Court

A man arrested in Pennsylvania accused of a Wichita rape is back in Kansas. Max Fortune made his first appearance in court Monday Fortune is charged with rape for allegedly attacking a 13-year-old. Fortune was extradited from Pittsburgh Friday. He's scheduled for a preliminary hearing early next month.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari makes an appearance in court Friday. The 20-year-old college student is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Prosecutors say he bought explosive chemicals online. One of his targets may have been President George W. Bush's home in Dallas. His lawyer says he plans to plead not guilty.  

The state of Kansas continued a push Thursday to block a casino from being built in Park City. The Wyandotte nation wants to build a casino on land it bought near Wild West World. But before that can happen, the federal government has to put the land into a trust.     The tribe took the government to court to force a decision because the application has been in for years. The state argued in federal court that the government should not be forced to make a decision by a judge.

The man accused of breaking into several Reno county homes could be in court as early as Tuesday to hear the charges against him. The Reno County attorney's office filed 17 counts against Tom Goin, including multiple burglary and theft charges. Deputies arrested Goin last week when an investigator saw a suspicious car in the area. Goin led deputies on a chase through north and west Hutchinson. They eventually found him hiding in a bush.

A union may take a Kansas aviation company to court over worker performance. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace or SPEEA filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board in February. The union says Spirit AeroSystems is blaming its workers for the company not meeting performance goals. SPEEA says nearly 1,000 employees dropped in performance ratings without justification. "They're trying to place the blame at the feet of the employees instead of recognizing their own short coming on the part of executive management," says Bob Brewer.

By Melody Pettit (SALINA, Kan.) It started with a call to 911, then a car chase. It all ended at a Salina church in March. That's where Charles Dinneen was shot by state troopers. Thursday Dinneen was in court for a preliminary hearing on charges including kidnapping and assault. Video played in court reveals what led up to the shooting. The Kansas State Highway Patrol showed video from a dash-cam from the trooper who tried to pull Dinneen over. The video was entered as evidence.

For the first time, prosecutors present details of a 10 year old murder.  Sisters Sharon Huddleston & Rhonda Pischel are accused of killing Todd Stover. KBI agent Jeff Newsum says Stover's body was discovered along a dirt road in Greenwood County in late 200.  But the investigation went cold.  The case reopened a few years later when the KBI was going through its cold cases. In court, Newsum testified Stover promised both women jobs in the aircraft industry.  But when the jobs didn't come through, he says the two decided to kill Stover.

He's charged with murdering his girlfriend and leaving her body in a ditch near Campus High School. Anson Bernhardt was bound over Wednesday for trial. A judge decided there was enough evidence for him to face a jury for premeditated murder.  His trial is scheduled for January. Amber Kostner's body was found in late September. Investigators believe she got into a fight with Bernhardt before she died.

A Kingman man accused of killing his wife and setting their house on fire is in court this week as attorneys argue several motions.  Brett Seacat is charged in the death of his wife, Vashti. On the first day of the motions hearing Tuesday, lawyers argued motions covering everything from statements Vashti Seacat made to co-workers, to her mental health before her death. Brett seacat was in the courtroom for the hearing, so were members of his family and Vashti's family.

It's been more than 20 years since the Kansas Jayhawks and the Wichita State Shockers have faced each other on the court. But both have had strong basketball programs for decades. WSU's recent rise in the polls has been gaining national attention. The 15th-ranked Shockers (19-2, 8-1) will be looking for their 19th-consecutive home court victory against Indiana State Tuesday night. Kansas continues its in-state rivalry with Kansas State in the Sunflower Showdown. The Jayhawks face the Washburn Ichabods every year in preseason play.

A man who taught math at Dodge City Middle School faces 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Joshua Lesser made his first appearance in court last week. Lesser taught sixth to eighth grade math at the middle school. The judge ordered Lesser to stay away from places where children may be unsupervised, school grounds, arcades, pools, playgrounds, parks, malls or movie theaters. His bond also prohibits him from using a computer, unless he is e-mailing his attorney.

New Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennet hopes a new program will help decrease a backlog within the Sedgwick County court system. Bennet, who took office earlier this year, said the program is called the Initial Assessment Docket. It is put in place to identify cases that can come to a resolution without waiting through the courts. A crime may be eligible for the program if it meets certain screening criteria. Bennet said if the program had been in place last year, about 1,300 of the 3,000 felony cases could have been resolved.

Julia Johnson of Hutchinson and her partner had a wedding ceremony, but it carries no legal weight. "No one chooses this path, because you know the minute you realize you're gay there is going to be a fight," said Johnson. Johnson hopes the fight will soon be over.  The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a challenge to California's gay marriage ban.  Kansas has a similar amendment in its constitution.  What the Supreme Court decides could set a precedent for gay marriage in Kansas and other states.

The state of Kansas continued a push Thursday to block a casino from being built in Park City. The Wyandotte nation wants to build a casino on land it bought near Wild West World. But before that can happen, the federal government has to put the land into a trust.     The tribe took the government to court to force a decision because the application has been in for years. The state argued in federal court that the government should not be forced to make a decision by a judge.

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims has denied a Wichita aviation company's challenge to lift the stay on the Light Air Support contract with the Air Force. Beechcraft has been protesting the decision with the Department of Defense after the government awarded a $427 million light air support contract to Sierra Nevada Corp last month. The company asked for a stay of performance pending the Government Accountability Office.  Executives said in a press release, "While we reluctantly accept the court's opinion, we will continue to contest this award through the GAO and as a program of record for building partnership capacity with other nations that desire Light Air Support aircraft.

The Wichita State women practice like all other teams around the country: aggressive, energetic, loud and focused. It looks like any other practice on the surface, until you hear a voice in practice bark out a play call that's several octives deeper and lower than a female's voice. Then you notice the person running the point has a five day old beard and his practice squad teammates don't share the same locker room as the rest of the Lady Shockers. Wichita State has a crew of five male practice players that are held to the same standards as the women who are on scholarship.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Gov. Sam Brownback are asking the state Supreme Court to stay a lower court's ruling on school finance and send the case to mediation.     The documents were filed Thursday in Topeka in response to a Jan. 11 ruling from a three-judge panel in Shawnee County District Court that the state's system for funding K-12 schools was unconstitutional.     Brownback said in a statement that it is the Legislature's duty to set funding for schools but lawmakers owe it to taxpayers, parents, teachers and students to discuss a way to solve the dispute.

It was only fitting that a senior walked off the court leading the way in scoring as Wichita State soundly defeated Southern Illinois 80-55 on senior night. Darice Fountaine finished with 17 points in the Shockers' second highest scoring night of the year.  Jazimen Gordon and Alex Harden each finished with 10 points for Jody Adams' team. 10 ladies took the court tonight for the Shockers and none of them scored fewer than 4 points.  The Shockers built up a solid 42-23 lead at halftime then went on a 10-0 run to start the second half and essentially seal their win. The Salukis turned the ball over 14 times and Wichita State took advantage, scoring 22 points off of turnovers.  The Shocker bench also outscored the Salukis' bench 39-10.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has joined attorneys general from 19 other states in asking the US Supreme Court to affirm the Second Amendment rights of citizens who wish to lawfully carry concealed handguns outside their homes. The attorneys general have asked the Supreme Court to review a lower federal court's ruling that had upheld the authority of a state to limit the right to keep and bear arms to an individual's home and also had allowed states to require that a permit application show a reason the permit is needed.

"Monsanto's not been very popular in the farming community," said Curt Hoobler, a Kansas farmer. Farmers like the high tech seeds Monsanto provides, but not all the rules that come with them.  One farmer from Indiana is taking his case against those rules to the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday.  He says he should be able to save seeds from one crop to plant a new one.     Curt Hoobler has farmed in Kansas for more than 35 years.  He...