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Media Backgrounder: Phill Kline's Allegations Against Planned

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Media Backgrounder: Phill Kline's Allegations Against Planned Media Backgrounder: Phill Kline’s Allegations Against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri (PPKM) has been a trusted, high-quality health care provider for more than 75 years in Kansas. Each year, it provides reproductive health services and education to more than 24,000 women, men and teens including birth control, life- saving cancer screenings, and other preventive services at its nine health centers in Kansas & Missouri. In addition, PPKM manages Comprehensive Health, a licensed ambulatory surgical center providing medication abortion and 1st and 2nd trimester surgical abortion care in Overland Park, KS. Kline’s “Inquisition”. As one Kansas newspaper editorialized, Kline tried to turn the Attorney General’s office into a pro-life law firm. Shortly after taking office as Attorney General in 2003, he opened an ‚inquisition‛ (a secret criminal investigation authorized by Kansas law) to search for evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood and the late Dr. George Tiller. He had no evidence or complaint on which to base the inquisition, nor were any required under the statute. Planned Parenthood first learned of the inquisition when Kline subpoenaed the complete, original confidential medical records of women who’d been patients at Comprehensive Health. Over the next two years, PPKM fought successfully to protect its patients’ privacy, resulting in a Kansas Supreme Court decision that required that if the subpoena went forward, all identifying information had to be removed from the medical records. In October 2006, a limited number of heavily-redacted records were produced by court order to the Attorney General’s office. In November 2006, Phil Kline was defeated by then District Attorney Paul Morrison in his bid to be reelected. On his last day as Attorney General, Kline directed his staff to take the redacted medical records from the Attorney General’s office and have them copied at a local copy shop in Topeka. For the next two months, the records and copies were moved around the state, unsecured and unprotected, in the trunks of private vehicles, in unlocked garages, in unlocked containers at private residences. Continued on next page The Allegations. In early summer 2007, AG Paul Morrison concluded an ‚objective, thorough, and unbiased‛ review of the redacted medical records, found no criminal wrongdoing and closed the investigation. But by this time, Kline had been installed as Johnson County District Attorney by the Johnson County Republican Central Committee. After scouring them for anything he could use to justify his lengthy fishing expedition, Kline issued criminal charges in October 2007. The 107 charges, which include 23 felony counts and 84 misdemeanors, fall into four groups. The first two concern reports of abortions which providers submit to the state, alleging (1) Planned Parenthood failed to retain copies of those reports as required by law, a misdemeanor offense; and (2) subsequently illegally created copies when the records were subpoenaed, a felony charge, to cover up its alleged failure to retain them. The remaining charges, all misdemeanors, concern determination of gestational age and viability when performing abortions at 22-23 weeks gestation, alleging (3) Planned Parenthood didn’t use appropriate procedures to determine fetal viability and thus (4) by relying on those procedures, performed illegal ‚late-term‛ abortions. Planned Parenthood has and continues to vigorously deny all the allegations, maintains they are politically-motivated and without legal or medical merit and is confident in the justice system and that justice will prevail. Present Day The state has resumed its prosecution of Planned Parenthood despite our having been exonerated twice following objective, independent investigations of the same records and reports on which Kline relied to make his allegations. In November 2010, anti-choice politician Sam Brownback was elected Kansas Governor and Derek Schmidt was elected Attorney General. Attorney General Schmidt deputized McMullen as Special Assistant Attorney General, giving him the authority to obtain unredacted original copies of patient records. District Attorney Steve Howe continued to pursue the misguided case against Planned Parenthood. Disciplinary charges of misconduct by Kline and his staff in handling the Planned Parenthood case, brought by the state’s disciplinary administrator, are pending in the Kansas Supreme Court. On October 13, 2011, The Kansas Disciplinary Administrator has recommended indefinite suspension of Phill Kline's Kansas law license due to his mishandling of evidence relating to abortion clinic investigations. Previous Exonerations Dismissal of Inquisition. In January 2007, Paul Morrison became Attorney General after defeating Kline in the general election. Morrison and his staff thoroughly reviewed the redacted records and reports and reached the legal conclusion they contained no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. In June 2007, he announced no criminal charges were warranted and formally closed the inquisition Kline began in 2003. Grand Jury Investigation. In January 2008, while Kline was District Attorney, a grand jury was convened in Johnson County to investigate CHPP yet again on similar allegations. The grand jury was provided the same redacted medical records, plus additional information they requested from CHPP. After an exhaustive three-month review, the jury found no evidence of criminal activity and ended its term with no indictments. Kansas Board of Healing Arts. In November 2010, the Kansas Board of Healing Arts investigated similar charges and found no violations of the law. In addition to the allegations having been investigated and discredited, Kline’s charges should have been dismissed long ago because of lack of credible evidence and Kline’s prosecutorial misconduct in pursuing them. Disciplinary Charges of Misconduct: Phill Kline The Kansas Supreme Court Disciplinary Administrator has found that Mr. Kline misled the Kansas Supreme Court when seeking subpoenas, mishandled patient medical records, misstated the whereabouts of those records, selectively presented information to a Johnson County grand jury, relied on data known to be flawed to justify the investigation before a judge, and, finally, ignored warnings by the court to not talk about the case by discussing it on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News Show. Evidentiary Concerns In October 2011, during the preliminary hearing to determine whether evidence supports 23 felony counts, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe revealed that KDHE abortion reports critical to the case were shredded by KDHE sometime in 2005 before Phill Kline filed charges in October 2007. Judge Tatum grants a two week continuance to allow Howe time to determine whether he can find evidence to authenticate the records. The reports were shredded in compliance with the ‘Abortion Reporting Record Retention Policy and Procedures’ as defined by KDHE. 4401 West 109th Street, Suite 200 Overland Park, Kansas 66211 Prepared October 20, 2011 .
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