After the 2017 exoneration of Lamonte McIntyre, who spent decades in prison after former Kansas City, Kansas, detective Roger Golubski allegedly framed him for a double murder, the Kansas Legislature passed a law to provide compensation for individuals wrongfully incarcerated. Seven years later, lawmakers and activists are now contemplating what Golubski’s death means for future reform efforts. Golubski died by apparent suicide last week just as his federal trial on charges stemming from allegations he raped two women as a police officer in the 1990s and 2000s was set to begin. In civil court filings, Golubski was accused of harassing or sexually assaulting more than 70 women, terrorizing predominantly Black neighborhoods in KCK. Prosecutors had been expected to showcase the testimony of numerous women victimized by Golubski. The witnesses would have potentially created a powerful record of wrongdoing and possibly implicated other officers. Golubski was also accused of running an underage sex trafficking ring in partnership with a feared drug kingpin. Golubski’s time in Kansas City, Kansas, continues to loom over the local justice system. Two men saw their convictions overturned this week after they spent 15 years in prison for a KCK drug robbery-turned-double murder in 2009. Golubski was a police captain over homicide at the time, and lawyers alleged his involvement may have influenced the men being named suspects in the first place. Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree said the former detective’s involvement in the case was not part of a judge’s findings. Wyandotte County District Court Judge Aaron Roberts found neither Cedric Warren, 34, nor Dominic Moore, 40, received a fair trial because of a prosecutor’s failure to disclose compromising evidence about a state witness with severe mental health problems. Dupree’s office dismissed charges, and Warren and Moore walked free on Wednesday. Without Golubski’s criminal trial – and the weeks of public attention it would have drawn to police misconduct – advocates of additional law enforcement transparency and accountability are unsure what will happen next. But they are still calling for change in the 2025 legislative session that begins in January. “Frankly, I think a lot of this information about what happened and a lot of the problems that were exposed, the criminal prosecution of Golubski or the initial filing of charges and the civil cases, were known to elected officials in past sessions and there wasn’t a lot of action taken,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project. “But that being said, there was responsiveness to Lamonte McIntyre’s situation. It does seem like there can be these public instances of injustice that can be a motivator. So all that to say, you know, I’m not sure, we’ll see.” Star file photo In interviews with The Star, lawmakers and activists repeatedly emphasized the importance of expanding access to police body cam footage. While some spoke about the need for additional safeguards on the use of jailhouse informant testimony, often criticized as unreliable, and others want to make it easier to sue officers who break the law, access to police footage and records was a consistent theme. Golubski’s alleged crimes occurred in an era before the widespread use of body cams. Still, while the use of cameras has become the norm at many agencies over the past decade, Kansas continues to allow departments to tightly restrict access to footage, limiting their power as a transparency tool. Body camera recordings are considered criminal investigation records, giving police departments, district attorneys and other officials broad discretion in deciding whether the recordings get released or stay shielded from public view, even after a case is closed. An investigation by The Star this spring found that departments routinely deny requests for footage. The Star requested footage for every fatal police shooting in Kansas from 2019 to 2023 – 47 in total. Officers were cleared of criminal charges in every case. Where recordings existed, officials denied releasing them to the public 67% of the time. Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat who has pursued police accountability legislation in the past, said she intends to push to expand access to footage. She didn’t share specifics, indicating that the legislation is in development, but said she wants to prevent police agencies from hiding records and footage of “problematic officers.” Family members and legal representatives of people killed by police in Kansas have long complained about the limited ability to access information from law enforcement, including footage recorded on body-worn cameras. By law in Kansas, footage is available to subjects of videos. In fatal shootings, family members, heirs and their attorneys can view recordings, but that access is often limited to in-person viewing. In Kansas City, Kansas, homicide investigation files from two fatal police shootings in 2023 only became public earlier this month because the city entered a contract with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department to review its officers’ use of deadly force. The Star obtained records under Missouri’s Sunshine Law after a Platte County judge found the Missouri agency was legally bound to release them. Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, called that outcome “farcical,” saying Kansas’ open records law “remains rife with exceptions” that are “quite liberally claimed by law enforcement” even in cases of high public interest. Holscher said problems related to body cam footage access aren’t exclusive to Kansas City, Kansas. “We’ve seen this happen in other parts of the state,” Holscher said. “And it really hinders the whole justice process when you can’t get a hold of some of the very important documents and records in terms of a case.” Cheryl Pilate, a Kansas City attorney whose representation of McIntyre surfaced many of the allegations against Golubski, said open records are at the top of her list of reforms. Police are in a uniquely powerful position, she said, calling for a higher level of accountability. During encounters with police, the account of a citizen “may carry little or no weight,” she said. “At times I feel like citizens disagree with officers at their peril,” Pilate said. Police agencies have wide latitude to deny the public release of records classified as investigative files, and cite numerous reasons for withholding body cam footage. Some of the cited exemptions provided to The Star were a police agency’s declaration of no public interest, potential impact to an ongoing investigation, revelation of a confidential source, broad privacy concerns and disturbing imagery. Ed Klumpp, a former Topeka police chief who lobbies for several Kansas law enforcement associations, said the groups he represents would have to review any proposed legislation before taking a position. Whether top Republicans would support expanded access to body cam footage is unclear. Republican support would be critical to any legislation in the Legislature, where the party holds supermajorities in both the House and Senate. Sen. Kellie Warren, a Leawood Republican, chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would most likely review Holscher’s proposal. Warren didn’t respond to an interview request on Thursday to discuss law enforcement-related legislation. The Kansas Senate chamber. Evert Nelson/The Capital-Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Wrongful convictions The Legislature has shown an appetite for some criminal justice changes in recent years, such as tightening civil asset forfeiture reporting requirements, on a bipartisan basis. The 2018 bill that implemented a wrongful conviction compensation program – following the exonerations of McIntyre and others – passed unanimously. The law allows individuals wrongfully convicted of a felony to show in district court, or the Kansas Supreme Court, that they meet certain conditions to establish that they did not commit the felony crime. In addition to $65,000 for each year in prison, the state pays $25,000 for each year spent on parole. As of March, eight individuals have obtained certificates of innocence and received compensation. The state has paid out more than $4.3 million so far. But earlier this year, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach asked the Legislature to revisit the compensation law, sparking fears that the Republican wanted to narrow its eligibility criteria. Kobach’s office offered a bill that would exclude individuals whose convictions were overturned solely because of ineffective defense lawyers. Under the proposed change, which Kobach’s office framed as a clarification, compensation claims couldn’t be based on “non-innocence technical grounds.” “Our tax dollars should not be going to criminals who got off on a technicality,” Deputy Attorney General Robert Hutchison said in written testimony on the bill. The Midwest Innocence Project, which has represented McIntyre and other exonerated Kansas residents, opposed Kobach’s bill. Its director, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, testified that more than a quarter of all exonerations involve claims of inadequate legal defense, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. The strength of someone’s innocence, as well as the harms suffered because of a wrongful conviction, don’t change because of the reason a court chooses to overturn a conviction, Bushnell said, adding that in most exoneration cases, defendants raise a number of constitutional claims, including ineffective counsel, and that courts only need to rule one claim to overturn a conviction. “There is no meaningful reason to distinguish between individuals exonerated on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds versus other constitutional violations,” Bushnell said. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the bill, but it never came up for a vote in the full House. A spokesperson for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office didn’t respond to questions about whether Kobach plans to again offer the legislation in 2025. Reached by phone on Thursday, Rep. Susan Humphries, a Wichita Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said she would have to review the legislation before commenting. More ambitious reform Some of the most expansive police accountability legislation that’s been offered in Kansas may struggle to advance. Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, said he plans to again introduce bills that would create the crime of deprivation of rights under color of law and require Kansas to seek to recover damages from police officers and others who knowingly contribute to someone’s wrongful imprisonment. Federal law already criminalizes local, state and federal officials who willfully deprive individuals of their constitutional rights. Haley’s proposal would make deprivation of rights a state crime, and allow victims to sue in state courts. “It is beyond insulting to have someone continue to draw a public salary or even a public pension but the taxpayers end up having to pay for their malfeasance through some civil suit after the fact and they – the wrongdoer – don’t make any contribution to it,” Haley said. Haley previously offered the bills earlier this year, but neither received a hearing, much less a vote. “I just think the Legislature has been very resistant to anything that would change the framework of accountability for law enforcement,” said Kubic, “and has been very deferential to law enforcement and has been less deferential to the needs of communities that have experienced abuse, harassment, et cetera.” As Kansas City, Kansas, grapples with Golubski’s death and its aftermath, Kubic and others emphasized the necessity of listening to individuals and communities harmed by the former detective’s actions. Kubic said that while individuals feel significant disappointment and anger that Golubski can no longer be held legally accountable, that doesn’t change their desire for structural reform. “Nobody should believe that this is just about one individual,” he said. Holscher said she recently told victims of Golubski and others in the community that she’s listening for them to tell her what they want to see happen. “While I think there’s a couple things legislatively that needs to be done, the whole thing with the open records reform, I mean that potentially helps going forward and it’s a great thing to do and it needs to be done,” Holscher said. “But again, I don’t know if that necessarily helps in the healing process and what that path is.”
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