Kansas Roundup - Topeka Capital-Journal - Cheatham seeks release after disclosure of reports by Topeka police detectives | Topeka Capital-Journal - Cheatham's atty appears at Kansas Sup. Ct. disciplinary hearing dressed as Thomas Jefferson
Steve Hall
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Topeka Capital-Journal - Cheatham seeks release after disclosure of reports by Topeka police detectives
Above the Law - Lawyer Dresses Up As Thomas Jefferson At His Own Disciplinary Hearing
Topeka Capital-Journal - Hawver appears at Kansas Supreme Court dressed as Thomas Jefferson
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September 16, 2014 - 1:05pm | Topeka Capital-Journal
Cheatham seeks release after disclosure of reports by Topeka police detectives
Capital murder defendant points to timing problem, statement about being in Chicago
By Sherman Smith | sherma...@cjonline.com
Capital murder defendant Phillip Cheatham is asking for his immediate release based on reports by two police detectives, as well as documents that accuse witnesses of perjury in his first trial.
Statements by Topeka police detectives Lou Randall and Brian Hill show possible confusion about the timeline before and after the Dec. 13, 2003, shooting deaths for which Cheatham is being retried. A motions hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday before Shawnee County District Court Judge Richard Anderson, who is set to consider death penalty arguments and other unresolved issues.
Defense attorney Paul Oller last month told the judge that Randall, who died in 2012, acknowledged Cheatham was in Chicago at the time of the murders. Cheatham’s latest filing includes a supplemental offense report Randall made about a conversation with Samuel Oatis, a defense alibi witness.
“Mr. Oatis stated that he was in Chicago around December 13th or 14th of 2003,” Randall wrote. “He said that he was there for 2 or 3 days. I told Mr. Oatis that Mr. Cheatham was there also.”
Cheatham calls his filing a “supplemental affidavit of truth,” and it carries the logo of his Marvelous Light Due Process Foundation, through which he offers legal guidance to fellow inmates. Several documents attached to the affidavit reveal previously undisclosed information about the case.
Randall took charge of the investigation after death threats were made to Hill, a report shows. One of the suspects in the threats was a former Shawnee County Jail employee who was fired for being close to Cheatham. Randall said he believed the two “had an intimate relationship” while Cheatham was incarcerated.
Hill led the investigation on the night of the murders. His notes say he responded at 8:15 p.m., but autopsy reports show the victims died a short time later. A testimony transcript from the related drug trial of Tracy Smith, who prosecutors said ordered Cheatham to kill several women over missing drugs, shows Hill struggling to explain whether the time or the date was wrong in the report.
Other documents include sworn statements by former inmates who say witnesses lied under oath, and statements by a key witness indicating he made up a story in exchange for having charges dropped.
Cheatham was convicted in 2005, but the Kansas Supreme Court ordered a new trial based on numerous mistakes made by Cheatham’s attorney in the case. It isn’t clear why some of these documents apparently weren’t made available for the first trial.
But Cheatham says it is wrong for the state to keep him in jail on the basis of evidence introduced at that trial, because he didn’t have access to the information and couldn’t form a complete defense.
“These witnesses, Randall in particular, possessed knowledge and evidence,” Cheatham wrote, “which if he would have honored his oath refuted not only his own perjured testimony but the other state witnesses.”
Cheatham argues he “is entitled to dismissal with prejudice of all charges and should be released immediately without further delay,” and if the judge disagrees, “additional lawful remedy actions” may be taken. A former judge in the case, Mark Braun, recused himself after Cheatham filed a judicial complaint against Braun.
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Sherman Smith can be reached at (785) 295-1231 or sherma...@cjonline.com | on Twitter @TCJShermanSmith
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17 Sep 2014 at 12:52 PM | Above the Law blog - Quote of the Day
Lawyer Dresses Up As Thomas Jefferson At His Own Disciplinary Hearing
By Joe Patrice
I am incompetent! Anybody who thinks they are representing an innocent person and can’t convince a jury is incompetent or ineffective.
– Ira Dennis Hawver, a lawyer who showed up to his disciplinary hearing dressed as Thomas Jefferson. Hawver was… wait, what? Dressed as Thomas Jefferson? Yeah. I guess that’s the sort of thing Tea Partiers do. Anyway, Hawver was defending himself against possible disbarment after he royally botched a death penalty case with his “my client couldn’t have done it because he wouldn’t have left a witness alive” defense — making his turn at cosplay the second dumbest argument he’s made in the courtroom.
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Friday, Sept. 12, 2014 | Topeka Capital-Journal
Hawver appears at Kansas Supreme Court dressed as Thomas Jefferson
By Steve Fry | stev...@cjonline.com
Dressed as Thomas Jefferson, 18th century Revolutionary War patriot, lawyer Ira Dennis Hawver faced the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday to answer disciplinary findings he provided ineffective assistance of counsel to a defendant sentenced to death.
The Ozawkie-based attorney was Phillip D. Cheatham Jr.’s defense attorney when Cheatham was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 in the slaying of one woman, the "Hard 50" in the killing of a second woman and lengthy prison terms for wounding a third woman and two other convictions.
Cheatham is being tried a second time after the Supreme Court overturned his convictions and death penalty sentence in 2013, ruling Cheatham received ineffective assistance of counsel. Following a disciplinary hearing, the disciplinary administrator recommended disbarment of Hawver.
Wearing a white powdered wig, a dark 18th century suit and long white stockings, Hawver sat in the Supreme Court listening to two earlier cases before his disciplinary case was called.
Hawver represented himself during the hearing before the Supreme Court and before the disciplinary administrator's office in November 2013.
Before Hawver spoke to the court, deputy disciplinary administrator Alexander Walczak gave a lengthy list of violations by Hawver when he represented Cheatham.
Hawver knew of a potential alibi defense that allegedly would place Cheatham in Chicago at the time of the two killings in Topeka but did nothing to develop it as a defense, Walczak said.
Hawver didn't know how to trace the location of Cheatham's cellphone calls to establish he might have been outside Topeka when the shootings occurred, Walczak said.
Hawver thought that an agreement signed by Cheatham would release him from any disciplinary action, Walczak said. Walczak urged the justices to disbar Hawver based on intentional violations of his duty to Cheatham.
Hawver said he dressed as Jefferson, his personal hero, to see whether the Kansas Supreme Court would protect his constitutional rights.
"Am I going to get you to protect my rights to defend my client" as I see fit? Hawver said. The First Amendment protects his actions with his clients, and the Sixth Amendment protects the rights of his client, he said.
Hawver said he might not have jumped through every "American Bar Association hoop" but he believed Cheatham was innocent. He referred to ABA guidelines for lawyers defending someone in a death penalty case.
"Phillip Cheatham didn't complain about my performance. You did," Hawver said, referring to the justices.
"I am incompetent!" Hawver said, banging the lectern with his hand. "Anybody who thinks they are representing an innocent person and can't convince a jury is incompetent or ineffective."
Hawver said his constitutional rights and the rights of Cheatham are more important than the lawyer and defendant are individually.
"Our constitutional rights are being eroded, and I ask you to stop," Hawver said, sitting down.
This isn’t the first time Hawver has worn a powdered wig.
When campaigning during unsuccessful bids for U.S. Congress as a Libertarian in 2000 and 2004 and for governor in 2002, Hawver often showed up for campaign events dressed as Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president.
Cheatham is facing retrial in the shooting deaths of two women and the severe wounding of a third. At the first trial, Hawver has said he was following a strategy developed by Cheatham when he described his client as a drug-dealing killer who wouldn’t have needed to fire so many shots to kill the women and who wouldn't have left the third woman alive to identify him.
Cheatham has said he felt Hawver forced him into approving the strategy after the attorney failed to submit an alibi defense.
At the end of his disciplinary hearing in November 2013, Hawver asked the panel to order him not to handle any murder cases but to allow him to handle other cases in his rural Jefferson County law practice.
Earlier this week, Hawver filed a federal lawsuit against the Kansas Supreme Court seeking damages and a court order blocking his possible disbarment.
The Supreme Court took the disciplinary action under advisement.
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Steve Hall
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