The Dimwit D.A.

Spradling also explained what led to her allegations that Kline had spied on her. In March, a person not affiliated with the District Attorney's Office came to Spradling's office and began writing on a piece of paper. The person wrote that they needed to talk away from the office. Spradling and the person met outside. The person told Spradling that a senior member of Kline's staff had revealed that surveillance equipment was set up in the District Attorney's Office.

Spradling claimed that she scanned her office four times with a device that detects radio frequencies from wireless eavesdropping devices. Three times, she says, the sensor detected a radio frequency signal emitted by wireless eavesdropping devices. "No one should work under those circumstances," Spradling said. "And there's no place for that nonsense in the prosecutor's office."

Jury selection for the Andrew Ellmaker case began on a Monday morning. Maxwell, Kline's chief prosecutor, handled the case. Maxwell's record in Johnson County was no wins, one felony loss and two hung juries.

Ellmaker was accused of murdering social worker Teri Zenner and dismembering her body with a chain saw. Maxwell added a personal touch to jury selection. "If my wife and I ended up on a jury together, you'd never get a verdict," Maxwell told the potential jurors, implying that he and his wife couldn't agree on anything.

Shawnee County court records don't disagree with Maxwell. The records show that Maxwell has been divorced four times since 1987. An April 1991 divorce record claims that Maxwell "misrepresented that he would be able to have children."

Maxwell also told the potential jurors that he would say stupid things and ask stupid questions. There was history there, too. The Kansas Supreme Court cited Maxwell, then an assistant attorney general, for prosecutorial misconduct in a 2000 murder case. During closing arguments, Maxwell accused the defendant of lying 11 times, and he continued to call him a liar even after the judge sustained an objection by the defense and directed jurors to ignore the comment. But Maxwell wouldn't quit. "The state tells you he lied," he told the jury. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled Maxwell's conduct improper. "This is the rare case in which the prosecutor's improper remarks during closing argument were so prejudicial that a new trial is required," the court said.

In the Ellmaker case, Maxwell scored his first felony conviction in Johnson County. Ellmaker's mother testified against him, and Ellmaker had Zenner's blood on him when he was arrested. It was a slam-dunk case, even for someone with Maxwell's record as a Johnson County prosecutor.

Many of Kline's replacement prosecutors have been criticized as either inept or unqualified. Some accuse Kline of hiring employees simply for their conservative values and history of supporting Kline's campaigns. Few of the new hires had experience with criminal prosecution. Assistants were training the new hires how to try cases, according to Fanning, a former juvenile support staff supervisor who resigned in March.

The day after firing Spradling, Kline introduced Sue Carpenter as head of the domestic-violence unit. After Kline hired her, his office falsely claimed in a press release that Carpenter was a managing partner with Tomes & Dvorak, Chartered, of Overland Park. She was only a senior associate. Carpenter had been an assistant district attorney in Shawnee County from 1979 to 1993. In 1991, the Kansas Supreme Court publicly censured her for falsely implying that the defendant in a rape case gave the victim gonorrhea, despite the fact that she knew it wasn't true.

Kline's handpicked replacement for Fritz was Shelley Diehl. Diehl had been a special assistant attorney general in the Kansas Insurance Department, and was a prosecutor for Douglas County. Diehl was hired at $79,996.80, but, in just two months, her salary was bumped up to $86,996.79. Since Diehl's arrival January 9, police reports in the juvenile unit have backlogged. As of February 8, the backlogged cases had ballooned to 225, Fanning tells the . It's Diehl's job to make sure that charges are being filed promptly against juveniles. "Somebody's going to get killed, quite frankly," Fanning says, "because you can't just let those police reports lay around there like that."

The promotions of former Morrison prosecutors Sarah Geolas, Jill Kenney and Patrick Carney to section chiefs have also surprised courthouse watchers. "They wouldn't have been section chiefs for five years," says a Johnson County defense attorney familiar with the prosecutor's office. Geolas replaced Brent Venneman, who led the drug unit for nearly six years and was a 14-year office veteran. Geolas had only six months of experience working in the unit. Critics say Kenney, with five years as a prosecutor, also lacked the experience to be promoted to section chief. Kenney now heads the traffic unit. And Carney, who has also been a licensed attorney for five years, took over the unit that handles economic crime.

But the most talked-about hires have been Jesse Paine and R.W. Mozingo.