The two candidates for Johnson County district attorney, Rick Guinn and Steve Howe, can boast the most important qualification for the job anyone could ask for. Neither was a crony of Phill Kline.

Guinn had left the D.A.’s office long before Kline arrived, to head up the criminal division of the Kansas Attorney General’s office. He had been the deputy D.A. here in Johnson County.

Steve Howe was fired by Kline, as part of the purge.

That would be purge, not surge. A surge seeks victory. A purge usually ends in defeat. And defeat it is, because the conviction rate in that office since 20 of the 30 experienced attorneys left has dropped below 50 percent, a far cry from the previous 80 percent.

Both Guinn and Howe are veteran, successful prosecutors. Guinn has eight years more experience and has tried far more murder cases, but Howe has 18 years on the job. Guinn has more administrative experience. He was the number two official in the office, overseeing all attorneys. We can sleep at night knowing, either way, our District Attorney’s office will rise from Kline’s ashes. At this point, however, Guinn seems like the stronger pick.

There are still some questions that need answers before we cast our ballots. It is not good enough to flip a coin, or to vote knee-jerk, because one has an R beside his name, and the other, a D.

Howe, the Republican, has said publicly that it would be his goal to train the existing attorneys to do a better job. That sounds like school to me, and I don’t know if the public wants to wait six months to a year to get the staff up to speed. Guinn is more likely to act aggressively to replace weak prosecutors, though we would not endorse a wholesale purge again. We have had enough purges, both in the District Attorney’s office and in the Kansas Attorney General’s office under Paul Morrison. It is time to get politics out of the office and go after the criminals.

What we would like to hear from both candidates is how they would aggressively get the conviction rate back up, quickly, and how long they will be patient with under-performing prosecutors.

There is also the nagging issue of the ongoing investigation of Johnson County’s Planned Parenthood that Phill Kline initiated.

We would like to know just how high a priority the next D.A. will place on this witch hunt, an investigation that has consumed the time of at least three full-time prosecutors and distracted the office from other priorities.

Many of Steve Howe’s most ardent supporters and top campaign leaders are staunchly anti-abortion, and so it is fair to wonder if Howe will feel obligated to carry on the Kline agenda. What we want to know from Howe is how he will assess the investigation to see if it merits continuation, or if he has already made up his mind. And has he given his promise that he would go after Planned Parenthood, even though both the Kansas Attorney General’s office and an independent grand jury found no wrongdoing after months of investigation?

If there is even a whiff that Howe cut a deal months ago to gain support in his successful August primary election race against Kline, then Howe should be out, as far as we are concerned. The high-priority agenda at the D.A.’s office should be rebuilding the office’s stature, and, thus, getting more bad guys behind bars with higher conviction rates. End of story.

Contact Steve Rose at srose@sunpublications.com.

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