KAHL APPEAL FOR RELEASE FAILS
Kansas Denies Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus
Challenging Federal Jurisdiction and Original Warrant

by Pat Shannan

In a surprise pro se petition to the Kansas Supreme Court, Yorie Kahl, demanded that the court issue an order for the prison warden to bring Kahl forward to the court to present evidence of his wrongful incarceration. Although convicted in federal court in North Dakota in 1983, Kahl is currently serving a life sentence at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, and, therefore, the Kansas judges hold the key to his cell - that is if the challenge against federal jurisdiction had succeeded.

However, the Petition was filed on September 30th and was denied by the court - without comment and without signature - before the week was out.

Kahl noticed the court with its jurisdiction to proceed:

Because Petitioner alleges, supported by positive proof below, that he is a person detained, confined or restrained within the State of Kansas without any lawful authority whatsoever, this Court has jurisdiction to inquire into the lawfulness of such imprisonment and, if such imprisonment is "found to be wrongful" to release Petitioner and "make such other orders as justice and equity…may require." Kansas Civil Procedure, Article 15, § 60-1505(d).

In the lengthy petition of more than 50,000 words on 116 pages, plus his evidentiary attachments, Kahl asserts that: ". . . the want of such jurisdiction is clear upon the face of the records, which are attached hereto, and that, therefore, said writ of habeas corpus must issue as a matter of right, and release from said unlawful imprisonment is mandatory as a matter of law."

His epistle, which took years in preparation from behind the prison walls, tells the court of the duplicity of the U. S. Marshals, the FBI, the judge, the prosecutors, and the cooperative news media, which led to his conviction; and many previously unknown and exculpatory facts about his case. Kahl maintains that most of the eight counts in his indictment actually pertained to his father and not to himself, and that the circumstances were such that only the State of North Dakota, not the federal court, had the proper jurisdiction to try him for murder.

With numerous supreme court cites, Kahl shows that the federal government was granted "exclusive" authority only in very limited areas, e.g., the federal city and military forts, etc., and have no "general criminal jurisdiction" within the states. He further fortifies this with the founders' admonition that "Congress had no general right to punish murder committed within any of the States" and that it was clear that "Congress had no general right to punish felonies generally." Congress could only enact such laws for places where it enjoyed plenary powers - for instance, over the District of Columbia… 'a [federal] regulation of police,'… could have constitutional application only where Congress had exclusive authority, such as the territories."

Marshals Wanted Shoot-out

At dusk on February 13, 1983, a Sunday evening, a team of U. S. Marshals and local county and state deputies set up a roadblock ambuscade outside of Medina, North Dakota. They claimed they had an arrest warrant for Yorie's father, Gordon, but the events soon showed it was actually a "legalized murder" plot planned and executed by Kenneth W. Muir, the marshal in charge. Yorie has presented evidence to the court that on at least two separate occasions in the days prior to the ambush, Muir spoke to informants about eliminating Gordon "from this (blanking) planet." Yorie contends that he has the proof that this federal informant, Mike Phillips, was paid $10,000 to go to Canada prior to the trial, where he would be outside of the reach of a subpoena by the defense.

Yorie states, "No outstanding warrant for the arrest of Gordon Wendell Kahl was ever produced, does not exist in the record, and does not and never has existed either as a matter of fact or law." The purported warrant related to an alleged breach of federal probation by Gordon Kahl but apparently had been withdrawn on September 22, 1980 and was no longer in effect.

Attorney Andy Melechinsky wrote in 1986, "It must be emphasized that under law, Gordon Kahl protected himself fully, to whatever extent protection was possible by his Affidavit, Notice of Designation of Counsel, and Special Appearance. The court refused to act on any of these defenses. This is the real crime in the matter. If U. S. District Judge D. W. Suttle had considered and acted properly upon any of these writs, all parties would be alive today. The docket sheet shows clearly that Judge Suttle ignored all of Kahl's defenses and continued to grind out his own form of 'justice.' It was Judge Suttle who effectively sentenced four people to death at this time. D. W. Suttle is the real criminal. He will have to live with his conscience, until a Grand Jury is convened to look into his criminal acts. The record alone is enough to indict the 'judge' at this point."

The 1983 attack plan backfired. Muir and fellow Marshal Robert Cheshire were killed and three other lawmen were wounded. All were likely shot by Gordon Kahl, and there was no evidence that his son Yorie, who was knocked down by the first shot fired in the melee, ever returned fire. When the smoke cleared, Gordon had disappeared and Yorie found himself, his mother Joan, and his friend Scott Faul charged with murder and conspiracy. Joan was acquitted but the two young men were convicted and received life sentences in early June -- the same week that Gordon was hunted down and killed in another ambush by some 40 FBI agents and local lawmen in northern Arkansas.

Yorie, now 43, was federally indicted for first degree murder (of officers engaged in the performance of official duties), assault on officers of the law, conspiracy to assault, and harboring a fugitive - all of which he exposes in his petition for their flimsy foundation. First-degree murder is that which is premeditated. Since Yorie and his dad were surprised in ambush, even the intimidated jurors could see that this charge was ridiculous and came back with an acquittal. However, following the judge's instructions, they returned with a conviction for 2nd degree murder, a charge for which he was not indicted. Says Yorie, "The jury was left only with the power to determine the degree of guilt as to counts One and Two.

Federal Jurisdiction Lacking

Yorie raises a titillating legal premise which, should he be successful, might be called a "loophole" by his detractors. Nevertheless, after nearly twenty years behind bars for an unlawful conviction, most would argue that he deserves a legal loophole. Here is what he points out to the Kansas court (and we wonder how many lawyers would have discovered it):

On counts One and Two the jury returned general verdicts of acquittal of first degree murder of Kenneth B. Muir and Robert S. Cheshire, Jr. (respectively), as United States and deputy United States Marshals, (respectively), while engaged in the performance of their official duties, "as charged in the indictment.

"Thereupon, the jury returned additional special verdicts on counts One and Two of guilty for the second degree murder of Kenneth B. Muir and Robert S. Cheshire, Jr., (respectively), omitting their status as United States and deputy United States Marshals "engaged in the performance of their official duties."

"Notwithstanding the acquittals of the charges of counts One and Two of the indictment and the rendering of special guilty verdicts in those counts of second degree murder only - an offense not chargeable nor triable in a federal court and exclusively within the jurisdiction of the State of North Dakota - the trial judge, nevertheless, sentenced Petitioner to life imprisonment on counts One and Two to run concurrently with each other. . ."

Yorie contends that because no outstanding warrant was produced at the trial and no arrest warrant existed, it was therefore impossible for the marshals to have been "engaged in the performance of their official duties," and the alleged federal jurisdiction goes out the window. The ensuing trial then became a political "star chamber" destined for conviction from the outset.

The other charges for which he was indicted should have been rejected by the grand jury prior to the indictment and surely would have been by a more sober-minded petit jury outside of the local hysteria of the moment. For instance, how could a man have:

1. conspired to assault law officers when it was they that surprised him at ambush?

2. assaulted law officers when he was flat on his back with multiple shotgun wounds and near death?

3. harbored a fugitive (his father) with supposed knowledge of a bench warrant when no warrant existed?

The charge of "harboring" Gordon by Yorie was a stretch - even if there had been a lawful warrant. At the time of the marshal's ambush, Gordon and Joan were living in the town of Carrington. Their son Yorie was living with his wife, Janice, and two daughters on the family farm outside of Heaton, some 22 miles to the west. The indictment claimed that Yorie was guilty of harboring because he had knowledge of the alleged warrant. However, such knowledge by a citizen is insufficient to support such a charge, as it is not the citizen's job or duty to report this information to authorities. However, the obligation to answer honestly does exist if authorities should question one as to whether or not the fugitive is present on the premises. This, of course, never happened, and even Joan faced the flimsy "harboring a fugitive" charge (of her husband) but was also acquitted of that.

Outrageous Prosecutorial Duplicity

Kahl further accuses the Department of Justice, Assistant U. S. Attorneys Lynn Crooks and Dennis Fisher, and Federal District Judge Paul Benson with prohibiting him from "contesting false assertions of the jurisdictional fact and from establishing that the jurisdictional and essential elements for each asserted claim did not exist." He further asserts that he was effectively "black-balled" (after his conviction) from judicial relief from violations against his personal rights protected under the Constitution and laws of the United States, as well as those of his sovereign State of North Dakota.

Also, prosecutor Lynn Crooks apparently "stacked" the jury. Crooks had grown up in the small town of Hankinson, N.D. with August Pankow, one of the 12 trial jurors. Both Crooks and Pankow have admitted that they knew each other all their lives, and other jurors have revealed that Pankow told them off the record that he was a "friend" of Crooks. Crooks admitted in filmed interviews that the juror, August Pankow, knew him and his family, and Pankow made the same admissions on film. The record shows that these matters were not revealed during voir dire, and the defendants never knew these details or that Pankow had lied to the Court at trial. When Yorie raised this issue before the federal courts, the 8th Circuit ignored the voir dire record and stated they couldn't tell where this information had come from, so it decided against the record that it must have been during voir dire.

In a video-taped interview in 1990, AUSA Lynn Crooks revealed that by the morning following the attack, The Department of Justice had taken an extraordinary interest in the case from Washington, D.C., and immediately thereafter had sent very high-ranking officials to North Dakota both to intimidate the local officials and to ensure the case proceeded to the intended politically-correct conclusion. Crooks also admitted that "We did everything in our power" to ensure the defendants had attorneys to the government's satisfaction. This would seem to substantiate Kahl's claim that his original attorney was intimidated into dropping the case and leaving the state.

According to North Dakota State Investigator Milt Lennick, (in his official report) the NDBCI hastily closed its investigation of this most extraordinary case in North Dakota's history at the behest of the FBI and/or the U.S. Marshals Service. Kahl maintains that this was to ensure that unbiased state investigators did not taint the official version of the case.

Yorie's co-defendant Scott Faul has discovered witnesses that would testify that in November of 1982 (three months prior to the ambush), U. S. Marshal Ken Muir attempted to solicit one of his informants to burglarize Gordon Kahl's home. Mike Phillips, who had been a federal snitch since the previous July or longer and attended the citizen's meeting with Gordon, refused to commit the crime.

On February 7th, the week prior to the attempted murder, Muir called Phillips again to try to learn when Gordon, Yorie, and Scott would be going to their next meeting in Medina, some fifty miles south of the Kahl farm. Phillips told him that it would be Sunday, February 13th. Muir asked if the three were always armed, and when Phillips replied that they were, Muir said, "Good!" and then boasted that he would kill the three after the meeting and make it look like a shootout. This was a separate conversation from the one when Phillips also quoted Muir as saying that he would remove them from the planet.

From the feds perspective, one can readily see why it suddenly became necessary to fund Mike Phillips' extended vacation to Canada. His testimony alone would have destroyed the government's whole case and would have proven that federal officers deliberately staged the ambush in order to murder Gordon Kahl and the others.

Says Yorie Kahl:

"THIS PRINCIPLE IS OF THE HIGHEST OF IMPORTANCE TO THIS PROCEEDING AND IS NOT RAISED BY PETITIONER AS A MERE EXERCISE OF SEMANTICS - PETITIONER WAS CHARGED, TRIED, CONVICTED AND IS SUFFERING IMPRISONMENT FOR AN ALLEGED MURDER COMMITTED ON A NORTH DAKOTA STATE HIGHWAY ON NORTH DAKOTA STATE PROPERTY AND OUTSIDE THE CRIMINAL JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES OR ANY OF ITS COURTS!"

Kahl asserts that the total sentences issued upon the remaining counts was fifteen years and were served by him in toto no later than February 12, 1998, and all imprisonment served by him since that date is entirely unlawful. "Prisoner must be released, as a matter of law and justice, instanter."

His mother, Joan Kahl, is now 75 and still lives in North Dakota. Concerning her disappointment regarding the recent court rejection, she said, "I never get my hopes too high because I don't trust them [the courts, lawyers and judges], and I guess I should not be surprised that they denied it so quickly. But this shows me that probably only a few phone calls were made in arriving at their decision and that the petition was never even read by the Kansas judges."

Indeed, with the aforementioned 116-page petition, plus exhibits that equal nearly three times that in size and volume, it does not seem humanly possible that the evidence was in any way considered. Certainly, the court could not have rendered a decision in such a short period of time, even if the judges had dropped everything and concentrated solely on the Kahl case, which is absurd to assume.

The full text of Yorie Kahl's petition may be found in "Pat Shannan's Investigative Reports." See www.patshannan.com

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