The "Manhattan Optimist Club Bulletin": Vol. 2024 #15: 1-10-24
VOLUME 2024 January 10, 2024 NUMBER 15
President Bill Wisdom welcomed the membership and guests, Jerry Banaka presented a reflection, followed by the Flag Salute.
Program:
Mike Fincham introduced Bethany Fields, Riley Deputy Count Attorney, Prosecutor of the Year award winner. Bethany earned her law degree from the University of Kansas and has been employed with the Riley County Attorney’s Office since 2005 when Barry Wilkerson was elected to the office. Prior to moving to Manhattan, she worked for four years at the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office. Her current case load is mostly felony cases with an emphasis on child victim crimes, including child sexual abuse and physical abuse. She handles about a third of the child-in-need-of-care cases, and other cases as assigned, including felonies and misdemeanors, such as domestic battery and violations of the Kansas Offender Registration Act.
She serves on our Child Advocacy Center MDT team and on our local Juvenile Corrections Advisory Board. She is also the Riley County Attorney’s Office representative for the Drug Court Program as well as training our local law enforcement, CASA, and our Protective Homes Program. She received the Prosecutor of the Year award in part for her convictions in jury trials: State v. Leaonard, State v. Colwell, State v. Meeks, and State v. Hall.
She is married, lives in Wamego, with one son who is active in sports.
Barry Wilkerson nominated her for the Prosecutor of the Year award. She was honored to be the winner. She didn’t feel like she did anything more special than any other prosecutors, however, it was an honor to be recognized. She did win quite a few jury trials this past year.
She has always had a passion for children’s cases, such as juvenile offender cases, child in need of care cases, or child victim cases. She took over these types of cases in Riley County in 2009 until another attorney was hired to do them about 18 months ago. She still does some child-in-need-of-care cases. Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) is a great way for volunteers to get involved and help children. They meet with the child every week or two to get to know them, talk to them about what is going on in their foster home placement and try to advocate for the child. The child does have a case worker, but they have a case load of 20-30 children and may not have the time to spend with them one on one. This relationship is not unlike Big Brother/Big Sister. However, they write a court report for the judge and put a human face on the child for the court. It helps her know who the children are and what they need.
In addition to the child-in-need-of-care cases, she does a lot of the Kansas Offender Registration Act cases. People who are convicted of most sex crimes, certain drug crimes, or have been convicted of a high-level violent crime have to be registered on the Kansas Offender Registration list. People avoid registration or keeping their registration up to date because it is available to the public on the KBI website with a wide variety of information on the registered person. They must come in four times a year and anytime they have a change. They may be afraid it will jeopardize their job if their employer finds out they are a registered sex offender. They often fail to update information about employment, living location etc.
She also does general misdemeanors and felony cases as well as juvenile offender cases, age 10 to under 18. Cases with children less than 10 are handled as child-in-need-of-care cases. They do have an Intermediate Intervention Program (IIP) run by Community Corrections for kids who become involved in crimes such as shoplifting, marijuana use/possession, battery at school, theft, broken windows etc., which is basically a diversion program. They do community service work, write a letter of apology, meet with a probation officer and youth court. It gives them an opportunity to make amends and pay restitution without having it on their record. Eighty to ninety percent of the juvenile offenders only come through the system one time. Kids go through that program, and they never see them again. The program was established by statute from the legislature.
Her office also does mental health care and treatment cases. People who are having a mental health crisis and are a danger to themselves or others or immediately need help are screened at the hospital or the crisis stabilization unit. If they meet the criteria for involuntary placement, they can go to Osawatomie State Hospital. Lots of people agree to go to a mental health facility, but her office gets involved when they may not be rationally able to agree, thus need to be committed without their permission or they may be a danger to themselves. Another program, Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), is for people who are on outpatient treatment orders from the mental hospital, but are still under the jurisdiction of the court. They must follow the outpatient treatment plan and take the medication they have been prescribed, meet with their therapists etc. and come into court to make sure they are following their plan.
The 21st Judicial District (Riley and Clay Counties) started a drug court program in March of 2022 for people who are in possession of felony drugs, such as meth, heroin etc., and their first distribution of drugs, because the amount they have meets the criteria or sold a little to their friends, but were not active pushing and selling drugs to others, thus the prosecutors don’t think they are hard core drug dealers. They go through an 18 month program where they get drug and alcohol treatment and come to court every week and stay clean and meet all the other criteria and complete the five phase program and graduate. There have been three graduations so far with six graduates. They get into a program, such as AA, that gives them a new community to interact with and stay drug and alcohol free. There are two Oxford Houses, one male, one female, in Riley County where they can live for a period of time.
In working with child-in-need-of-care, there is a child advocacy center downtown through the Sunflower Bridge (CASA is also under them). The Child Exchange and Visitation Center provides space for supervised visits and exchange of children from one parent to another when conflicts between parents may cause a problem if they interact directly. The Child Advocacy Center is a safe place where a child can be interviewed in a more friendly and less intimidating atmosphere away from the Riley County Police Station. The police station did have a special room that was set up for children, however children know “bad people” go to the police station. The facility downtown eliminates this stigma for children; it is like going into an office building with a room set up for children. Everything during the interview is recorded and the child only needs to tell an uncomfortable story once, instead of several times to several different people. This is especially helpful in child sex abuse cases. She meets once a month with the team to review all the children who have come through that program.
The purpose of their office is to seek justice for the victims, but also on behalf of the citizens of Riley County. They want to make sure people are generally satisfied with the outcome of a trial and people who have done really bad things are locked up and will not harm other people. While meeting with victims, she has found that a lot of the time they just want to be heard. They want to tell their story in front of the defendant, even if they don’t get a conviction. For them it is a matter of being heard and some healing from the trauma can take place.
Guests:
Bill Wisdom introduced our speaker, Bethany Fields.
Sean Nordberg introduced Nick Hernandez who will take Sean’s position in Manhattan.
Thad Hall introduced Marc Wilson, with Wilson Appraisal Company and former member of the Little Apple Optimist Club, and Ted Grubb, of Outdoor Bank.
Club Stuff/Announcements:
Membership Committee will meet after the meeting is over.
Greg McCune and Ed Klimek gave an IPS essay contest update; the IPS essays are due at the beginning of March and do the judging in April, then read the winning essays at the May 8 meeting.
Clyde Scott announced that two thank you notes were circulating, one from the Toys for Manhattan, and one from the American Legion. Clyde also had visited Oscar Larmer, who was not doing well; he’d appreciate anyone who would want to stop by and see him.
Save these dates: March 5: Lawn Mower Clinic, March 15 & 16: State Special Olympics Basketball and March 23rd for the annual Spaghetti Dinner.
Adjourned with the Optimist Creed
Next Weeks’s Meeting:
JANUARY 17 – MORNING MEETING: Program: Youth of the Month Presentations: Ogden and Oliver Brown Elementary Schools
January Meeting Schedule
JANUARY 24 – NOON MEETING: Program: Michael Peschel, CEO Twin Valley Development: Topic: “IDD System (Intellectual Development Disability Services)”
JANUARY 31 – MORNING MEETING: Program: Business Meeting