photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Kendrick Atkins appears Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Douglas County District Court

Incriminating statements made by an alleged sex offender will not be suppressed after a Douglas County judge on Thursday found that the statements were knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently made to police after a Miranda warning.

The defendant in the case, Kendrick Deandre Atkins, 25, of Lawrence, is facing multiple sex crime charges, including aggravated indecent liberties with a child, aggravated human trafficking, criminal sodomy and rape. The charges, eight in all, stem from Atkins’ alleged involvement with a 15-year-old girl who testified in June that Atkins gave her cocaine in exchange for sex, which became increasingly violent and coercive, as the Journal-World reported.

Judge Amy Hanley at that hearing ordered Atkins to stand trial on the charges and set a trial date for March 2025, which will be about a year after he was arrested.

Atkins’ defense attorney, Hatem Chahine, on Thursday said that Atkins had made confessional-type statements against his interest on the night he was arrested and questioned by Lawrence Police Detective Amy Price and Civilian Investigator Megan Rubio.

Chahine argued that those statements — it wasn’t clear exactly what they were — should not be admitted as evidence because the detective had “misstated” Atkins’ Miranda rights in the course of repeatedly explaining them to him and that Atkins indicated he did not fully understand what he was giving up by waiving his Miranda rights. Chahine also argued that Atkins had said he had been drinking and that he was under a lot of stress over a sick parent — conditions that might affect his state of mind and understanding and hence the voluntariness of his statements.

The state, represented by Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal, argued that Atkins was clear-minded, that he understood Miranda, that he was in fact the first to mention Miranda during the police interview and that he has a criminal history that indicates familiarity with the Miranda process. He noted that the police interview was relatively short, only about an hour, and that when Atkins indicated that he didn’t understand something about Miranda that the detective and an investigator explained it to him and asked him repeatedly if he understood.

Atkins expressed several times in the interview, portions of which were available in written motions, that he wanted to talk to the police, to “just get to it,” to which the detective said “we are not going to get to it” if Atkins didn’t understand his rights. He then said he understood. Police also allowed him to use his cellphone to call his girlfriend, so he was not isolated “from the outside world” in the interview room.

Hanley, who watched the entire video of the police interview in chambers prior to Thursday’s hearing, agreed with Leal’s reasoning and said that the detective did not misstate Miranda but rather simply did not repeat the whole warning in response to a specific question Atkins asked her. Hanley found that under the totality of the circumstances, it was clear that Atkins had knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waived his Miranda rights and that the police had not coerced him in any way to do so.

“This is a defendant who wants to explain himself and talk to the detective,” Hanley said while looking at a transcript of the exchange. And “… we have a detective further clarifying what he wants to do.”

Atkins remains in custody on a $250,000 bond, though he has filed a motion to have that modified to an own-recognizance bond with maximum monitoring with GPS and home confinement. Hanley has denied a previous request to modify Atkins’ bond.