photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Republican Mike Warner and Democrat Dakota Loomis appear at a candidate forum for the Douglas County district attorney race on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024.

Both candidates vying to be Douglas County’s next district attorney acknowledged, at a forum Sunday, that unquestionable discrimination exists in the criminal justice system against people of color, and they vowed to combat it if elected.

“There is no question that endemically and systemically there exists discrimination in the criminal justice system,” Republican Mike Warner said at the forum hosted by local chapters of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters and moderated by the NAACP’s Ursula Minor.

“It’s a part of American culture,” he told the audience at the Lawrence Public Library. He said he has seen that culture evolve in three decades as a prosecutor, but not quickly enough.

“Any prosecutor that’s well-rounded, that’s concerned about justice, that’s not concerned about winning at all costs is going to be cognizant of (racism), and (discrimination) is something I would not tolerate if I were district attorney,” he said, citing concerns about “color-based” jailing and bond practices.

While discussing race issues, Warner also said he would ask the Kansas Legislature to impose an additional “aggravated circumstance enhancement for gender-identity crimes.”

Democratic candidate Dakota Loomis said that he had witnessed firsthand the disproportionate number of people of color in the criminal justice system.

“I go to the jail frequently to visit clients, and it is the one time in Lawrence, Kansas, when you’re more likely to see a large group of young, black males than you are to see young, white males,” he said. “We have a real serious issue right now” with crimes being charged against people of color “that may not be charged against other folks.”

Loomis, like Warner, noted that these institutional biases occur communitywide, not just in the justice system, but Loomis said that district attorneys had the ability to address the issue with practices like “blind reads” of police affidavits — in other words, making sure, at least initially, that prosecutors don’t know the race, gender or home address when they are deciding whether to charge someone with a crime.

The race question was one of nine questions that the candidates were given in advance and that they had two minutes to answer at Sunday’s forum, which was the third time the two had faced off in less than two weeks.

Other questions touched on the candidates’ experience, priorities and intentions if elected.

The first question at the forum echoed the first question at previous forums: Given your knowledge of the current district attorney’s office, what do you see as necessary changes?

Loomis, describing the office of District Attorney Suzanne Valdez, whom he unseated in the Democratic primary, as having provided “rocky service at best” for the past four years, said his priority would be to restore community trust by rebuilding relations with justice system partners, like police and judges; recruiting “highly ethical prosecutors,” and restoring “respect and dignity” in how people are treated.

Warner said his top goal was to establish “professional, prosecutorial leadership,” including restructuring the office to establish a chain of command and focusing carefully on case management and the prioritization of the most important cases. Drawing a distinction between him and Loomis, he said that he had worked in dysfunctional prosecutor offices before and had been in charge of fixing them.

“I know how to do that,” he said.

Warner said that he was concerned about the number of cases in the current DA’s office that he said were improperly charged and that led to dismissals, bad plea deals or acquittals. He said those outcomes could largely be avoided by, among other things, having good communication with police, who make the arrests and perform the investigations.

Loomis also emphasized the importance of a strong working relationship with police. He said community members have repeatedly told him that they want the DA’s Office to focus on crimes in which people have been harmed, and the role of police in fleshing out the evidence in such crimes is crucial. He said he too saw “safety issues” that “keep cropping up with acquittals of folks who should have been held accountable, and dismissals of cases that should have gone forward.”

As at previous forums, Warner touted his 30 years of experience as both a federal and state prosecutor, saying that he had handled thousands of felony prosecutions and “every type of crime.” He noted too that he had done defense work and did not have “the perspective that defendants are all bad,” saying that individual cases all differed.

Loomis said that his experience with felony cases came from working as a defense attorney for a decade in Douglas County and from charging felony cases during a stint with the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office. He again touted his “local, relevant, recent experience” with the Douglas County judicial system and its many community partners like Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center and DCCCA, and he emphasized his four years working as the defense attorney for the local drug court, which is a court that focuses on the special circumstances of addiction-related crimes.

Both Loomis and Warner said they valued the specialty courts — another one is the behavioral health court — and both expressed interest in the establishment of a veterans court that could address issues unique to former military members.

Both men emphasized that cases involving juvenile defendants required special care if those kids were to be kept from becoming adult offenders.

Warner, citing the prevalence of youth violence and accessibility to firearms, said it’s an area he would “take special interest in” and that’s there potential for the juvenile justice system to be more preventive and educational than it currently is.

“A lot of times prosecutors’ offices put the most junior ADAs (assistant district attorneys) in the juvenile system because it’s a good way … to get experience,” he said. “I don’t want to do that.”

Loomis, who said he has spent the last four years handling serious juvenile crimes, said the current DA’s office has had a “revolving door” of prosecutors on juvenile cases, which has not resulted in kids getting the services that they need, which can then lead to their becoming adult criminals.

As the forum, characterized by a fair amount of agreement, drew to a close, Warner, given the last word by luck of the draw, sought to clearly distinguish himself from Loomis.

“We both sit here … in our nice suits, and we both sound very reasonable, but there is a stark contrast between us,” he said, and that’s that Loomis, while having “a ton of money and name recognition,” has never prosecuted a felony case.

“The fact of the matter is that if he becomes DA, every single prosecutor in that office will have more experience than he does,” Warner said.

The general election is Nov. 5. Early voting begins on Oct. 16.