North Central Regional Public Defender Office Celebrates 50th Birthday
by Caroline Zuschek, Deputy Capital Appellate Defender
I show up at the North Central Regional Public Defender Office a little after ten on a Wednesday morning. Though this office used to be my home away from home, the pandemic changed all that, and it has been months since I visited.
It is a whole new world, I soon find out, as the court in Junction City, the Geary County District Court, has changed its docket management. It used to be that attorneys had a finite number of cases almost every day of the week, morning and afternoon. In an effort to simplify things for appointed counsel who are frequently driving from places as far as Kansas City, Missouri, and Emporia, Kansas, the court has shifted to holding court fewer days per week and in multiple courtrooms at one time. “It’s like a NASCAR race,” a law school classmate and now BIDS-appointed counsel, Chris Ambrose, tells me. “It is a war zone,” agrees public defender Michael Hawthorne.
And I’m forced to agree. I take turns sitting in each courtroom, packed to the gills with clients and counsel and onlookers, holding court simultaneously live and via zoom. I watch attorneys lug giant carts and suitcases of case files between the two floors and three courtrooms. I hear one attorney’s name being called and know for certain she is doing a sentencing in another courtroom at that exact minute. I hear a client get called on two different cases in two different courtrooms with two different judges within less than 10 minutes. I hear another attorney tell one judge all of her clients have been handled for the day, only for an angry mother to stand up and yell, “What about my son?” In the attorney’s defense, she’d withdrawn from that case because of a conflict, but there was no one there to represent the client, either way. The court took up the matter and appointed an attorney who wasn’t in the room – he was downstairs in a plea hearing.
When I clear out from the 10 and 11 o’clock dockets to head to lunch, every single attorney is still there. All three courtrooms are still going. And it’s not lost on me that Geary County is one of only five counties that the North Central Regional Public Defense office represents. Its attorneys cover Riley, Dickinson, Clay, and Morris counties, too.
Back when the office opened, 50 years ago this summer, it staffed three attorneys to cover four counties. Each night before court, the secretaries would pull all of the cases for one county and hand it to an attorney – an attorney who rotated frequently. The only time attorneys appeared in court with “their” clients was for trial. The administrative office was bare bones, too: only 2-3 employees. The agency wasn’t even called BIDS then; it was called the Board of Supervisors of Panels to Aid Indigent Defendants. That Board was established in 1969, with BIDS coming into existence following the behest of the 1982 legislature. You can read more about this here.
Cynda Fells tells me all of this, and even though she’s been with the agency since 1986, now working as a legal assistant, most of it was passed down to her secondhand. Still, she personally remembers when every client had a paper contract, and they pulled cases using a card-filing system. And, of course, practice before the influx of computers to the agency – when everyone had their own volume of the criminal code, and the entire office shared a set of Kansas Reporters.
Cynda invites Cindy Withee, the office manager, to participate in the conversation. Cindy is relatively new to her current role, but she’s lived in Junction City all her life. Cindy says that Junction City’s main drag – where the North Central Regional Public Defender Office is located – has also changed a lot in the last 50 years. Back in the day, she said there was a Woolworth’s – complete with a lunch counter. Now, most of the “businesses” are law offices, including the North Central Regional Public Defender Office. The consensus is that Junction City’s landscape has changed due in part to the decrease of troops at Fort Riley, the Wal-Mart, and the impact of over-policing. That also explains the busy day I observed across the street at the courthouse. The docket the day I visited had over 300 cases scheduled.
As far as Cynda can recall, the office began with George Scott as Chief. He later went on to become a judge. Then, it was run by Steve Opat and Roger Unruh. Steve went on to serve as the Geary County Attorney, and Roger still has a law practice, now located on the main drag (of course). Mike McKone also served as head of the office, though he now works as the judge for the City of Junction City. After Mike, the office was headed by Ralph DeZago. During Ralph’s tenure, Cynda says the office also covered Saline County. She remembers working for Ralph with humor. “He wore a yellow suit and a yellow hat,” she says, shaking her head. “But, then again, he was a New Yorker.” Then she laughs, “The last time I saw Ralph, he was selling hotdogs outside of the Riley County Courthouse.”
“But,” she explains, “A lot of our attorneys have gone on to become judges: George F. Scott (Eighth Judicial District), Mike McKone (City of Junction City), Andrea Purvis (Sixth Judicial District), Maritza Segarra (Eighth Judicial District), Ryan Rosauer (Eighth Judicial District), and William Malcom (Twenty-First Judicial District).” And since this interview, Maban Wright (presently Chief of the Third) has also been appointed to the bench (Third Judicial District).
I ask Cynda what differentiates practice in her community from other BIDS offices. She says it is probably the population it serves. Geary County and Riley County clients are frequently far from their “homes” and lack vital support networks and resources they might otherwise have if they had family or ties to the area. Instead, the clients are more transient, and it is a challenge, but also a necessity to help connect them with resources in the community.
She said covering so many jurisdictions also causes nightmares in scheduling and sharing the state cars. The attorneys pipe in at this mention – apparently, there is one new car everyone prefers to drive. Rumor is two more are waiting in Topeka. They can’t come soon enough.
Still, in Cynda’s view, most everything about criminal practice has improved since she started – except she misses the time of indeterminate sentences. “It may seem harsh,” she explains, “but actually, the clients had a 120-day call back. They got a second chance.” She doesn’t miss how each attorney used to have to do their own appeals! “We predated the ADO,” she tells me.
I ask her if any cases from the office’s history stand out. “Definitely,” she tells me, “Gloria Van Winkle.” “As far as I know,” she tells me, “for some time, Gloria was the only person in Kansas serving a life sentence for simple possession of drugs.” That night, Cynda sends me this article about Gloria. “It was heartbreaking.” And the facts explained in this article truly are: Gloria was convicted of attempting to buy $40 worth of cocaine in 1992. In 1993, the law changed and significantly reduced the sentencing range for that offense. But Gloria was not released until 2004, when she’d already served 11 years in prison. Even then, the State opposed the reduction in her sentence.
Cynda also recalls how the office handled the first case in the State of Kansas to rely (perhaps wrongly) on DNA evidence. You can read about that case here. Unfortunately, despite colorable allegations that the DNA collected from the scene of a rape/murder belonged to our client’s brother, he served 30 years in prison before being paroled in 2019.
Cynda thinks both the judges and office culture have improved over time. Some judges on the bench in the counties served by the office have public defense experience. And while their rulings may still be complained about, she says attorneys generally seem less furious with the treatment their clients receive.
One thing everyone appears to agree on is that it is a wonderful office to work in, and the reason starts with its chief, Cole Hawver. Phylemon Yau, a lead assistant public defender who has been with the agency since being hired by Ron Wurtz in Shawnee County in 1999, says he misses the old days when the office assistants did all of the filing. But he really appreciates how Cole reaches out to his attorneys, particularly the younger ones. Another attorney, Brandi Miller, who transferred to the North Central Office after practicing in Salina, describes the office as a professional, relaxed, and happy place. She said Cole’s door is always open so attorneys can ask him questions, and he fosters a sense of camaraderie by assigning a second chair to every trial. Cynda and Cindy agree: “People genuinely like each other.”
And they have fun ways of showing it. For as long as I can remember, the office has thrown the best potlucks – with Cole grilling during the warmer months and entire thanksgiving feasts appearing in November. “But we’ve extended it to birthdays,” they tell me. Next week, Michal is having a birthday. Kimberly Teesdale (the investigator) is making a homemade ice cream cake. Deb Rogowski (the administrative specialist) is making Michael a second quilt. “A second quilt?” I ask. And they give me a tour. Deb has made a quilt for every person in the office, personalized to them. Michael’s first quilt covers one whole wall of his office and is made of Star Wars fabric. His second one is a surprise.
As I am leaving, Deb says, “You should come visit more often. I can make you a quilt, too.”