LJWorld.com

Topeka — A state panel has dismissed an ethics complaint filed by abortion opponents against a Sedgwick County district judge who threw out a criminal case against the state's best-known abortion provider.

A seven-member panel of the Commission on Judicial Qualifications concluded the complaint "contained no facts evidencing judicial misconduct" by Judge Paul W. Clark in his handling of 30 misdemeanors filed against Dr. George Tiller, who is among the few U.S. doctors performing late-term abortions.

Abortion opponents, led by Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, noted that during Clark's 2004 re-election campaign, the judge received maximum contributions of $500 each from a law firm representing Tiller and Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston and her husband. They said Clark should have disclosed the contributions in court.

Huelskamp questioned whether the panel's investigation of the complaint was thorough. A Tiller attorney called the panel's decision wise.

The charges against Tiller were filed in December by outgoing Attorney General Phill Kline, an anti-abortion Republican. Clark dismissed the case the next day on jurisdictional grounds, at the request of Foulston, a Democrat.

The commission panel disclosed its decision in a letter sent last week to Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, which also was involved in the complaint. Operation Rescue made the letter public Monday.

Clark told the commission panel he did not know who contributed to his re-election campaign because he had never examined his own campaign finance report, the commission panel said. It noted that under Kansas law, campaign treasurers are responsible for filing such reports with the state.

"Without any knowledge of the campaign contributions, Judge Clark had no information to disclose," the commission panel said in its letter, signed by chairwoman Nancy Anstaett. "This matter is now closed."

Newman responded with a letter asking her for details about how the panel conducted its investigation and said he needs to know more to judge how thorough the panel was.

"On its face, what it looks like is that they just read a letter submitted by the accused saying he was not guilty and dismissed it," he said during an interview. "It's moved from being odd to absurd. Kansas' judiciary has almost become a laughingstock in the rest of the country."

The commission is obligated by Kansas Supreme Court rules to keep its deliberations confidential until it decides to schedule a public hearing on a complaint. A decision to dismiss a complaint before then doesn't become public unless a person involved in filing the complaint discloses it after receiving a letter, as Newman did.

"Did they just take the word of the judge?" Huelskamp said of the commission panel. "We don't know because they operate behind closed doors."

Clark didn't immediately return a telephone message left with his office.

Kline lost the November election to Paul Morrison, a Democrat who supports abortion rights. Before his term expired Jan. 8, Kline filed 30 misdemeanor charges against Tiller, accusing the doctor of performing illegal late-term abortions and failing to properly report details to state health officials.

Kline alleged that Tiller failed to comply with a Kansas law limiting late-term abortions on viable fetuses to instances in which a patient's life is in danger or she faces "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function." Monnat has said repeatedly that Kline's charges were without merit.

The charges did not involve the federal ban on a late-term procedure critics call partial-birth abortion, upheld last week by the U.S. Supreme Court. Tiller's attorneys say he doesn't use that method.