Topeka ? Attorney General Steve Six modified demands Thursday in a lawsuit filed against a district court judge who has custody of patients’ medical records from two abortion clinics.

The judge is a key witness in a separate criminal case against one of the clinics in Johnson County. Six’s lawsuit is before the Kansas Supreme Court, and the justices are keeping the judge from testifying in the criminal case while they determine who should have copies of the medical records.

Six had asked the Supreme Court to order District Judge Richard Anderson, of Shawnee County, to turn over the records immediately, so the attorney general’s office could return them to the clinics. But in his latest filing, Six offered an alternative – allowing the judge to keep the records, but only until any lawsuits and the criminal case are finished.

“The medical records simply should not remain indefinitely with the district court,” Deputy Attorney General Michael Leitch wrote on Six’s behalf.

In outlining the alternative, Leitch pointed to an order from the Supreme Court in April preventing the judge from appearing as a witness in the criminal case.