Kansas AG Derek Schmidt wants U.S. Supreme Court to take Kimberly Sharp case

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About two weeks ago, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Kansas drifter named Kimberly Sharp, sent to prison in 2007 for Topeka lobbyist David Owen’s murder, was unconstitutionally convicted.

Now Kansas Attorney Derek Schmidt wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take another look at her case.

The appellate court decided that a police officer’s promise of leniency during an interrogation was tantamount to a coerced confession. Sharp was one of four people convicted of killing Owen on the banks of the Kansas River in Topeka in 2006.

Owen, an odd figure in the Kansas Statehouse in the mid-aughts, was a one-man, one-cause lobbyist. He wanted to reconnect the homeless with their families. 

Owen suffered from cerebral palsy, and was simultaneously a castoff and a fixture in Topeka. His sometimes provocative approach annoyed Statehouse insiders. But he persisted in his effort. When not in the Statehouse, he sought out homeless camps, imploring those on the streets to call their families for help.

One such homeless camp didn’t appreciate his presence and killed the 38-year-old man in the dead of the Kansas summer.

Sharp testified that she did not want the other men in her company to kill Owen. She offered to re-enact the events of Owen’s last hours on earth for authorities, thinking that they would help her and her children find shelter.

Sharp, sentenced to a life term in prison, remains incarcerated. Schmidt hopes that the nation’s highest court examines the 10th Circuit’s decision. The U.S. Supreme Court takes a tiny fraction of lower court cases.