photo by: Sara Shepherd

Carrody M. Buchhorn talks with her attorney William Skepnek during a break in court proceedings on Friday, Dec. 21, 2018, in Douglas County District Court.

An attorney was awarded compensation recently after he moved to hold the Douglas County district attorney and her attorney in contempt after the DA’s office failed to comply with a court deadline.

The deadline related to the time frame for the DA’s office to provide the name of a representative who will testify in a woman’s wrongful conviction and incarceration lawsuit regarding what information the DA’s office relied on for prosecution.

The woman, Carrody Buchhorn, is seeking — pursuant to state law — nearly $400,000 from the state and a formal exoneration, as the Journal-World has reported.

Buchhorn, 49, was convicted in 2018 of murdering 9-month-old Oliver Ortiz in 2016 at the Eudora day care where she worked. Her conviction was overturned on appeal, and Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez, after a protracted legal battle, eventually found a new forensic pathology expert who determined that Oliver had not died from child abuse. The DA’s office — nearly seven years after Oliver’s death — then announced that it would “cease prosecution” due to a lack of evidence.

In November of 2023, attorneys for Valdez and Deputy DA Joshua Seiden told the court that despite having pursued prosecution against Buchhorn and arguing to keep her on house arrest, the two were not familiar enough with the case to testify about what information the office relied on to prosecute Buchhorn prior to the case being dismissed, as the Journal-World reported. The court ruled that the office could name representatives to testify in depositions on its behalf.

Chief Judge James McCabria ordered Valdez’s attorney, Greg Goheen, of Kansas City, Kansas, to name representatives who could testify about the prosecution on behalf of the office by Dec. 26. Goheen suggested that Seiden would be named as one representative and that the office would ask Douglas County Judge Mark Simpson to testify on its behalf. Simpson was a lead prosecutor in the case until he was named to the bench in 2019.

Goheen assured Buchhorn’s attorney, William Skepnek, at a status conference on Dec. 22 that the representatives would be named and what topics they could testify to. Goheen said at that conference that Judge Simpson had declined to represent the DA’s office, citing potential conflict of interest issues.

Dec. 26 came and went, much to the frustration of Skepnek, who said on Thursday that not only did Goheen miss the filing deadline but he had also refused to substantively communicate.

“In 40 years as an attorney, I have not dealt with a lawyer who simply won’t respond,” Skepnek said.

Skepnek said that he didn’t want to file the motion to hold Goheen in contempt and that he could have forgiven the missed deadline had Goheen or his office reached out in a timely manner. He said he sent multiple emails to Goheen’s office asking about the representatives and at one point just asking Goheen to acknowledge that the emails were getting through.

“This Motion is not made lightly. But it is necessary. Ms. Valdez and Mr. Goheen have thumbed their noses at this Court, its Order, and Mrs. Buchhorn’s rights. And because the State has designated Ms. Valdez as witness, Mrs. Buchhorn is being prohibited from prosecuting her case,” Skepnek wrote in the motion.

Goheen’s office finally sent a response to Skepnek naming the representatives but only after Skepnek had filed the motion for contempt. Goheen named Seiden and Valdez as representatives who could testify about specific topics, but the communication stopped there, Skepnek said.

“We have been at this since last summer. I was worried then about deposition dates,” Skepnek said.

Skepnek said that the case has been dragged out because the DA’s office has been slow to respond to his subpoenas and all he wants is for the office to identify what facts it relied on to pursue prosecution of Buchhorn.

Goheen’s next correspondence with Skepnek came on Jan. 16, days before the court heard the motion for contempt and Goheen’s assistant offered Feb. 12 for Seiden to be deposed. Skepnek said he immediately responded that he was unavailable on that day because he would be in trial; he started sending other possible dates, but again received no response from Goheen until that morning.

Goheen apologized to the court and said that he had been out of the country over the holiday and that it was his fault for missing the filing deadline but he disagreed with Skepnek’s characterization of his office’s communications and said that his assistant has been communicating “extensively” with Skepnek.

“My personal involvement won’t make it happen any faster,” Goheen said of scheduling the depositions.

McCabria said that he had expected for the deposition issues to be worked out before a conference set for Feb. 9 and was surprised that the court had to schedule a hearing on the motion for contempt. He said he understood Skepnek’s frustrations and asked Skepnek how much time it took to prepare the motion.

Skepnek said it would take some time to determine how much time was actually spent on the motion.

McCabria then said he would charge Goheen $200 to be paid to Skepnek for the time Skepnek spent on the filing.

“I know that is probably less than your hourly rate, Mr. Skepnek, but just to make a point that we must follow the court’s orders,” McCabria said.

McCabria then set a new deadline for Feb. 2 for the DA’s office to identify the documents named in Skepnek’s subpoena that the office relied on for prosecution.

Skepnek said that while he appreciates the court’s handling of the matter, the depositions still need to be scheduled and that it would likely be well into March before the depositions of Seiden and Valdez could even be taken and that he would need more time after that to review that testimony before he could be ready for trial.