The Dimwit D.A.

Bryan Denton's first and last duty under Phill Kline was to set up Kline's January 8 swearing-in party. Denton, the office's chief investigator for 15 years, was sent to a Hy-Vee store with Sheila Fanning, a supervisor in the juvenile unit. They bought sandwiches, veggie trays and cake. They took the food to a meeting room on the third floor of the Johnson County Courthouse.

Denton set up the reception and photographed the festivities. Afterward, he returned to the office, where his letter of termination was waiting.

"We didn't know that we were going to get your last meal, did we?" Fanning asked Denton.

"No, we didn't," he said.

That morning, Kline's hatchet man, Chief Deputy District Attorney Eric Rucker, moved through the office handing out letters of termination. "Your employment with the Johnson County District Attorney's Office is terminated as of 11:00 a.m. today, January 8, 2007," the letters read. "You should turn in all County-issued property and remove your personal items from your space before 5:00 p.m. today. Thank you for your service."

The letters weren't signed by Kline. They were signed by Rucker.

The eight fired were Denton; Mike Allen, a prose-cutor for two and a half years in the sex-crimes unit; Jennifer Barton, a member of the domestic-violence and sex-crimes units; Norah Clark, a prosecutor in the traffic unit; John Fritz, a 20-year prosecutor and an expert in juvenile law; Steve Howe, an 18-year prosecutor and the head of the intern program; Kristiane Gray, a prosecutor in the juvenile unit; and Kendra Lewison, a prosecutor for five years.

The fired employees, dubbed the "Olathe Eight" in newspapers and on television, sued Kline on January 16. The suit, now in federal court, alleges that Kline denied them their due-process right to hearings with the county to contest their firings.

As Rucker delivered pink slips, Kline's lead prosecutor, Stephen Maxwell, poked his head into the offices of the surviving prosecutors. Assistant District Attorney Jenifer Ashford had just finished helping Lewison clean out her desk when Maxwell arrived.

"Ashford?" Maxwell asked.

"Yeah."

"OK, you're fine," he told her before walking away.

"That's how I found out that I wasn't fired," Ashford recalls.

Kline stripped assistant district attorneys of their discretion to plea-bargain felony cases. All deals had to run through the section chiefs and then be approved by Kline or both Maxwell and Rucker.

Rumors of hidden video cameras near the break room circulated through the office. An atmosphere of distrust grew between the Kline hires and the surviving members of Morrison's staff.

The defections resumed in late April. Five more experienced prosecutors bolted: Ashford, Brent Venneman, Vanessa Riebli, Erica Schoenig and Kathryn Marsh. Riebli, who led the unit that handles economic crime, would have been 100 percent vested in her retirement account if she had stayed two more months. She couldn't wait. She resigned April 23.

On March 19, Assistant District Attorney Jacqie Spradling sent Kline, Rucker and Maxwell a memo expressing concern "that dysfunction in the D.A.'s Office is creating a public safety crisis." The letter continued: "Criminals are walking the streets of Johnson County because this office has botched cases that would have been routine successes in the past.... We cannot wait for the new hires to learn their jobs — we have a crisis that needs to be addressed now. I respectfully suggest that you arrange for the temporary assignment of experienced prosecutors from the A.G.'s office to our office."

Spradling also filed a complaint March 19 with the county's human resources department. The complaint claimed that female attorneys in the District Attorney's Office were being discriminated against and that anyone who complained was threatened with retaliation. And Spradling alleged that her office had been bugged. Johnson County's human resources department began an investigation into Spradling's allegations. The county requested additional information from Kline's office. On April 20, Kline's office replied that it would not cooperate with the investigation.

On April 24, Kline fired Spradling over the phone. Spradling says Kline didn't specify the reason.

Spradling spoke to a packed room of Johnson County women Democrats on May 22. Spradling explained that being an outspoken woman in Kline's office was unacceptable. "As a whole, women are not viewed as folks that should be expressing opinions," Spradling said. "Turns out, I've got some. I was not supposed to express them, and the fact that I expressed them frequently I think they found annoying."