photo by: Journal-World File

Pictured clockwise from top left: Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden, District Attorney Suzanne Valdez, Chief Judge James McCabria, former Senior Assistant District Attorney Alice Walker, former Chief Assistant District Attorney Eve Kemple, former Deputy District Attorney David Melton, Judge Blake Glover, Judge Stacey Donovan, Judge Mark Simpson and Judge Amy Hanley.

A disciplinary hearing for Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez is now scheduled for mid-December after being continued from mid-October, and the hearing is now set for three days, not two.

Valdez has been accused by a special prosecutor of multiple violations of the state code governing attorney conduct, as the Journal-World has reported, including making a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge; engaging in undignified or discourteous conduct degrading to a tribunal; engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice; and engaging in any other conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law. Valdez has denied that she violated the code of professional responsibility.

Valdez’s case was set to be heard Oct. 12 and 13, but the case was postponed because of a “personal tragedy” affecting her attorney, Stephen Angermayer; the nature of the tragedy has not been made public. The public hearing is now set to take place starting at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 18, 19 and 20. It will be in the Court of Appeals Courtroom on the second floor of the Kansas Judicial Center at 301 SW 10th Ave. in Topeka. A panel of three attorneys with the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys will hear the case, which will include testimony from six Douglas County judges.

The hearing panel, in an order filed Friday but not publicly released until Wednesday, has granted Special Prosecutor Kimberly Bonifas’ request to take the depositions of two of her witnesses — Dave Melton, a former Douglas County prosecutor, and Shaye Downing, a Douglas County attorney — in lieu of their appearing in person on the new hearing dates, for which they are unavailable.