.
The effort involving local, state and federal agencies was called Operation Lateral Storm.
Police Chief Terry Zeigler said Monday the task force ran from March 1 until the end of April and targeted gang, drug and gun activity. Officers concentrated on five districts with the most crime in the city.
Officers investigated drugs being smuggled in Kansas City, Kansas when it led to a search warrant at a residence. Approximately 13 pounds of methamphetamine and 2 kilo’s of Heroin seized! Great bust!! pic.twitter.com/g5qOFQjsJr
Zeigler said this type of operation has a long-term impact on crime because it targets the worst criminals and results in them getting long prison sentences.
The initiative had a budget of $60,000 to cover overtime for officers. It falls under the U.S. Marshals’ nationwide crime reduction initiative called Operation Triple Beam.
KANSAS CITY, KAN. – A Kansas man was sentenced Monday to 121 months in federal prison for receiving and distributing child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister. In addition, the defendant was ordered to pay $6,500 in restitution.
Pedro Zamora is in custody in Atchison Co.
Pedro Zamora, 36, Leavenworth, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography. In his plea, he admitted that investigators found 127 videos and 1,900 images containing child pornography on a computer in his home. He used file sharing programs to collect and distribute the images.
Zamora told investigators he began searching for child pornography on the internet when he was in middle school.
BENTON, Mo. (AP) — A southeast Missouri county has paid $175,000 to a father after a deputy who had been fired from two previous policing jobs was charged with having sexual contact with a teenager in a patrol car.
Cook photo MDC
The settlement stems from the second-degree statutory sodomy case that is pending against 30-year-old Brandon Cook. He was arrested in May 2018 and is accused of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old boy whose father was a commissioned reserve officer with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department at the time.
Scott County Clerk Rita Milam says the settlement agreement is sealed and officials can’t comment.
Cook previously had been fired by police departments in Caruthersville and Hayti. Cook’s license to work as law enforcement officer in the state has been suspended.
WESTPHALIA, Mo. (AP) — Two drivers who were injured when a Missouri high school girls soccer team collided with another vehicle remain hospitalized but all team members have been released from the hospital.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says a bus carrying the Belle High School girls soccer team was struck nearly head-on Friday night by a car trying to pass another vehicle on U.S. 63 in Westphalia. The team was returning from a district championship game when the crash occurred.
Five girls and a coach were taken to University Hospital in Columbia. KRCG-TV reports they were all released by Saturday.
The bus driver, 54-year-old Randy Hicks, of Belle; and the driver of the second vehicle, 18-year-old Caleb Hock, of Jefferson City, were flown to the hospital. They were listed in fair condition Monday.
EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say no one is believed to still be missing after three people were rescued from a flooded vehicle in east-central Kansas.
Flooding in rural Lyon County-photo Lyon County Sheriff
Lyon County Undersheriff John Koelsch says the three people who were rescued early Saturday told deputies that there were initially five people in the car. They said two of them left to get gas for the stalled vehicle because they thought it was out of fuel. They never returned, and the three who were rescued after the car floated into a ditch didn’t know their full names.
Koelsch says the area was searched and no one else was found.
Authorities also arrested a man on a bicycle who ignored officers’ commands to stay put and attempted to go into the water to rescue the stranded motorists.
Kansas is one of just a handful of states that doesn’t allow a person injured by a drunk driver to sue the retailer who furnished the alcohol.
The driver who nearly killed Jeff Kudlacik had consumed at least eight alcoholic beverages over several hours before he got into his car. BIGSTOCK
On Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld that 34-year-old rule, saying it was up to the Legislature to change it.
On March 10, 2015, Jeff Kudlacik was driving down 135th Street and Quivira Road in Overland Park around 11 p.m. when a Ford Fusion going 70 miles an hour ran a red light and slammed into his Mitsubishi 3000 sedan, slicing it in half.
The accident left Kudlacik, who had just celebrated his 23rd birthday with his parents, with compound fractures in both of his femurs, a punctured lung, nine broken ribs and other injuries. He was placed in a medically induced coma for 21 days and spent 70 days in Overland Park Regional Medical Center before he was discharged. He subsequently spent months in rehabilitation.
The driver who hit him, Michael Aaron Smith, had a blood alcohol content of 0.179, more than twice the legal level of impairment in Kansas.
Court records indicate that Smith had eight to 10 alcoholic drinks at Johnny’s Tavern in Shawnee over the course of about four and a half hours and then a beer at Barley’s Brewhaus in Overland Park over the course of an hour.
Thirteen months after the accident, Smith pleaded guilty to aggravated battery while driving under the influence and was sentenced to 31 months in prison. Court records show he was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $1.5 million to Kudlacik’s insurance carrier and more than $18,000 to the state crime victim compensation fund.
Kudlacik, meanwhile, sued the two bars where Smith drank, claiming the bartenders knew or should have known that Smith was intoxicated and still continued to serve him alcohol.
Johnson County District Judge Kevin Moriarty dismissed the case, noting that Kansas doesn’t allow third-party lawsuits against alcohol vendors for injuries caused by their patrons. The Kansas Court of Appeals upheld Moriarty.
Kudlacik then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing Kansas’ rule is outdated, creating an “inexplicable immunity” for alcohol vendors, and is bad public policy.
The Supreme Court didn’t buy it.
“These arguments have some merit but not enough to cause this court to upend the status quo,” the court stated in an opinion written by Justice Dan Biles.
Biles said the court was bound by a 1985 Kansas Supreme Court case, Ling v. Jan’s Liquors, which found that since Kansas doesn’t have a dram shop act, “the common-law rule prevails in Kansas.”
Dram shop laws allow victims of drunk driving accidents to hold alcohol vendors accountable for the injuries or deaths caused by their drunk customers. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have such laws. Only Kansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, South Dakota and Virginia don’t have dram shop laws.
Kansas used to have a dram shop law, but it was repealed in 1949, when the Legislature enacted comprehensive liquor regulation even as it criminalized liquor sales to minors and incapacitated people.
A line of cases since then has upheld the Kansas rule. Lawsuits against universities, fraternities, bars and liquor stores have all butted up against it and been thrown out.
And while the Supreme Court acknowledged on Friday that it wasn’t entirely convinced by the Ling case’s rationale — including what the opinion in Ling said were difficulties in recognizing intoxication and predicting patrons’ conduct — Biles said that “we are not clearly convinced Ling was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changing conditions and that more good than harm will come by departing from it.”
“We remain unpersuaded that a duty of care runs from tavern owners to third-parties injured by their patrons after leaving the tavern owner’s premises,” he wrote.
Kansas City attorney David Morantz, who represented Kudlacik, said his client knew he faced long odds in getting the law changed but was hopeful the Supreme Court would see fit to scrap it.
“We told him going into this that it would be an uphill battle because the court’s prior rulings on this subject going back to the ’80s presented quite a challenge for us,” Morantz said. “And Jeff knew all along that if we weren’t successful in the courts, we would take the matter to this Legislature and that’s what we plan to do next.”
Jeff Kudlacik turned 23 the day a drunk driver ran through a red light in south Overland Park at 70 miles an hour and nearly killed him. CREDIT KIM KUDLACIK
Morantz said Kudlacik has learned to walk again and is engaged to be married in November.
“Jeff’s made a remarkable recovery and he’s really been an inspiration to our firm,” Morantz said.
The stakes in the Kudlacik case were big enough to draw the attention of outside parties with an interest in the case. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association and the Kansas Emergency Medical Services Association weighed in with friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Kudlacik’s position. The Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association and the Kansas Association of Defense Counsel filed briefs opposing it.
Wichita attorney Blake Shuart, who represented Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the organization was disappointed with the decision.
“We feel that the Supreme Court missed a good opportunity to create a cause of action that could benefit lots of Kansans,” Shuart said.
Shuart said the court seemed to recognize there were sound policy reasons for creating a right to sue, “but the issue has now been kicked back to the Kansas Legislature.”
“Regardless of this opinion,” he said, “the policy arguments presented by both Mr. Kudlacik and our client, MADD, remain viable, and we encourage the Legislature to take overdue action, so that Kansas may join the overwhelming majority of states that have elected to hold liquor vendors responsible for the injuries they cause.”
Adam Mills, president and CEO of the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said any change in the law was best left to the Legislature.
“We appreciate the Supreme Court upholding previous rulings and providing certainty for our industry,” Mills said in an email. “Alcohol sales by Kansas’ restaurant and hospitality industries are heavily regulated. These same regulations have produced reductions in the amount of alcohol-related traffic incidents, which have dropped dramatically since 1985.”
Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.
