COFFEYVILLE, KS — Bo Dana Rupert is something of a man without a country. He wants to go back home to Kansas, but he risks more charges or being thrown into jail after he was permanently banished from the state as part of a criminal sentence in 2017.
Rupert is appealing the sentence with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which says the sentence is not only “bizarre and illegal,” but a throwback to the “vigilante justice of the Old American West” and the “draconian penalties of ancient Greece.”
“We deal with out-there and bizarre cases and issues, but this is just a whole different level,” said Lauren Bonds, the legal director for the Kansas ACLU and one of Rupert’s attorneys.
The civil rights group is asking the judge who signed off on the unusual sentence, reached in a plea agreement between the county prosecutor and a public defender, to correct it. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 8.
Rupert, now 25, was known as “a rabble-rouser” in Coffeyville, a town of about 9,500 in the southeast corner of Kansas near the Oklahoma border, Bonds said. His reputation for opposing government authority and checking officials’ misuse of that authority was “pretty significant,” she said.
“He’s told us he was quite the citizen activist, at least prior to leaving Montgomery County,” Bonds said.
Rupert was arrested after a confrontation with a reserve deputy at a 2017 Fourth of July celebration in Coffeyville and charged with one count of disorderly conduct and one count of criminal threat. Montgomery County prosecutor Larry Markle later amended the charges, tacking on an additional count of criminal threat stemming from a March 30, 2017, online threat, and three counts of interference with law enforcement, according to the Wichita Eagle. The newspaper said Rupert had accused two Coffeyville police officers, including the police chief, of misconduct.
Also in July 2017, Rupert was charged with disorderly conduct for cursing at a city commissioner after he was booted without explanation as the city’s representative on a county juvenile corrections board, according to a report by the Montgomery County Chronicle. The newspaper said Rupert was a “persistent critic” of the city of Coffeyville, and said he had “specifically aimed his attention toward the Coffeyville Police Department.”
In 2015, before Rupert moved to Kansas, a Centralia, Washington, police officer successfully petitioned for an anti-harassment order against Rupert. The Centralia Chronicle reported that the officer won the protection order after arguing Rupert had filmed him while on duty, posted photos of his family to social media sites, and made online comments saying he and another officer should be executed for treason.
Sentence Immediately Put Rupert In Violation
The Kansas sentence, which included 12 months’ probation, immediately backed Rupert into a legal conundrum.
According to the ACLU court filing, Rupert met with Mike Talbot, his probation officer, the day after he was sentenced, and told him he would miss future appointments because the court had ordered him to get out of Kansas.
Talbot disputed the legality of the sentence, so Rupert asked his public defender, Heath Lampson, who had negotiated the terms of the plea deal with Markle, what he should do.
“Don’t still be here tomorrow when the sun comes up,” Lampson responded, according to the filing.
So, thinking he had no choice but to comply, Rupert packed up and moved to Oklahoma, relying on a local pastor to get him safely across the state line. His probation technically should have ended in October 2018, but he’s afraid he will be arrested if he returns to Kansas, according to the petition.
Two weeks after he was sentenced, Montgomery County issued a warrant for his arrest because he failed to show up for his first probation meetings. Rupert is currently listed as a parole absconder with the Kansas Department of Corrections. An ACLU news release says he currently lives in Texas.
“Thus began a vicious cycle,” the petition states. “Mr. Rupert violated his probation by not attending his probation meetings, but he could not return to the state to attend those meetings without violating the portion of his sentence ordering him never to return.”
The ACLU said the outstanding warrant “effectively ensures that Mr. Rupert will risk incarceration if he ever did return to Kansas.”
Citizens like Rupert who needle public officials and shout them down in meetings aren’t unfamiliar in many of America’s small towns. However, most disputes aren’t settled in a courtroom, as Rupert’s various confrontations were, Bonds said.
And even if they are, “sundown” sentences — the practice in the Old American West of dropping convicted defendants at the state line and threatening their safety if they should ever return — are unconstitutional, the attorney said.
The practice was fairly common before 1935, but defendants haven’t often been ordered out of the state since then “because it’s so patently illegal,” Bonds said. “Every single court has said absolutely not, that’s not constitutional.”
One thing that makes the case all the more unusual is that Rupert’s own defense attorney signed off on the sentence and Montgomery County Judge Jeffrey W. Gettler approved it without any discussion in open court about the condition that Rupert had to immediately get out of Kansas and never return.
“We would not expect or think it’s common for defense attorney to agree to such terms, but he may have thought it was a good deal and this condition was maybe worth the risk, vis-à-vis any other charges that might be assigned,” Bonds said.
“There’s such a disparity of power between prosecutors and defense attorneys, and that comes to bear in the plea negotiation,” she said. “It’s a common story that prosecutors have too much power and public defenders are overburdened, and it’s very common for people to get hit with sentences that are not constitutional.”
Neither Lampson, the defense attorney, nor Markle, the prosecutor, immediately returned Patch’s request for comment. This story will be updated if we hear back.
Rupert’s case will be heard by Gettler, the same judge who signed off on the deal.
Bonds said it’s unclear “how much he knew” about the terms of the deal, and “how much he endorsed.”
“In some of these criminal court hearings resolved by a plea, not a lot of real close attention is paid by judges to the details” and little discussion takes place in open court, Bonds said, adding: “You kind of expect that.”
Bonds said Rupert is “comfortable the time being” with Gettler hearing the case for correction of the sentence “If the same judge doesn’t give him the same relief he’s entitled to, we can always appeal to the Kansas Court of Appeals,”she said.
‘Frontier Justice’ In Southeast Kansas?
Bonds said Rupert’s case points to what the ACLU sees as a disturbing pattern of “frontier justice” in southeastern Kansas.
“I do think there is a potentially bigger issue in that region regarding the rights of criminal defendants,” she said.
Last year, the national ACLU and Kansas chapter sued Markle in the Kansas Supreme Court to force him to notify defendants of rehabilitative diversion sentences, which are required under state law. Instead, the ACLU said in a news release, Markle sought out “expensive and disproportionately harsh prosecution” of defendants who pose minimal community risks.
Somil Trivedi, an attorney with the national ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice, said the lawsuit was intended to “send a message to prosecutors that it’s their obligation to uphold the law and serve their communities, not just rack up as many convictions as they can.”
Kansas prosecutors used diversion programs in felony cases at about half the national average, the ACLU said in a 2017 report. Used as the Kansas law intends and at the national average of 9 percent, Kansas could reduce its prison population and save about $8.9 million annually, the ACLU said.
The Kansas Supreme Court sent the case back to the Montgomery County District Court, a spokesman for the Kansas ACLU told Patch.
Bonds also noted a current witness intimidation case against Montgomery County Sheriff Robert Dierks, who was investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Dierks was suspended from office pending his trial, scheduled for August. The Parsons Sun said Dierks is accused of trying to prevent a deputy from arresting his girlfriend on drunken driving charges.
Also, Bonds said, a retired Shawnee County District Court judge was admonished in 2018 by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications in 2018 over five undisputed complaints of workplace harassment, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. The complaints about Frank Yeoman regarded his treatment of female court reporters, including unwanted touching; pursued personal relationships with female judges and court reporters; and gave significant gifts to women at the courthouse.
“At every level of the criminal justice system in Kansas, we’re seeing a lot of corruption,” Bonds said.
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