Defense lawyers rested Thursday in the trial of one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions, and jurors were told to return Friday.

Dr. George Tiller is on trial in Sedgwick County District Court on 19 misdemeanor charges stemming from abortions he performed at his Wichita clinic in 2003. He is accused of breaking a state law requiring that two Kansas physicians without legal or financial ties sign off on any late-term procedure.

After the defense rested Thursday, jurors were sent home while attorneys hashed out jury instructions and other issues. Jurors were told to return Friday for closing arguments.

On Wednesday, testified that he relied on advice from his lawyers and a Kansas official before getting second opinions that prosecutors say were illegal.

Tiller recalled a June 1999 conversation with Larry Buening, who was then the executive director of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates doctors. Tiller testified that Buening suggested he use Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus for second opinions with the caveat he could not be quoted saying it.

Tiller testified Buening implied Neuhaus could “come down” to his clinic to meet with his patients.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you use Kris Neuhaus and that will take care of all of your problems?'” Tiller testified.

Under cross examination, Tiller said he relied on what Buening told him but acknowledged he later sought legal advice from his attorneys. When pressed, he said he ultimately relied on his attorneys’ advice.

That distinction is important to the prosecution because the judge told both sides before the trial began that relying on the advice of an attorney cannot be used as a legal defense to criminal charges.

The attorney whom Tiller consulted, Rachael Pirner, testified Wednesday that she advised Tiller on what he needed to do to avoid a legal and financial affiliation with Neuhaus.

“We relied on the representation of Larry Buening in giving our advice to our client,” Pirner said.

Prosecutor Barry Disney has described Neuhaus as essentially a Tiller employee whose only income in 2003 came from patients she saw at Tiller’s clinic. Disney rested his case Tuesday after calling Neuhaus as his sole witness.

When Disney questioned Tiller on Wednesday about the conversation with Buening, Tiller replied: “When she was working for me – correction, when she was providing consultations for the patient …”

Kansas law allows abortions after a fetus can survive outside the womb only if two independent doctors agree that it is necessary to save a women’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible” harm to “a major bodily function,” a phrase that’s been interpreted to include mental health.

Tiller, 67, said Neuhaus had no financial or legal interest in his clinic and that consultations were done there for the convenience and safety of the patients and physicians.

The defense entered into evidence Tiller’s daily planner, which included notes of the conversation with Buening.

“He said I couldn’t quote him,” Tiller testified. “I made notes of it.”

Based on Buening’s assurances, Tiller said, he decided not to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statute requiring two Kansas physicians to sign off on late-term abortions.

Disney questioned Tiller about whether it was reasonable for him to rely on something that a person has said he would not back up. Tiller insisted it was.

“It might be embarrassing for it to be public knowledge,” Tiller said.

The prosecution also pressed Pirner on the stand Thursday over whether Tiller told her at the time that Buening would not publicly acknowledge that conversation. She said she did not remember that, and her notes did not indicate it.

But she said she would still have advised her client to rely on Buening’s assurances had she known because the Buening and Tiller had “a relationship that goes back for quite a ways.” Pirner said she felt Buening had the authority to tell a physician what he was doing legal.

Tiller testified that he and Neuhaus agreed in 1999 that she would charge patients $250 for consultations and come to his clinic one day a week. He wrote in his planner that day: “Kris glad to do this. Needed the money.”

He said that in about five cases each year, Neuhaus would disagree with him about the necessity of a late-term abortion. When she declined to concur, the abortion was not done, Tiller testified.

Tiller estimated that he performed 250 to 300 late-term abortions in 2003, each costing an average of $6,000.

Tiller said he is one of three doctors in the U.S. who currently perform late-term abortions. The others are in Boulder, Colo., and Los Angeles, he said.

He also told jurors that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats from anti-abortion protesters. His clinic was the site of the 1991 “Summer of Mercy” protests marked by mass demonstrations and arrests. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.

He said federal marshals protected him during the 1991 abortion protests and from 1994 to 1998, after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding his name on an assassination list.

Case is State v. Tiller, No. 07CR2112 in Sedgwick County.

All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday against abortion provider George Tiller after calling as their lone witness the consulting physician who provided the second opinion required by Kansas law for late-term abortions.

Tiller’s lawyers were to begin presenting their evidence today. They will try to show that Tiller had no improper financial or legal connections with Ann Kristin Neuhaus, from whom he regularly sought second opinions on late-term abortions.

The defense moved for an acquittal after the state rested Tuesday, arguing the prosecution failed to present enough evidence to support a guilty verdict.

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens rejected the motion, finding there was adequate evidence of financial ties between Tiller and Neuhaus to send the question to the jury. Owens questioned the adequacy of evidence of a legal affiliation between the doctors, but said he would address that matter in jury instructions.

Tiller went on trial Monday on 19 misdemeanor charges stemming from abortions he performed at his Wichita clinic in 2003. He is accused of breaking a state law requiring that an independent Kansas physician sign off on any late-term abortion.

Prosecutors described Neuhaus as essentially a Tiller employee whose only income at the time came from patients she saw at Tiller’s clinic.

The defense argued she only came to his clinic for the convenience and safety of patients, pointing out she paid for her own expenses, such as malpractice insurance and travel costs. Tiller’s patients paid Neuhaus a cash consultation fee of $250 to $300.

Prosecutors on Tuesday tried to cast doubt on Neuhaus’ testimony that such consultations were common between physicians by bringing up a discussion she had with Tiller about her fees when he was recruiting her. The prosecution was trying to show that independent physicians don’t discuss their fees with other doctors for referrals.

But Neuhaus insisted she could not remember whether she had ever discussed with Tiller her consulting fee, even after being shown notes Tiller purportedly took during a conversation over her fees.

Neuhaus acknowledged in later testimony that she had “an agreement” with Tiller whereby she would charge patients an agreed amount and he would start referring his abortion patients to her.

Neuhaus first testified about her relationship with Tiller in a 2006 inquisition under a grant of immunity from former Attorney General Phill Kline, whose investigation of Tiller formed the basis for the current charges against him.

The current attorney general, Stephen Six, also granted her immunity two months ago.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Dan Monnat, Neuhaus said she sometimes declined to concur with a late-term abortion. She testified she was not aware of any abortion that Tiller performed after she refused to consent to it, but added she would have no way of knowing.

Neuhaus acknowledged that she had restrictions on her medical license after a disciplinary complaint was filed, but jurors were told few details other than it involved anesthesia practices.

Neuhaus was accused in 2001 of performing an abortion after a patient withdrew permission. Under an agreement with the State Board of Healing Arts, she changed her consent forms and addressed the board’s concerns about how she kept records and administered sedatives.

All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

The prosecution’s only witness said Monday she did not have a full-time business relationship with Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

The denial strikes at the main issue that has Tiller on trial in Sedgwick County District Court, charged with 19 misdemeanors.

Prosecutor Barry Disney indicated that Kristen Neuhaus changed her story from what she told another assistant state attorney general more than two years ago.

Neuhaus said that prosecutor Steve Maxwell — a deputy to then-Attorney General Phill Kline — so harshly interrogated her during a secret hearing that she’s not sure what she said.

That marked the first day’s testimony in the case against Tiller in a trial to decide whether he violated a Kansas law regulating late-term abortions.

The trial is being watched by abortion opponents across the country.

“This is the biggest trial in the history of Kansas,” Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Washington D.C., told some two dozen people in front of the Courthouse on Monday morning.

Tiller is charged with having an improper business relationship with Neuhaus during 19 late-term abortions in 2003. Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanors, one for each of those abortions.

“I would be asked to evaluate the patients and see if their pregnancy constituted a substantial and irreversible threat to their health,” Neuhaus testified.

That wording -“substantial and irreversible” – is important. By law, two physicians must make that determination before a woman can undergo an abortion in cases where the fetus could survive outside the womb.

Both sides agree that all 19 of the abortions in question were performed after Tiller had determined the fetus was viable and that the pregnancy put the mother’s mental or physical health in danger.

Each time, Neuhaus signed off as the second opinion.

Neuhaus testified she began doing such consulting on late-term abortion cases at Tiller’s Women’s Healthcare Services Clinic in Wichita in 1999.

“Would you agree that right around 2003 that you became a full-time consultant for the defendant?” Disney asked.

“No, I did not,” Neuhaus said.

On Dec. 8, 2006, Maxwell asked Neuhaus the same question during an investigation into Kansas abortion clinics.

“This was the years right after he was shot,” Neuhaus said in a transcript Disney showed to the jury. “I became a full-time consultant.”

“I did use that word,” she said Monday.

But she said she misspoke.

“I was the only one doing consultations,” she said. “I should have said ‘only.’ ”

Neuhaus said her 2006 testimony came during a contentious hearing as part of what prosecutors term an inquisition. That’s an investigation into whether a law has been broken.

“I was being interrogated for four hours,” she said. “I was probably distraught. I don’t know why I said some of these things.”

Neuhaus, who ran a medical practice in the Lawrence area, said she only came to Wichita to do consultations at Tiller’s clinic once a week for half a day.

“I wouldn’t call that full-time,” she said.

To convict Tiller, the state must show that he had an improper legal or financial relationship with Neuhaus.

“This case isn’t about abortion,” Disney told the jury in his opening statements Monday morning.

It’s about their business relationship, he said.

“It’s about this defendant intentionally setting up this relationship, so he could continue business as usual,” Disney said.

Tiller is one of the few doctors in the world who performs late-term abortions, his lawyer Dan Monnat said in his opening address.

Monnat contends Tiller did not pay Neuhaus or control her medical opinions. Although she visited with patients at the Wichita clinic, she sometimes did not sign off on Tiller’s original diagnosis, Monnat said.

“The evidence will show that the prosecution’s theory makes no legal, medical or common sense,” Monnat said.

The jury may not get to consider Monnat’s theory for the defense, however.

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens took under advisement how he would rule on Monnat’s defense that Tiller was acting on advice from his lawyer at the time and the Kansas Board of Healing Arts.

Monnat said the state’s medical licensing board recommended Tiller use Neuhaus for his second opinions in 1999. Tiller’s then-lawyer, Wichita attorney Rachael Pirner, agreed.

Neuhaus had been working as an abortion provider in the Lawrence and Kansas City areas since the mid-1990s.

Monnat said the state can’t prosecute someone for a crime for following its recommendation.

Owens said the law allows advice of counsel or “ignorance of the law” to be used as a defense in a limited number of cases.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or [email protected]. All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

The trial of one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers began Monday with defense attorneys trying to cast doubt on whether the doctor intentionally broke a state law requiring that an independent physician sign off on the procedure.

Dan Monnat, a defense attorney for Dr. George Tiller, told jurors in his opening statement that Tiller relied on advice from the state medical board’s director and one of his lawyers when he used Dr. Kristin Neuhaus as a second opinion for some abortions.

Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanors alleging he failed to obtain a second opinion for some late-term abortions in 2003 from a physician with whom he had no legal or financial relationship.

Kansas law allows late-term abortions if two doctors agree that it is necessary to save a women’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible” harm to “a major bodily function,” a phrase that’s been interpreted to include mental health.

Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney told jurors in his opening statements that Tiller recruited Neuhaus in 1999, making his Wichita clinic a “one-stop shop” for women seeking abortions. He said that Neuhaus was essentially an employee of Tiller, that the two were so close they had a legal and financial relationship prohibited by the law.

“No one is above the law. It doesn’t matter how just someone feels their cause is,” Disney said.

Monnat told jurors that Larry Buening, then-executive director of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts,

suggested to Tiller in July 1999 that he use Neuhaus as a second opinion. He said Buening told Tiller the discussion was “off the record” and told him that if asked about it he would deny it.

Buening did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press for comment.

Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens noted earlier in the day that Kansas does not allow ignorance of the law or advice of counsel as a valid defense. He told attorneys he would likely uphold any objections prosecutors had to evidence that would support such arguments.

Monnat told jurors that the board “recognized and approved” Tiller’s relationship with Neuhaus until 2006, when abortion became a campaign issue in the attorney general’s race.

Disney told the jury that Tiller provided Neuhaus with legal advice from his attorney, including writing for her the referral form letter used to provide that second opinion. He said Neuhaus was paid by patients between $250 and $300 in cash for her consultations.

“By 2003, Dr. Neuhaus was a full-time consultant for the defendant,” Disney said. “That is all she did. She had no other job, no other source of income.”

All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press Writer

Jury selection in the criminal trial of George Tiller entered its second day Tuesday, with both sides working to seat a panel with members willing to set aside their personal views about abortion.

One juror was dismissed early Tuesday after telling attorneys she signed a citizen petition demanding a grand jury investigation of Tiller and acknowledging her sister was a frequent abortion protester at his Wichita clinic.

Another was dismissed in the afternoon after he told attorneys he didn’t know whether he could overlook his anti-abortion beliefs.

Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanors alleging that he failed to obtain a second opinion for late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by Kansas law. If convicted, he could face a year in county jail or a fine of $2,500 for each charge.

The jury pool will be cut to six jurors and two alternates today. Opening statements and trial testimony will begin Monday.

Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney told prospective jurors that prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that Tiller performed the 19 late-term abortions and that he was required to obtain a second, independent opinion. Jurors need only decide whether Ann Kristin Neuhaus, the doctor who provided Tiller with second opinions, had a financial or legal relationship with him, Disney said.

Prosecutors contend Tiller broke the law because he had a financial relationship with Neuhaus, who has been granted immunity from prosecution and could testify.

Defense attorney Dan Monnat hinted at the defense strategy by saying Tiller has never “knowingly or intentionally” been financially affiliated with the doctor who provided second opinions.

All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

BY ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

Defense attorneys hint at their strategy while questioning potential jurors.

Potential jurors in the trial of George Tiller were told Monday to set aside their personal views about abortion, and at least one was dismissed after she said she couldn’t.

“This trial is not a debate about abortion,” Assistant Attorney General Barry Disney told prospective jurors as jury selection began in Sedgwick County District Court. “It is not about whether abortion is right or wrong…. This trial is about whether the defendant has violated the law.”

Tiller, one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers, is charged with 19 misdemeanors alleging he failed to obtain a second opinion for late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by Kansas law. If convicted, he could face a year in jail or a fine of $2,500 for each misdemeanor charge.

Defense attorney Dan Monnat hinted at the defense strategy while questioning the potential jurors by saying Tiller has never been “knowingly or intentionally” financially affiliated with the doctor who provided second opinions.

Tiller’s defense attorneys say he is innocent and have called his prosecution a “hyper-technical political trial.” They have said they will appeal if he is convicted.

Tiller and his clinic have been a target of abortion opponents for decades. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.

Wichita also was the site of the 45-day “Summer of Mercy” event staged by Operation Rescue in 1991. Those mass demonstrations and clinic blockades led to more than 2,600 arrests.

Abortion opponents plan prayer vigils during the trial. Several prayed outside the courthouse Monday. Abortion-rights supporters also plan demonstrations.

Disney told prospective jurors that prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that Tiller performed the 19 late-term abortions and that he was required to obtain a second, independent opinion. Jurors need only decide whether Ann Kristin Neuhaus, the doctor who provided Tiller with second opinions, had a financial or legal relationship with him, Disney said.

Neuhaus, who has been granted immunity from prosecution, could testify.

One potential juror was dismissed after she said she was biased against Tiller and would find it hard to let go of her anti-abortion views.

Another was let go after he insisted he didn’t “want to be a part of it,” saying he has seen too much about the case in the media. A third man was dismissed because he did not understand English well.

Jury selection continues today and Wednesday.

All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

The Kansas Attorney General’s Office on Friday said that while it doesn’t dispute a motion filed by lawyers for a Wichita abortion provider about records being mailed out of the state, it shouldn’t affect the prosecution of George Tiller.

Prosecutor Barry Disney said in a pleading filed in Sedgwick County District Court that he agreed that a package containing abortion records was mailed to Virginia, where former Attorney General Phill Kline works at the Liberty University Law School.

But Disney said it caused no harm to his case — in which Tiller is charged with 19 misdemeanors — because Kline is no longer a Kansas prosecutor.

“The mailing of this package is at its best an innocent act that means nothing,” Disney wrote to the court Friday. “At its worst it is the act of a private citizen whose conduct is not binding upon the office of the attorney general.”

Kline’s personal lawyer said the mailing “was a mistake.”

“Until 24 hours ago, no one associated with Phill Kline even knew what was in that package,” said Caleb Stegall, who represents Kline.

Dan Monnat, who represents Tiller, said in court papers filed late Thursday that the package was mailed on Kline’s last day as Johnson County district attorney and contained sensitive information about women who had received abortions at Tiller’s Wichita clinic.

Monnat argued that it is further evidence that Kline had no regard for patients’ privacy and is further proof of alleged misconduct in his investigation of Tiller.

Contacted Friday at the Liberty Law School, Kline declined to comment.

Kline has said that Monnat is trying to deflect attention from the criminal charges against his client.

Stegall said Kline took a collection of documents to Sedgwick County for a January hearing, under subpoena by Tiller’s lawyers. Among them were Kline’s personal diaries, which Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens ordered would not be turned over to Tiller’s attorneys.

But the stack also included abortion records and summaries of Tiller’s records.

“Those records were supposed to remain in Sedgwick County,” Stegall said.

Stegall said that when the box was sent to Johnson County from Sedgwick County, Kline’s administrative staff forwarded it to Virginia unopened — not inspecting the box to see whether it contained records that should remain with the district attorney.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-0514 or [email protected]. All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

Three days after Phill Kline testified in a Sedgwick County courtroom about the handling of abortion files, copies of those records were mailed to the Virginia city where the former Kansas prosecutor had taken a new job.

Lawyers for Wichita abortion provider George Tiller said in court papers filed late Thursday that the mailed package of documents is further evidence that Kline has no regard for patients’ privacy and further proof of alleged misconduct in his investigation.

Kline, who now works at the Liberty University Law School in Lynchburg, Va., did not immediately respond to attempts to contact him.

Assistant Kansas Attorney General Barry Disney, who is prosecuting a misdemeanor case against Tiller, said he plans to file a response today. But Disney doesn’t dispute the main facts of Thursday’s filing.

Dan Monnat, a member of Tiller’s defense team, is asking Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens to dismiss the charges against Tiller, who is set for trial next month.

Tiller’s lawyers have argued that Kline’s conduct when he investigated the doctor as Kansas Attorney General was so outrageous that the resulting charges should be dropped.

Tiller faces 19 misdemeanor charges related to his business relationship with a doctor who provided second opinions on whether the health of the mother was a reason to perform late-term abortions.

“The recent event suggests that Kline’s misconduct continues and there is still a need for the court to discourage it by forbidding prosecutors from using evidence acquired by Kline against Tiller,” Monnat said.

History of the case

Kline began investigating Tiller in April 2003, months after becoming Kansas attorney general.

News that Kline had tried to subpoena records from two Kansas abortion clinics, including Tiller’s, became public in 2005. Kline’s pursuit of the records became a focus of his failed 2006 re-election campaign.

Kline became Johnson County district attorney a month later, after being appointed to the office vacated by his successor as attorney general, Paul Morrison.

Morrison filed the current charges against Tiller in June 2007. Morrison resigned six months later because of a sex scandal. Steve Six, the current attorney general, took over prosecution of the case.

During a hearing in Wichita in November, Tiller’s lawyers produced evidence that Kline’s investigators had taken copies of records that identified abortion patients from the attorney general’s office in Topeka to Johnson County.

When a judge overseeing the case in Topeka learned about it, he ordered Kline to return the files, court records showed.

But Kline testified at another hearing in January that he kept summaries of the records with him and brought them to court with him in Sedgwick County.

Records in the mail 

Laura Shaneyfelt, another member of Tiller’s defense team, filed a sworn affidavit Thursday saying:

• The documents Kline brought with him to Sedgwick County were mailed from the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office to Liberty University on Jan. 9 — Kline’s last day as the county’s prosecutor.

• The package was returned to the Johnson County office on Feb. 13 because it was not addressed properly.

• Current Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe and assistant prosecutor Chris McMullin opened the box and found the Tiller records. They contacted Disney with the attorney general’s office.

Disney said he and an investigator went to Overland Park to inspect the package and recommended that it be locked in the Johnson County office. Disney then notified Monnat about the package.

Shaneyfelt wrote in her affidavit that Howe and McMullin said they had “a pretty strong suspicion” that the package was mailed by a former Kline employee who no longer worked at their office.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-0514 or [email protected]. All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

Former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline spent most of this morning on the witness stand defending his investigation of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

Lawyers for Tiller are asking Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens to throw out misdemeanor charges against the doctor because of the way Kline collected evidence.

“This is a case of prosecutorial misconduct,” Lee Thompson, one of Tiller’s lawyers, told Owens at a pretrial hearing this morning.

Thompson was arguing for Owens to order Kline to turn over a personal diary and notes about his investigation.

Most of the morning’s testimony consisted of verbal fencing between Kline and lawyer Dan Monnat, another member of Tiller’s legal team.

During the first two minutes of his testimony Kline answered “I don’t recall” 10 times.

Just before court recessed for lunch, Monnat began asking Kline about his knowledge of an affair between his successor as attorney general, Paul Morrison, and Linda Carter, who worked for Kline after he became Johnson County district attorney.

Monnat is trying to show that, through Carter, Kline continued to influence the Tiller case after leaving office.

Morrison and Carter are also scheduled to testify this week.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or [email protected]. All content © 2009 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

Linda Carter said she and Paul Morrison nearly broke off their affair after a heated argument over Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

Morrison was just months into his new job as Kansas attorney general. Carter was his lover and worked with his predecessor at the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office.

Carter is a major witness in contentions by Tiller’s lawyers that “outrageous conduct” by two of the state’s top prosecutors led to the criminal case against the doctor.

Tiller’s lawyers are trying to persuade Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens to dismiss the case.

During testimony Tuesday in a pretrial hearing for Tiller, who faces 19 misdemeanor charges filed by Morrison, Carter told of the argument that changed their relationship.

Morrison, who resigned after his affair became public, is expected to testify today.

While Carter testified that she and Morrison argued over Tiller, she denied that she was pressured by former Attorney General Phill Kline, who initiated the investigation into Tiller and spent most of Tuesday answering questions.

Carter testified that Kline asked her whether Morrison was “going to do the right thing and charge Tiller.”

“And was that a comment that Phill Kline had made to you before then?” asked Dan Monnat, a lawyer representing Tiller.

“Absolutely not,” Carter said.

Earlier, Kline testified that he had told Carter he hoped Morrison would charge Tiller.

“I do recall her asking: “What do you think that Attorney General Morrison should do?’ ” Kline testified, “And I replied, ‘Do the right thing.’ ”

After the 2006 election, Kline and Morrison essentially switched jobs.

Morrison became attorney general and Kline filled Morrison’s old job as Johnson County district attorney.

Carter still worked as a chief administrator in the Johnson County prosecutor’s office.

Kline said he found out about Carter’s affair with Morrison through an anonymous letter in March 2007. Kline said he dismissed the letter as rumor and gave it to Steve Maxwell, a chief prosecutor who followed Kline from Topeka.

But Kline denied talking to Carter about the relationship until later in the year.

Carter said she and Morrison began their relationship in 2006, and it lasted through most of his campaign for attorney general.

The affair heated up after Morrison took office the following year, Carter said. She testified that Morrison promised to leave his wife and gave her a $16,000 ring.

Carter said she left her husband that January.

Soon afterward, Carter rented an apartment in Lawrence. She said Morrison moved some of his belongings into it and occasionally stayed with her.

By spring, however, Carter said they were arguing about Tiller.

Carter told him she opposed late-term abortions. Tiller is one of the few doctors in the country who will terminate a pregnancy after 22 weeks.

Kansas law allows late-term abortions in situations where carrying the pregnancy to term will endanger the physical or mental health of the mother.

The law requires medical determinations by two doctors.

Carter remembered Morrison saying he hadn’t accepted campaign contributions from Tiller. Carter said Morrison lied about that.

Morrison stormed out after the argument, Carter testified, and she took his belongings and put them in a pile on the floor.

Carter described the relationship as “on-again, off-again” after that.

On June 28, 2007, Morrison filed the charges against Tiller.

Morrison accused Tiller of having an illegal financial relationship with the doctor who provided the second opinions for the late-term abortions.

The Eagle is covering the hearings live via Twitter. Read updates at the blog What the Judge Ate for Breakfast: http://blogs.kansas.com/courts/.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or [email protected]. All content © 2008 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

By RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle