By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Some smaller counties don't deal with enough of certain types of crime and so they hand off violent crime prosecution to the Kansas Attorney General's Office. Reno County does not traditionally follow that practice.
"As a general rule, we do not hand those off," said Reno County District Attorney Tom Stanton. "We are a District Attorney's office, which means every attorney in our office is limited in their practice to serving the people of Reno County as criminal prosecutors. We use our expertise to prosecute cases."
There have been a couple of times the AG has been brought in, but those have to do with ethical concerns, not an inability to do the work.
"Mostly that has been when we feel like their might be a conflict," Stanton said. "For example, somebody is being prosecuted either that has a relationship to the office, or maybe a local law enforcement officer is someone that is being prosecuted. Because of our desire to make sure that there is never an appearance of impropriety in anything we do, if we're too close to a situation, we will call in the Attorney General, but, other than that, we prosecute our own cases, even up to capital murder."
Stanton has noticed that he is not able to handle as much of a caseload since leading the office as he did when he was deputy.
"I filed 150 felony cases last year," Stanton said. "That's a pretty good caseload for one person to handle. As District Attorney, I can tell you that so many things have come up. We had so many meetings, for example, my first week, just based on what was going on in the community with the protests that were coming and logistical planning for that."
Stanton is still handling some previously filed drug cases as well as a murder case and an attempted murder case. He will be on the ballot in November in hopes of retaining the office.