Kansas Supreme Court tosses out indictment against Wyandotte County attorney Rodney Turner from six years ago

The Kansas Supreme Court finally ditched an indictment against Wyandotte County lawyer Rodney Turner from 2008 because a state investigator tried to link him to an unsolved murder during grand jury proceedings on an unrelated matter.

The court’s decision may close the book on the protracted legal proceedings going back more than half a decade into one of the darker times for Wyandotte County’s Board of Public Utilities.

Turner served as BPU’s attorney when his work came under scrutiny in 2007. Turner was believed to have billed the utility for more than $370,000, but he never itemized what he did on his invoices, leading to questions about whether he did any or much of the work at all. A grand jury in 2008 returned an indictment against Turner on claims that he stole from the utility. That grand jury was initiated by T.J. Reardon, one of Wyandotte County’s more rascally gadflies.

Former BPU general manager Marc Conklin was indicted at the same time for looting the utility, although he would commit suicide before his trial could begin.

Turner’s trial never started, either, because his attorneys managed to get Wyandotte County to dismiss the charges against him due to bizarre testimony offered by a Kansas Bureau of Investigation official who intimated to jurors that Turner had something to do with or knew about an unsolved murder from 1987.

William Delaney’s white whale during his decades-long career with the KBI was Chuck Thompson, the chairman for the Wyandotte County Democratic Party. Thompson was shot dead outside the Jalisco Restaurant in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. No one has ever had to answer for the crime.

Delaney investigated matters for the Turner grand jury. He used the opportunity to link Turner to the Thompson murder through various vague charges that Turner later claimed unfairly prejudiced the grand jury. Turner was called to testify before the grand jury, although Turner said beforehand that he would not answer questions under his right not to incriminate himself. He was brought to testify anyway, during which Turner invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 100 times.

The Kansas Court of Appeals in 2011 reinstated the indictment. That court was troubled by the grand jury proceedings against Turner, but still thought there was enough probable cause that Turner may have looted the utility that the charges should go forward. 

But the Kansas Supreme Court hammered Wyandotte County prosecutor Jerome Gorman during oral arguments, focusing on Delaney’s harping about the Thompson murder when the point of the grand jury was to investigate Turner’s representation and billing of the BPU.