Sports: Iola rec baseball, softball results listed See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
AG wants ed ruling on hold By JOHN HANNA The Associated Press
Ob-stack-le course
Area boys and girls learn Bible lessons while playing sports activities this week at the Undefeated Sports Camp at Iola First Baptist Church. Ashton Hesse, left, tries to stack cups into a pyramid while blindfolded as Rebekah Coltrane assists. This lesson was about how to overcome life’s obstacles. REGISTER/KAYLA BANZET
High court upholds use of death penalty drug
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ attorney general on Monday asked the state’s highest court to put on hold a lower court’s decision ordering roughly $50 million more in aid to public school districts this week. Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in his request to the Kansas Supreme Court that three-judge district court panel’s decision to invalidate key parts of an education funding law enacted this year was “unprecedented.” The Shawnee County District Court panel’s decision Friday ordered Kansas to provide more money to dis-
tricts using the state’s previous school funding formula. The Department of Education took steps Monday to- Derek Schmidt ward providing the first $17 million of the extra funds, though the payments remained on hold. “Obviously, the Panel’s unprecedented decision has massive implications for the State’s budget and finances,” Schmidt’s request to the Supreme Court said. The new school funding law took effect in April and scrapped the old per-student formula for distributing aid
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New owners acquire Iola Office Supplies By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
Customers shouldn’t notice many, or any, changes at Iola Office Supply, now under new ownership. McCarty’s Iola Office Supply will have the same hours, same phone number and stay in the same spot on the west side of the courthouse square. “If they want to call and talk to the same friendly people they always have, they can,” said James McCarty, who acquired the store along with his father, Jim, on Friday. The McCartys took over from former owner Ron
By MARK SHERMAN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trading sharp words, a deeply divided Supreme Court upheld the use of a controversial drug in lethal-injection executions Monday, even as two dissenting justices said for the first time they think it’s “highly likely” the death penalty itself is unconstitutional. On their last day together until the fall, the justices voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The court also divided 5-4 in cases upholding congressional districts drawn by independent commissions and calling into question first-ever limits on mercury emissions from power plants. In addition, the justices also agreed to hear an important affirmative action case in the fall and acted to keep Texas abortion clinics open amid a legal fight that threatens to close most of them. In the dispute over the lethal-injection drug, midazolam was used in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma executions in 2014. The executions took longer than usual and raised concerns that the drug did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep. Justice Samuel Alito said for a conservative majority that arguments the drug could not be used effectively as a sedative in executions were speculative and he dismissed problems in executions in Arizona and Oklahoma as “having little probative value for
in favor of predictable grants for each districts. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and GOP legislators who supported the changes argued that they made funding for stable for both the state and its 286 school districts. The new school funding law also cut roughly $50 million from aid that school districts expected to receive for the fiscal year ending this month, a move that balance the state budget following massive personal income tax cuts in 2012 and 2013. The lower court objected to the reductions, even though total aid, at $4 billion, remained well above what
James McCarty, right, is the new co-owner of Iola Office Supplies with his father, Jim. Store employee Hannah Barclay is pictured here with McCarty. REGISTER/RICHARD LUKEN
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Former mental hospital patient faces murder charges By DAVE RANNEY Kansas Health Institute
The recent filing of murder charges against a former patient at the Osawatomie State Hospital is prompting questions about the state’s mental health system. On May 14, Brandon Brown, 30, was released from a five-day stay at Osawatomie. He was sent to the state hospital after threatening other patients at the Haviland Care Center, a nursing facility in Kiowa County that specializes in treating adults with serious and persistent mental illness. Brown, who has long struggled with schizophrenia, was returned to Haviland and on May 17 allegedly assaulted Jerry Martinez, 61, another patient there. Martinez was flown by air ambulance to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where he died 18 days later. Brown, who now is being held in a locked security unit at Larned State Hospital, has been charged with second-degree murder. “The allegations are that he pulled the victim out of bed and slammed his head to the floor several times,” said Kiowa County Attorney Scott James. The Haviland incident and a recent report in the To-
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peka Capital-Journal about staffing shortages are intensifying concerns about operations at the state’s two hospitals for people with mental illness. The newspaper report said that nearly 40 percent of the full-time staff positions at Osawatomie State Hospital and 35 percent of those at Larned State Hospital recently were vacant. “I’ve had a few incidents like this now,” James said. “I have to say they do lead me to wonder if the pressures — whether they be staffing pressures or budget pressures — are really starting to tax these mental health entities to a degree that’s not healthy for the state. I mean, if the state hospital isn’t there to house Mr. Brown, who is it there to house?”
Preserving the safety net
James’ question is at the center of a long-simmering debate over the role of the state’s mental health hospitals in Osawatomie and Larned since lawmakers in the mid-1990s decided to close Topeka State Hospital and expand the state’s network of community-based programs. This shift from institutional care to in-community care was driven by a desire to provide treatment that is less expensive, more effective and more humane.
Kansas has two state mental hospitals. The largest is in Osawatomie. Second is Larned. But there are growing concerns about the adequacy of the safety net for those who continue to need intensive, inpatient care. “This is all about having enough ‘ports in the storm’ for when people are in crisis,” said Frank Denning, sheriff of Johnson County. “When 17 percent of the people in (Johnson County) jail have been diagnosed as having a serious and persistent mental illness, it means we don’t have enough ‘ports.’ And when Osawatomie stopped taking voluntary admissions, it leaves us with fewer ‘ports.’” KDADS officials limited
“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” — Aldous Huxley, British author 75 Cents
voluntary admissions at the Osawatomie hospital late last year after federal inspectors cited the facility for having too many patients and inadequate staffing levels, and for not doing enough to protect potentially suicidal patients. Patients admitted voluntarily are those who have been deemed to be potentially dangerous to themselves or others but have not committed a crime and haven’t been sent for treatment under a court order. The limit on voluntary admissions was intended to reduce the patient census at the 206-bed hospital, which had a record 260 patients in See PATIENTS | Page A3
Hi: 94 Lo: 74 Iola, KS