The Story the Main Stream Media Didn't Tell You
Because if it had reported the truth then they couldn't have claimed that this was a win for Planned Parenthood & its attempts to cover up many of the crimes that they committed. This just adds to the mounting evidence that the pro-abortions don't care about women, as they claim, but are out to promote a "culture of death" with no respect for life at all.
Note that the media makes it sound like he was forced to return all the documents to the Attorney General's Office, he wasn't. He just had to give them a copy of all the materials he took, something he already has done. He got to keep the originals to continue his investigation.
I can get into Justice Beier's head, but I suspect she wasn't too happy that they couldn't totally stop the investigation into PP & thus wrote as harshly as she did to put a spin on it that shouldn't be there. & from what I read I suspect Chief Justice Kay McFarland agrees with me.
Judges decision said to contain “some of the harshest, most vitriolic language most of us will ever see in a high-court decision.”
By John Jalsevac
December 8, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While the mainstream media has widely, indeed almost exclusively, reported that Kansas’ pro-life Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline lost a major case before the state Supreme Court last week, the court decision reveals that, far from losing, Kline in fact came out victorious against Planned Parenthood on every major point.
The case was brought against Kline by Planned Parenthood (PP) of Kansas, which sought to have Kline return to the attorney general’s office all the PP patient records that he had obtained during his term as AG. While serving as Attorney General, Kline had initiated an investigation against PP, bringing 107 criminal charges against the organization for violations including performing illegal late-term abortions and falsifying documents.
When Kline’s term as Kansas AG was up, he transferred the medical records to his new office, the office of the Johnson County District Attorney, from which position he has continued his investigation. If Planned Parenthood had succeeded in forcing Kline to return all the records, Kline’s case against the abortion giant would have been significantly hampered.
In its decision last week, however, the Supreme Court refused all of Planned Parenthood’s requests, including that Kline relinquish all the medical records, that he be found in contempt and fined and that he be forced to pay PP’s legal fees.
Despite the fact that many mainstream media outlets are reporting that Kline was ordered to “return” all copies of the medical records to the Kansas attorney general’s office, the court decision clearly orders him merely to provide a “copy” of the records – something that Kline says he has already previously done, which renders the court’s “sanction” merely redundant.
Justice Carol Beier wrote in her decision, in a key passage that has been ignored in mainstream media reports: “The above analysis leads us to the conclusion that [Planned Parenthood] and the Attorney General are not entitled to the primary relief they seek. We will not force Kline to disgorge ‘each and every copy’ of the patient records Kline and his subordinates have made ‘and any and all other evidence Kline developed and obtained while he was acting as Attorney General that he took with him to Johnson County’."
Despite this fact, the Associated Press’ story on the Kline case was erroneously headlined, “Kan. court orders abortion records returned to AG.”
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Kline observed, “I won on every substantive point. All the opinion proves is that the justice that wrote the opinion wouldn’t vote for me.”
The source of the confusion in the mainstream media appears to be the harshly-worded decision, penned by Justice Carol Beier, and the majority’s characterization of its decision as a “sanction” against Kline.
In the court decision Beier harshly criticized the district attorney, issuing a lengthy invective against an "obvious and sorry pattern" of "willful disregard" in Kline's behavior, calling him "demonstrably ignorant, evasive, and incomplete" in his written responses, his behavior disrespectful and inexcusable, and his "tactics" transparent. These quotations have received wide play in the mainstream press.
Beier also indulged in the speculatation that in the future “further instances of Kline's improper conduct" could come "to light," and that such hypothetical “further instances” could possibly merit “civil or criminal contempt” or “discipline.”
Kline claims that this juxtaposition between a favorable ruling and denigrating language is a purposeful tactic by the judge which the mainstream media has been all too willing to go along with. “Throughout this process, I have been before the Kansas Supreme Court, I don’t know how many times. We have won on the substantive legal issues but she [Beier] writes the opinion in such a way – and the Kansas media is so ready to do it – that it is perceived that we lost.”
Kline dismissed the “sanction” leveled against him as moot, and merely a ploy to ensure that the decision could be spun by the press in a negative light.
“[Justice Beier] just had to find something to order me to do so she could call it a sanction,” he said. “And what she ordered me to do is provide copies of what I have to the Attorney General. They already have it. I have already done that. I will do it again. And then she called it a sanction.”
Critics of Beier’s decision include the Court’s chief justice, Justice Kay McFarland, who in his dissent chastised Beier and the rest of the court for using the power to sanction merely "to provide a platform from which it can denigrate Kline for actions that it cannot find to have been in violation of any law and to heap scorn upon him for his attitude and behavior that does not rise to the level of contempt."
McFarland’s fellow dissenting justice, Justice Robert Davis, concurred, observing, "While I recognize that this court possesses inherent power to impose sanctions in cases falling short of civil or criminal contempt, our exercise of that power must nevertheless be measured by objective standards.” The decision to “sanction,” suggested Davis, was an arbitrary decision.
Other commentators have also noted the extremely denigrating language in Beier’s decision. Denis Boyles of National Review called the decision a “rant” and said that it contains “some of the harshest, most vitriolic language most of us will ever see in a high-court decision.”
The future of Kline’s cast against Planned Parenthood rests with his successor to the office of Johnson County District Attorney, Steve Howe. Howe was supported by prominent pro-life Republican Sam Brownback in his campaign to win the office. Howe, however, has not indicated any interest thus far in pursuing the charges against Planned Parenthood, though he has said he will "evaluate all cases" once he assumes office.
See related LifeSiteNews stories:
Judge Upholds Kansas Post-Viability Abortion Ban: Tiller Will Face Charges
Judge Upholds Kansas Post-Viability Abortion Ban: Tiller Will Face Charges
Arguments Conclude in Bizarre Case of Abortion Giant Suing Kansas Prosecutor
107-Count Grand Jury Indictment Against Planned Parenthood Could Open "New Front" in US Abortion Figh
Commentary: In Defense of Phill Kline
posted by Al @ 1:22 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home