Wichita ? Dr. George Tiller’s pretrial hearing regarding alleged prosecutorial misconduct abruptly was continued Thursday until next year, winding up four days of tedious testimony without much, if any, word from the major players.

The hearing was scheduled to resume Jan. 6, with former Attorney General Phill Kline expected to return to the stand.

Kline, who initiated the investigation of the Wichita abortion doctor, testified for three hours on Monday before a previous scheduling conflict cut off questioning.

Still left to take the stand is former Attorney General Paul Morrison, who filed 19 misdemeanor charges against Tiller before resigning amid a sex scandal.

It is still unclear what role Morrison’s former mistress, Linda Carter, who worked at one time for both Morrison and Kline, may play when the hearing resumes. The defense has obtained under seal the signed statement in which she reportedly claims she pressured Morrison to file charges against Tiller.

However, defense attorney Dan Monnat declined to comment Thursday on whether the defense has now located her.

Stephen Maxwell, a former assistant attorney general under Kline, testified Thursday that Kline had neither a complainant nor an allegation that a medical provider knowingly failed to report sexual abuse when he sought to open a judicial inquisition into abortion providers.

An internal memo, introduced into evidence in the case against Tiller, is key to the defense claim that Kline targeted abortion providers for prosecution without having a complaint that anyone may have broken the law.

Tiller goes to trial in March on 19 counts of failing to get a second opinion from an independent physician before performing some late-term abortions.

His lawyers were asking a judge during the pretrial hearing to dismiss all charges or suppress evidence, alleging “outrageous conduct” by Kline. The attorney general’s office contends the allegations do not rise to the level needed to dismiss the criminal charges.

The defense quizzed Maxwell about a July 2003 confidential memo he wrote suggesting alternatives to get around the “legal obstacle” of not having a definitive complainant or allegation to present to a judge to open an inquisition.

Tiller’s defense used the memo and Maxwell’s testimony to bolster its claim that Tiller was targeted by overzealous prosecutors bent on shutting down one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers.

Maxwell acknowledged under questioning that neither he nor anyone he was aware of in the Kansas attorney general’s office at that time had any knowledge of a complainant.