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Failing as the head of Kansas attorney general office, Derek Schmidt next hopes to fail as Governor [1]
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Date: 2022-11-03
The case may have been over, but after an appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Kansas Attorney General’s office had engaged in practices that amounted to reversible prosecutor misconduct. In 2014, Michael Akins found himself on the outside, waiting for retrial, while the assistant Attorney General, Christine Ladner, remained despite what the Supreme Court noted was prosecutorial misconduct.
The case, which originally could have resulted in the maximum equivalent of two lifetimes of prison ended up quite differently, as at a retrial in 2014, he received a registration for his offense against one child and now currently resides in Hutchinson, Kansas, according to the Kansas Bureau of Information.
Derek Schmidt, in control of the office, kept Ladner on in her role until 2016, years after the conviction was overturned and the losses were felt.
This wouldn’t be the first problem in Schmidt’s office, where one of his first hires was Kyle G. Smith, who became the deputy director at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. One small problem — three years later, Smith would be charged with sexual exploitation of a child.
This pattern of bad hires with bad results was met with rebuke by the Kansas Democratic Party. “It’s deeply alarming that a senior member of Derek Schmidt’s office – who Schmidt himself hired – was charged with sexual exploitation of a child. Schmidt must explain why he kept this a secret – having never commented or apologized to the people of Kansas. What did Schmidt know and when did he know it?” said Kansas Democratic Party spokesperson Emma O’Brien.
Meanwhile, Kansans have had to look out for Derek Schmidt who has spent significant public resources fighting student loan debt forgiveness, vaccines, and suing President Obama over public bathrooms, none of which can equate to the direct harm caused to children within the state by the failures of his own office.
Now, Schmidt aims to become the governor, a post where more agencies and hires will be his responsibility, and his track record shows it isn’t something he does well; at the same time, he is endorsing Kris Kobach, yes, that Kris Kobach, to become the attorney general of Kansas and the effective head of the Kansas Bureau for Investigation.
It looks like his first hire is already saying everything you need to know about life under a Schmidt administration.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/3/2133318/-Failing-as-the-head-of-Kansas-attorney-general-office-Derek-Schmidt-next-hopes-to-fail-as-Governor
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