I would never have guessed that Terry Gray, the 23rd Street Ramp Maniac, would have had the means or smarts to hire a good attorney, but he has done so, and it is already paying dividends for him.
Gray is the guy who careened 90 miles an hour down the northbound ramp off I-435 and slammed into an SUV, beginning a chain-reaction crash that left two people dead, two seriously injured and vehicles strewn around and through the intersection.
Gray, 51, made his first appearance in court Tuesday, nearly five months after the crash, which took the lives of 16-year-old Samantha Raudales of Shawnee and 3-year-old Ryan Hampel of Independence. Two other people were seriously injured, including Samantha’s father, Edwin Raudales-Flores, who suffered a brain injury.
Gray is charged with two counts of causing death while driving under the influence of marijuana and two counts of DWI resulting in serious physical injury.
I’ve been following this case closely, and ever since the prosecutor’s office filed charges Jan. 4, I’d been checking Jackson County Corrections Department records, looking for a booking mugshot of him. But nothing had turned up.
People like to see photos of defendants charged in high-profile cases, and when I was at The Star we always went aggressively after video of “perp walks” (which you don’t see too much of any more) and booking mugshots.
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After learning that the prosecutor’s office had allowed Gray to remain free pending his first appearance, I fully expected him to be booked and “mugged” on Tuesday. Partly for that reason — and also because the appearance was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. — I didn’t bother to go down to the courthouse that day.
To my surprise, however, even after Tuesday, I couldn’t find any sign of Gray in Corrections Department records. In addition, the Kansas City Police Department had no record of him being booked through the city jail.
The thing about mugshots is everybody looks guilty, even if you’re Tiger Woods or Nick Nolte — and nobody wants their mugshot published, and defense lawyers hate them.
Nevertheless, mugshots have routinely been a matter of public record at the state and local level for more than a century. To the frustration of the media, it’s different in federal cases. Two years ago, the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 20-year-old legal precedent that allowed news organizations and others to obtain booking photos of criminal defendants who appeared in federal court.
Writing for the majority, Judge Deborah Cook called mugshots “squarely within [the] realm of embarrassing and humiliating information.”
“Booking photos convey guilt to the viewer,” she wrote. “Indeed, viewers so uniformly associate booking photos with guilt and criminality that we strongly disfavor showing such photos to criminal juries.”
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But even in state court — at least in Jackson County, MO, it turns out — a good lawyer can sometimes circumvent the mugshot problem.
Things started falling into place for me in the Gray case after I found through court records that John P. O’Connor, a longtime, highly respected criminal defense attorney, had entered his appearance on behalf of Gray on Jan. 22.
I’ve known John more than 40 years, ever since he worked in the old Jackson County Jail on top of the courthouse and before he entered law school. He’s now got a son, P.J. O’Connor, who has followed him into the law business.
So, I sent John an email, asking where his client was booked in and why I couldn’t find a mugshot.
He wrote back that he had taken Gray directly to the Jackson County Criminal Records division — which is in a separate building from the Corrections Department — and that Gray had posted $7,500 cash bond (against a face bond of $75,000) and was not required to be mugged. His next scheduled appearance is March 7.
I wrote back to John: “Damn! That’s part of the value of hiring a good attorney!”
His reply: “Yes, get ’em out the back door!”
Wanting to be helpful, however, John told me Fox4 News had taken video of Gray sitting in the courtroom on Tuesday. “Can’t you (get a) screen shot?” John wrote.
I then went to the Fox4 website and found this photo…
For Gray’s purposes — and John’s — that photo is far better than a mugshot. Gray is cleaned up and looking appropriately serious and concerned.
In the end, Gray may well get a very stiff sentence, but with John in his corner, in my estimation, he has a good chance of getting a plea agreement that could keep him out of prison the rest of his life.
I, of course, don’t want Gray to see the light of day after he either pleads or is convicted. But he is entitled to a stout defense, and my hat is off to John for his crafty handling of the case in the formative, early stages.
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I told John that in the absence of a booking photo of Gray, I would run his “mugshot.” Here it is…He, too, looks appropriately serious.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
A search of kansascity.com is silent on this case. With other vehicle-related deaths with charges filed against the driver, what have been recent verdicts? The fact he’s been free this entire time is an outrage, as is the state of the Jackson County judicial system, if previous posts suggesting “the best judge money can buy” (or a similar sentiment) is valid.
Mike
Mike — The Star had a story Jan. 4 about Gray being charged (see link below), but they did not send a reporter to his first appearance. (This is one of the things I like about “the new” Kansas City Star: They leave stories lying around like $50 bills, and I pick ’em up.)
Also, don’t be too quick to buy Mr. Altevogt’s assertion about “the best judges money can buy.” He has a fondness for the turn of phrase…I have long found the Jackson County Circuit Court to have excellent judges, by and large.
Same can’t be said for Wyandotte County, from which Mr. Altevogt hails. I have seen some real doozies over there.
http://www.kansascity.com/article193060229.html
This is more than a missing mugshot. It’s potentially a violation of state and federal requirements if fingerprints are not submitted for every felony arrest. If no mugshot was taken, you know his prints weren’t taken. In Kansas, we have a state law that requires printing all felonies. I’m sure there is one in the Missouri statutes too. Fingerprints are the only way to report arrests to the FBI. If they don’t get this guys prints showing he was arrested, his record in this case will never be entered in NCIC. Think about that… his rap sheet could forever be clean just because somebody screwed up and never took his prints.
Prints are generally required of the arresting agency, which is KCMOPD in this case. Apparently they never took him downtown from the scene and processed him. That happens sometimes for legitimate reasons, such as being transported and admitted to a hospital. If something like that occurred, the Sheriff’s Office Warrant Division would have “served” the warrant on him at the courthouse when he surrendered. They should have checked the county jail computer and discovered he was never booked, printed or mugged. They should have taken him right over to the jail and seen that he was processed correctly, or called KCPD to come process him.
Of course I worked in Kansas (WyCoSO) where we don’t allow felons to walk in and out of the courthouse and avoid all that. What the hell is with Missouri?
The cops took him into custody the day of the crash, Chuck, and got his blood sample, before releasing him. I presume they got his prints, too.
Then they should have his picture too. They don’t do one without the other.
Interesting…Perhaps KCPD did take it. On Wednesday, I exchanged emails with the new captain in charge of media relations, and he said he was unable to access the mugshot because he was getting “error messages” when he tried to call it up in the computer.
He said he would try again Thursday “and hopefully the error messages will be resolved.”
Before emailing him, I had sent an email to another P.I.O. officer I have worked with in the past, and on Thursday he sent me an email saying, “We don’t have his mugshot on file so he must’ve been transported directly to the JaCo Jail so you’ll need to ask them for a pic.”
I had also sent the captain a follow-up email but never heard back from him.
So, yes, it’s curious…And it remains “The case of the missing mugshot.”
As for best judges money can buy i refer you once again to the cases involving 3 Wheel Lokeman and the Mertensmeyer kid (and then check in with the local anti drunk driving campaign for a compendium of other cases).
That said, i have to agree with Fitz regarding what is known in Kansas legal circles as Wyandotte County Common Law. Indeed, a case similar to this current one involving one of the Scherzer boys comes to mind. In that case the aforementioned besotted Scherzer drove the wrong way down I-70 and plowed into some folks. In the ensuing case in County Court the judge decided that current state law didn’t seem to fit the case and so created his own out of whole cloth and assigned Scherzer to house arrest, if memory serves. Needless to say, the prosecutor appealed the decision. The judge then retired from the county bench and was immediately given a position on the Municipal bench (no doubt based on his command of the norms of local jurisprudence).
As for some of our doozies, The Star has to shoulder the blame. In one case the local legal community primaried one of the county judges wherein i was told reliably that the only issue was his habit of being drunk on the bench (the allegation was reinforced by another local attorney who had been hauled up before the disciplinary board after asking the judge to recuse himself owing to the fact that the attorney claimed the judge was drunk on the bench). The Star endorsed the drunk. They also endorsed a felon convicted of public corruption over a former community college president for a seat on the KCKCC board, but that’s a different story.
By the way, I am indebted to Rick Alm for the story concerning the Scherzer drunk driving case.
Got to set you straight on a couple of things here, John…
The prosecution, to the best of my knowledge, never has the ability to “appeal” an initial decision at the state court level. Only the defense can appeal, and then, if the defense prevails, the state can appeal it to the next level.
In Jackson and other “first-class” Missouri counties, including St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Greene County, Circuit and Municipal Court judges are all appointed, ultimately by the governor, under the “Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan.” Then, they are on the ballot for retention or rejection every six years. I can’t remember The Star ever taking a position on a judge up for retention or rejection. (Judge are elected, of course, in Wyandotte County, under partisan banners — that is, all Democrats.)
That said, I do remember one Circuit Court judge who was reputed to take a few nips during the course of an average day.
Wyandotte county judges are indeed elected, thanks to Dave Carson and I am positive about the Star endorsement. The Scherzer case I’m recalling from a lunch with Rick and it sticks in my mind that some element of the case was appealed owing to the local judge’s repudiation of state law. I’ll do some research and see what i can find out, you’ve made me curious now.
Here you go, note “The State appeals” I could be wrong, but I got this from Rick so i was pretty confident in my source ;-)
https://law.justia.com/cases/kansas/supreme-court/1994/70-590-3.html
“The defendant pled guilty to three counts of vehicular battery, K.S.A. 1992 Supp. 21-3405b, a class A misdemeanor. The defendant was fined $1,000 and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment on each count, with the sentences to be served concurrently. The court ordered the defendant to serve 90 days of imprisonment by house arrest, to be followed by probation. The State appeals the court’s order allowing the defendant to serve the 90 days of imprisonment by house arrest rather than imprisonment required by 21-3405b(b)(2). The two issues raised are: (1) Does house arrest constitute “imprisonment” under K.S.A. 1992 Supp. 21-3405b(b)(2), and (2) was the sentence imposed illegal?”
I see…That was more of a clarifying appeal, though, don’t you agree? The judge gave him a year in prison, and the prosecutor contested the legality of the judge converting it to 90 days of house arrest, to be followed by probation.
Back to my point, the prosecutor could not appeal for a sentence longer than the one year the judge handed out — and then proceeded to dilute.
Interesting issue, for sure…
Was it Patrick Scherzer?
Correct, it’s a fascinating read through history and WYCO Common Law, but the standing for the appeal (the first big hurdle) was based on prosecution’s claim that the sentence handed down by the judge was illegal, the Supremes concurred. And yes it was Patrick Scherzer.
John Altevogt, here is an excerpt from a column that Rick Alm wrote regarding the judicial handling of Patrick Scherzer’s drunk driving accident. Quite appropriate that you bring up Rick as this Friday marks the one-year anniversary of his passing. Man, I miss him!
SECTION: ZONE/WYANDOTTE COUNTY DATE: October 14, 1993
EDITION: METROPOLITAN
After months of behind-the-scenes haggling, the City Council in Kansas City, Kan., finally decided whose favorite good-ol’-boy lawyers would get appointed as new Municipal Court judges.
One of them is former Wyandotte County District Court Judge William M. Cook, who, on the very day he retired last month, disgracefully fouled that judicial nest.
Cook sentenced former Wyandotte County Commissioner Pat Scherzer to do 100 pushups — or something like that — for driving drunk and shattering the automobiles and lives of six innocent people.
In a rare move, the Kansas Attorney General’s office is appealing the sentence. Attorney General Bob Stephan, who characterized Scherzer as “gutter-sloppy drunk” the night of the accident, said there was “no excuse” for Cook’s 90-day, house-arrest wrist-slapping of Scherzer.
Now Cook will be dispensing equal justice for all in Municipal Court, where traffic tickets, housing-code violations and other misdemeanor and city ordinance cases are heard.
Because the cases are small ones, so are the maximum sentences that Municipal Court judges are permitted to mete out.
That should suit Minimum Bill just fine.
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“Minimum Bill”….classic Alm.
I moved into WYCO in May of 96 and took over the county party in Nov? At the time The Star had a free library and when I discovered Rick’s work I read everything I could get. Even after he left WYCO and moved to the business desk he broke stories about the sleaze there. There was one day where he had about three that should have been on the front page including one that exposed the fact that the much-vaunted downtown hotel wouldn’t let WYCO residents stay there. His picture should be in every dictionary beside the word journalist.