I do not understand Kansas. Not even a little. More precisely, what the hell is WITH Phil Kline?
Prosecutors were weighing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday after a ruling by the state’s high court led to the release of a man jailed for performing a sex act on an underage boy.
Miami County District Judge Richard Smith said in court that he could not set Matthew Limon free because he had not been able to find a governmental agency to supervise his release. That problem apparently was resolved after the hearing and the defendant was turned over to family living in western Kansas.
Limon was 18 and living at a home for the developmentally disabled in Paola when he was accused of sodomizing a 14-year-old resident. His attorneys argued the relationship was consensual, but Limon was convicted and sentenced to more than 17 years in prison, where he has been held since 2000. Had Limon’s affair been with a 14-year-old girl, he would have been punished under the state’s Romeo and Juliet law and would not have faced more than 15 months in prison. That disparity roused the interest of gay rights groups and civil libertarians and led the state’s highest court to rule last month that illegal homosexual acts cannot be punished more harshly than illegal heterosexual ones.
Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said last month after the Kansas Supreme Court issued its ruling that he wouldn’t appeal. But Miami County Atty. David Miller said it appeared Kline had changed his mind. Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Kline, said no decision had been made on an appeal....
Seriously, what would Kline think he'd gain by appealing? Surely even archconservatives in Kansas have to be thinking, "Yo, guy, you've spent several years pursuing a mentally handicapped guy for one sexual encounter. Give it a freakin' rest, why don't you?" And realistically, assuming that the staff in his office will tell him what he needs to hear, rather than what he'd want to hear, a decent assistant attorney general would say, "First, the US Supreme Court would refuse to hear this case, since this is what they told the state to do in the first place. Second, if they did hear the case, they'd probably turn around and issue a per curiam decision -- again -- telling us to release him -- again -- and calling us names in legalese -- AGAIN. So there's nothing to be gained by this, and all we're going to do is waste the state's money. So let it go, dude."
Maybe this sort of political posturing really does play to Kline's archconservative base. Who knows? Or maybe he really does have a bug up his nose about this kid.
But surely, at some point, it's got to occur to him that pursuing a mentally handicapped kid for nothing more than the sake of doing it is just ... obnoxious and repugnant behavior from any adult, let alone an elected official using the power of the state to do it.
Posted by iain at November 04, 2005 11:55 AM
