TO: COUNSEL OF RECORD

RE: Montoy, et al v. State of Kansas, et al

Case No. 99-C-1738

Greetings:

The Court has considered counsel’s invitation to hurriedly make the Court’s Preliminary Interim Order “final”, so that perceived “procedural problems” might be minimized should a second appeal in this case be taken under the purported extraordinary single-case interlocutory appeal authority granted by the Legislature unto itself under S.B. 324, following Defendants loss of their first appeal, their loss of the trial before this Court, and their loss of the motion to certify an interlocutory appeal under rules universally applicable to all citizens since about 1963. After careful consideration, the invitation is respectfully declined.

In making the Court’s Interim Order preliminary, the court gave defendants the benefit of every doubt in the assumption that they, when the consititutional flaws described therein were exposed, would take advantage of the opportunity afforded them to correct those defects which have been proved to be so damaging to the State’s children. The Court believed then, and it believes now, that this was the right and prudent thing to do.

It seems a tragic irony that as we prepare to observe the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Topeka Board of Education, we coincidentally find ourselves back in court in Topeka arguing whether all children have a right to go to a school where they can actually learn enough to have meaningful lives in our society.

How defendants respond to the opportunity granted by the Court will be most instructive to this and other Courts in determining the nature of the ultimate remedy which may be necessary to deal with these problems of constitutional magnitude.

Accordingly, the Court continues to be of the opinion that this matter needs to play out in the full light of day to the end that constitutional justice may be not only the ultimate goal but the ultimate result.

Very truly yours,

Terry L. Bullock

District Judge