Prosecutor’s style at issue
Critics say assistant D.A. reluctant to take rape and child molestation cases to trial.
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By JIM McLEAN
The Capital-Journal
Brenda Taylor-Mader, an assistant district attorney for Shawnee County, is no stranger to controversy.
She made headlines in Miami 12 years ago because her boss considered her style of dress provocative and because she had a New York dinner date with a stockbroker who she had unsuccessfully prosecuted for drunken driving.
More headlines followed when she publicly flirted with the idea of posing for Playboy magazine after being fired from her assistant state attorney’s job in Broward County, not for her flashy attire, but for her handling of DUI cases, failing to show up in court and her failure to do paperwork.
Here in Shawnee County, the issue isn’t so much Taylor-Mader’s short skirts and revealing animal-print blouses as it is her apparent reluctance to take rape and child molestation cases to trial.
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Records show, and Taylor-Mader confirmed during an interview on Saturday, that she hasn’t taken a single case involving allegations of sexual misconduct to trial since spring 1998.
Her failure in the eyes of some to vigorously prosecute sex cases has become a key issue in the increasingly bitter campaign between District Attorney Joan Hamilton and challenger Robert Hecht.
Hamilton, a Democrat seeking a third term, and Hecht, a 66-year- old Republican lawer who left the prosecutor’s office in 1969, have strong philosophical differences about the role victims should play in deciding whether cases go to trial or are settled in plea bargain agreements.
Hamilton insists it should largely be up to victims. Hecht says that while victims’ wishes are important, the safety of the entire community should come first.
With that debate serving as a backdrop, an anonymous letter written by someone with detailed knowledge of plea agreements negotiated by Taylor-Mader was recently sent to Topeka-area media outlets. The letter charged that Taylor-Mader and Hamilton were jeopardizing public safety by not putting chronic sex offenders in jail.
“The problem is more horrifying when the sexual abuse victims are children,” the letter states. “It is critical that each one of us as parents, educators, caretakers and members of the community demand that criminals who hurt our children are held accountable.”
The letter details the criminal history of Fitzgerald Blackwell, a court-designated “sex offender” who since 1990 has pleaded guilty three times to molesting teen-age boys. Though he has served time in prison, he has spent most of the past 10 years on probation.
He is in the Shawnee County Jail awaiting trial on charges of criminal sodomy and indecent solicitation of a child between the ages of 14 and 16.
But as before, there are indications he won’t go to trial. On Friday, Blackwell’s defense attorney, Kip Elliot, received a continuance to Nov. 30 to give him more time to work out a plea bargain with Taylor-Mader.
In 1998, Blackwell was charged with three counts of criminal sodomy and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. But under a plea agreement negotiated by Taylor-Mader in March 1999, three of the four felony charges were dismissed, and the fourth was reduced to a misdemeanor.
Blackwell again received probation and was ordered to attend counseling sessions, to take medicine to render him impotent and to stay away from children.
The most recent charges against Blackwell were filed on May 16. Taylor-Mader said it was likely that the charges would be reduced in exchange for Blackwell’s testimony against another suspected child molester.
“A plea doesn’t mean non-incarceration,” Taylor-Mader said, insisting that Blackwell, whom she described as “childlike” and the “product of a disturbing background,” would receive jail time.
Critics of Taylor-Mader also point to the case of a former Topeka man who was charged in 1997 with raping his 8-year-old daughter.
Before the case went to trial, Taylor-Mader agreed to dismiss the rape charge in exchange for a guilty plea to a simple count of battery, a misdemeanor.
As Judge Nancy E. Parrish was preparing to accept the plea, the victim’s mother objected.
“Your honor, I don’t think it’s fair that he gets just a slap on the wrist for what he’s done to my daughter and to the rest of my three kids,” the mother said, charging that her ex-husband had molested all of her children and threatened them to keep them quiet.
“They are scared at nighttime when I have to go to work,” the mother said.
After the mother’s testimony, Taylor-Mader told Parrish that the district attorney’s office had agreed to the plea bargain because the victim’s “changing story” would make it difficult to prove the rape charge in front of a jury.
“I didn’t feel we had a strong case,” Taylor-Mader said Saturday, adding that if she had it to do over again she wouldn’t file the charges in the first place.