photo by: Mike Yoder

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St.

More than a year went by with not one murder trial in Douglas County District Court — until July.

Now the court is in the middle of what’s believed to be an unprecedented deluge of murder trials, and the high-stakes, labor-intensive cases are putting extra strain on the system.

“This has been an extraordinary time in our judicial district with so many pending homicide cases going to trial,” Chief Judge Peggy Kittel said.

The court just wrapped up a cluster of three murder trials in a six-week span. Two of those murder trials overlapped — an occurrence Kittel and District Attorney Charles Branson say they think is a first, at least in the decades they’ve practiced here.

Six more murder trials are currently scheduled in the next six months. Those include another two that will overlap if they go forward as planned, plus the high-profile Massachusetts Street triple homicide case involving not one but three defendants.

Kittel said larger jurisdictions like Wyandotte, Shawnee and Sedgwick counties are used to handling major trials that last more than a week and require large jury pools, but the current caseload isn’t the norm in Douglas County.

“These cases put a real strain on our medium-sized district,” Kittel said. “These cases obviously take an enormous amount of resources from several areas of the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, courthouse security, the prosecutor’s office, appointed defense counsel and our jury pools.”

‘Shaking the trees’ for jurors

Ensuring the jury pools are big enough for the streak of murder trials is requiring an extra push by the clerk’s office.

“The greatest challenge on a high-profile case is finding enough jurors who have not formed an opinion regarding the facts of the case,” Clerk of the Court Douglas Hamilton said. “This may require the court to call in twice as many potential jurors for the selection process than it would under normal circumstances.”

To prepare for the recently adjudicated Motel 6 murder case, Judge Sally Pokorny said in one pre-trial hearing that she had the jury coordinator “shaking the trees.”

The violent homicide had been in the news locally and regionally. The case had three defendants with three defense attorneys, each able to strike potential jurors. And the trial was to last a full two weeks — widening the time frame that many jurors had to drop out for common conflicts like nonrefundable plane tickets, scheduled surgeries or other hardships.

The clerk’s office had around 140 potential jurors show up on the Monday morning when jury selection began. Pokorny stuffed extra chairs into her courtroom and set up overflow seating with live video in the courtroom across the hall.

Even that number was “kind of cutting it close,” Branson said. For the next murder trial with three defendants, the Massachusetts Street case, Branson said the plan is to call in possibly 200 potential jurors.

That’s a lot for the clerk’s office to deal with, Hamilton said.

“Once the number of potential jurors hits about 150, jury coordination starts to feel a lot more like jury wrangling on the day of trial,” he said.

Don’t forget, amid the murder trials there’s always the usual steady flow of shorter trials involving lower-level crimes that need juries, too.

“To hit the bigger numbers required for a high-profile case, the court has started summoning more potential jurors for each two-week service period, from 320 to 400,” Hamilton said. “We have also started calling jurors from future service periods to see if they would be interested in bumping up their service dates.”

A surprising number of people have been on board with the option to serve earlier, he said.

Those called for jury duty are selected randomly from lists of people with Douglas County addresses provided by the Kansas DMV, Hamilton said. However, certain categories of people are excluded from jury service, including people not proficient in English, people with recent felony convictions and breastfeeding mothers.

While summoning exceptionally high numbers of jurors can be challenging, the clerk’s office is doing better at getting those people to show up.

The failure-to-appear rate on trial day used to be between 20 percent and 30 percent, Hamilton said. But since his office implemented software in December 2016 that sends recorded messages to jurors by phone and email, that’s improved dramatically.

“The rate is now less than 5 percent, and it is not uncommon for 100 percent of our jurors to show up on trial day,” Hamilton said.

Attorneys working extra

The DA’s office added a part-time investigator this summer to track down witnesses and serve them with subpoenas, Branson said. He said some of those people are hard to find, like the missing victims in the Motel 6 trial who didn’t want to testify.

“It’s extremely time-consuming,” Branson said. “With one investigator, we just physically couldn’t get it done.”

Branson said his prosecutors have been working extra, being “conservative” with taking time off and coming in on weekends to make sure all the court’s cases keep flowing during the succession of murder trials.

photo by: Nick Krug

Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson, left, confers with Chief Assistant District Attorney David Melton during a preliminary hearing, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018, for three men charged in connection with an October 2017 triple homicide on Massachusetts Street.

Each murder trial generally takes two attorneys out of the office for the week or two it lasts, plus extensive preparation time leading up to it.

The Massachusetts Street case, for example, involves more than 2,000 pages of reports plus more than 50 discs of videos and other evidence that attorneys must comb thoroughly before trial, Branson said.

“On these big trials, we run two attorneys short from our standard operating capacity,” Branson said. “So that means everybody else in the office has to take on extra things to make sure everything else is moving along.”

The unusually concentrated string of murder trials stems mostly from a spike in homicides during the latter half of 2017, all of which are now coming to trial.

Two of the current batch of murder trials are from older cases that have been delayed repeatedly.

Most dramatically so, Rontarus Washington Jr. is charged in a killing that occurred nearly four years ago. His murder trial — following delay upon delay — is now scheduled to begin in October and last two weeks.

Carrody M. Buchhorn faced a jury in July and was convicted of second-degree murder in the September 2016 death of a baby in her care at a Eudora home day care.

While upcoming trial dates are subject to potential legal delays or possibly even pleas, the next murder trial date in Douglas County District Court is Washington’s, on Oct. 22.

But on that day, his isn’t the only murder trial scheduled to begin; there are two.

Recent murder trial verdicts

Aug. 27, 2018 — 2 convicted of manslaughter in Motel 6 trial; mistrial declared for third defendant

photo by: Nick Krug

Defendants Tyrone Carvin, front, and Ramone Singleton, center, stand to leave the courtroom for a recess on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018, at the Douglas County Courthouse. The two along with another man are charged with the murder of Cameron Hooks and other crimes in connection with a Sept. 2, 2017, shooting at the North Lawrence Motel 6. Also pictured is Forrest Lowry, Singleton’s attorney.

Aug. 1, 2018 — Man convicted of second-degree murder in Eudora bar killing

photo by: Sara Shepherd

Danny W. Queen is handcuffed and escorted out of the courtroom by deputies on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018, after being found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2017 shooting death of Bo Hopson outside a Eudora bar. Queen’s trial spanned eight days in Douglas County District Court. Queen’s defense attorney Dakota Loomis is pictured at left.

July 26, 2018 — Woman guilty of 2nd degree murder in baby’s death at Eudora home day care

photo by: Nick Krug

Carrody M. Buchhorn, 44, of Eudora, listens to the opening arguments from her attorney Veronica Dersch, not pictured, in the courtroom at the Douglas County Courthouse on Tuesday, July 17, 2018. Buchhorn is accused of murder in the death of 9-month-old Oliver Ortiz, Eudora, who died while in the care of Buchhorn at the Sunshine Kids Group Daycare in Eudora on Sept. 29, 2016. In front is Buchhorn’s attorney Paul Morrison.

Upcoming murder trials

Six murder trials are currently scheduled to begin in the next six months in Douglas County District Court, and a seventh murder case is working its way through the courts, although no trial date has been set for it yet.

• Oct. 22 (2 weeks) — Rontarus Washington Jr., of Lawrence. Accused of stabbing and bludgeoning 19-year-old Justina Altamirano Mosso to death on Nov. 7, 2014, in her estranged husband’s bathroom at Cedarwood Apartments, 1727 W. 24th St.

photo by: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Rontarus Washington Jr.

• Oct. 22 (1.5 weeks) — Christina L. Towell, of Leavenworth. Accused along with Tria L. Evans in the Nov. 3, 2017, killing of 34-year-old Joel Wales of Eudora, whose body was found shot six times and set afire inside his mother’s house at 1104 East 1200 Road, south of Lawrence.

photo by: Journal-World file photo

Christina L. Towell appears on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, in Douglas County District Court.

• Nov. 5 (2 weeks) — Anthony L. Roberts Jr., of Topeka, and co-defendants. Roberts is charged with the fatal shootings of three people at the corner of 11th and Massachusetts streets at bar-closing time on Oct. 1, 2017. Co-defendants Ahmad M. Rayton and Dominique J. McMillon, also of Topeka, are charged with lesser crimes from the same incident.

From left, Anthony L. Roberts Jr., Ahmad M. Rayton and Dominique J. McMillon will appear in Douglas County District Court for charges related to the Oct. 1, 2017 triple murder on Massachusetts Street.

• Dec. 17 (1 week) — Steven A. Drake III, of Lawrence. Charged in the death of 26-year-old Bryce Holladay of Lawrence, whom Drake allegedly shot in the face at close range on Sept. 19, 2017, in the doorway of Drake’s home in the 2000 block of West 27th Terrace.

photo by: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Steven A. Drake

• Jan. 22 (1 week) — Shawn K. Smith, of Kansas City, Mo. Smith is getting a second trial, after a jury failed to reach an agreement regarding his guilt in the Motel 6 murder case, though jurors convicted his two co-defendants of manslaughter.

Shawn K. Smith

• Jan. 28 (1.5 weeks) — Tria L. Evans, of Lawrence. Evans is accused of orchestrating the killing of her ex-boyfriend on Nov. 3, 2017, with the help of Christina L. Towell. The body of Joel Wales, 34, of Eudora, was found shot six times and set afire inside his mother’s house at 1104 East 1200 Road, south of Lawrence.

photo by: Journal-World file photo

Tria L. Evans appears on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, in Douglas County District Court.

• No trial date has been set in the pending case of Scharron R. Dingledine, charged with murder in the Aug. 3 drowning of her daughter in the Kansas River.

photo by: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Scharron R. Dingledine