Court cites error made in murder case reason for reversal

A recently released syllabus detailing an opinion by the Kansas Supreme Court explains the reversed decision in a 2012 murder trial prosecuted by current Bourbon County Attorney Jacqie Spradling.

Former Topeka resident Dana Chandler was convicted in 2012 by a Shawnee County District Court jury of premeditated first-degree murder following the 2002 shooting deaths of her ex-husband Michael Sisco and his fiancee, Karen Harkness, both of Topeka. Spradling, at the time, was a deputy district attorney with the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office and prosecuted the case with then-District Attorney Chad Taylor.

When contacted by email, Spradling said she could not provide comment.

“Because the case will have to be re-tried, the rules don’t allow a comment from me,” she said Thursday.

The 50-page court opinion, released April 6, cites various “prosecutorial errors” made by the state in the case.

“In a criminal prosecution, the State’s obligation is to ensure its case is vigorously, but properly, championed to bring about a just conviction – not merely a win,” Justice Dan Biles wrote in the opinion. “Prosecutors are the state’s instrument in fulfilling this duty. When they fail, our system fails, and the safeguards protecting the constitutional right to a fair trial strain to the breaking point. That is what happened in this case. To its credit, the State belatedly concedes one serious prosecutorial error, although there were more.

“We reverse Dana L. Chandler’s premeditated first-degree murder convictions. We remand this case to the district court for further proceedings,” Biles wrote.

Justices concluded the prosecution of Chandler “unfortunately illustrates how a desire to win can eclipse the state’s responsibility to safeguard the fundamental constitutional right to a fair trail owed to any defendant facing criminal prosecution in a Kansas courtroom.”

The murders of Sisco and Harkness launched a nine-year criminal investigation that culminated in Chandler’s arrest in 2011. Chandler has been an inmate at Topeka Correctional Facility since 2012, according to an April 6 Topeka Capital-Journal story.

One of the errors highlighted in the opinion concerns a protection from abuse order allegedly obtained in 1998 by Sisco in Douglas County. The court found that Taylor and Spradling falsely led the jury to believe Chandler had violated that abuse order, which didn’t exist.

“All agree there is no protection from abuse order in the trial record,” the court wrote in its opinion.

The state made multiple attempts to claim on appeal the order existed until the state more recently acknowledged Spradling was wrong, the Capital-Journal reports.

“Several claims involving prosecutorial error arise in Chandler’s appeal,” the opinion states. “Most come from the supplemental briefing and inquiries by the court.”

In addressing the errors, the court emphasized “only the one conceded error was enough to reverse these convictions – the prosecutor falsely claiming Mike (Sisco) got a protection from abuse order against Chandler.”

“The prosecutor specifically and intentionally referred to ‘protection from abuse’ orders – not just routine, ex parte temporary orders often entered initially in divorce cases and directed to both parties,” the opinion states. “And this is further underscored by the reasonable assumption that experienced prosecutors know the difference and understand that protection from abuse orders are specific creatures under state law, entered after judicial review, and based on specific evidence in separate court proceedings.”

The state argued that any “protection from abuse” reference was not critical and that “strong circumstantial evidence established motive and opportunity.”

The opinion also said the state’s case relied on “circumstantial evidence” that consisted of “inconsistent statements concerning Chandler’s whereabouts” when the murders occurred, “Chandler’s gas purchases at that time,” her “obsessive behavior toward the victims” and “two post-arrest jailhouse phone calls” made by Chandler.

Other prosecutorial errors mentioned in the opinion include “false claims about internet searches,” “arguments about Chandler outsmarting others,” “leaving children without their dad and his fiancee,” “disobeying court order not to refer to people in the gallery,” and a comment made on Chandler’s post-arrest silence.

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