The city’s Bodywork Advisory Board on Wednesday voted 4-1 to uphold the city clerk’s decision to suspend the license of Shawn P. O’Brien, a Lawrence massage therapist who has been charged with a child sex crime. Though O’Brien has not been convicted, City Clerk Sherri Riedemann wrote in a memo in the board’s agenda that the charge against O’Brien, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, was a ...
Story updated at 11:31 a.m. Wednesday A woman who pleaded guilty to first-degree premeditated murder in the killing of a Lawrence man has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Now-20-year-old Ashlyn N. Hemmerling, of Baldwin City, was sentenced for her role as an accomplice in the shooting death of Taylor Dean Sawyer, of Lawrence, Jefferson County Attorney Josh Ney announced in a news release ...
All district and appellate courts in Kansas are to conduct only emergency operations “until further order,” the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, and “no action will be dismissed for lack of prosecution.” The directive comes amid growing concerns about the coronavirus disease. Only jury trials that are currently underway are an exception, but no other criminal or civil trials will be scheduled until ...
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had not yet made any changes to visitation at the jail as of Wednesday afternoon, but one would-be inmate had been released to self-quarantine. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many public facilities around the country have closed to visitors — including Kansas Department of Corrections prisons, according to a March 13 news release from the state secretary of corrections. ...
A judge has sided with the University of Kansas in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former tenure-track professor. Cathy Joritz, who became a professor in KU’s Department of Film and Media Studies in 2012, has been representing herself in cases she's filed against the university both in federal and local courts. Litigation in her Douglas County District Court began in June 2016, a few weeks after ...
Most hearings in cases pending in Douglas County District Court, including jury trials, are postponed effective immediately, according to a Tuesday order from Chief Judge James McCabria. In addition, Judge Amy Hanley has entered a period of self-quarantine, in accordance with a Kansas Supreme Court administrative order. Local public health officials have warned against public gatherings of almost any size ...