WATCH: The Post’s Johnson County DA candidate forum

The two candidates vying for Johnson County District Attorney — the county’s current longtime incumbent and a former assistant DA — met Wednesday night in a highly anticipated forum put on by the Johnson County Post.

Clear differences emerged regarding a number of issues, including staffing and management of the DA’s office, responding to drug crimes, investigating officer-involved shootings and diversion programs.

This forum, hosted at Central Resource Library in Overland Park, took place on the final night of eight nights of forums the Post has hosted over the last month featuring candidates running for state and local offices in Johnson County.

Who is running?

• Steve Howe (Republican), the current four-term DA
• Vanessa Riebli (Democratic), former assistant DA and currently a defense attorney in private practice

How to watch the Post’s forum

The Post livestreamed Wednesday’s event on our Facebook page, and a recording of the forum is embedded below.

Following the embedded video are the questions each candidate answered during the forum.

Timestamps are included in bold at the end of each question to help you navigate through the forum video if you’d like to jump around.

Questions and timestamps

1.  Opening statements [3:45]
2. Biggest public safety issue in JoCo: We received this question before our primary forums for District Attorney, but its’ worth revisiting now that we have a general election contest with two candidates. This reader asks, “What is the number one public safety issue in Johnson County?” How would you address this issue if elected or re-elected? [6:47]

   

3. Staffing: Publicly accessible data is hard to come by but there have been suggestions for years now that staffing turnover is a problem in the DA’s office. Vanessa Riebli has pointed out in past forums and events that 16 of 35 attorneys in the office left between 2020 and 2023 and now about 40% of the staff has less than five years experience. DA Howe, you’ve responded by pointing out that your office is now nearly fully staffed and that the average experience level of attorneys has ticked up. Is turnover an issue in the DA’s office? And more broadly, what steps will you take to recruit and retain a high quality staff of prosecuting attorneys? [9:46]
4. Assigning cases: Explain your approach to assigning cases to assistant DAs, and how will you organize and departmentalize the attorneys in your office? And why? [13:02]

   

5. Experience and budget management: This question came to us during the primary but is also good to ask here, “The DA’s office has about 100 employees and a several million-dollar budget.  What experience do you have supervising/managing people or an office?  What experience do you have managing a multi million dollar budget?” [16:44]
6. Diversion: The Johnson County District Attorney’s office currently runs diversion programs for both adult and juvenile offenders meant to give people who have committed relatively minor crimes an alternative to incarceration. As District Attorney, what will be your approach towards offering defendants an opportunity at diversion? Do you think the current programs offered are adequate or would you like to see them tweaked or expanded in any way? [19:22]
7. Juveniles and diversion (from the audience): What will you put into place to education kids to help them avoid incarceration? [22:33]

   

8. Children and “sex crimes” (from the audience): A number of commenters chimed in with a question that I don’t know the full details on but feel obligated to ask about considering the number of comments. These comments suggesting there have been children entering the criminal justice system recently, being prosecuted, for sex-related acts, maybe what might be described as inappropriate teenage decisions — nude photos on phones consensual sex among two underage people — but then facing criminal consequences. That, in turn, leading possibly to other negative social effects, like bullying, or declining mental health. How would you approach this particular issue? [25:59]
9. Investigating officer-involved shootings: We got several reader questions and comments regarding how the Johnson County DA’s Office investigates officer-involved shootings. Many of these readers expressed sentiments similar to this emailer, who told the Post that they perceive the process as  “too cozy with police.” The DA’s office will take the findings of the county’s Officer Involved Critical Incident Investigative Team, or OICIIT, and determine whether criminal charges should be filed. In most — if not all — cases in recent memory in Johnson County, criminal chargers are NOT filed. Do you think OICIIT accomplishes its stated mission of conducting impartial and transparent investigations? What changes or improvements, if any, would you like to see? [29:10]
10. Releasing body cam footage (from the audience): What are your stances on the public release of body cam and dashboard cam footage? [32:17]
11. Response to mental health crises: Are there aspects of OICIIT training and procedures that need to be changed, especially when it comes to mental health crises. This has been the subtext of some of the highest profile fatal police shooting incidents in Johnson County in recent years, including the killilng of Overland Park teenager John Albers in 2018. Should there be more specific requirements about what information is collected in an investigation and how investigators look into how law enforcement officers and departments handled situations dealing with those in a mental health crisis? [36:26]
12. Disciplinary action of DA employees (from the audience): Several comments from the audience dealing with, for lack of a better term, disciplinary action of DA staffers. Won’t read these specific allegations but the general question would be how, as the leader of the office, would you manage instance where — either through a lack of experience or a bad mistake — an assistant DA may need to be reassigned or disciplined in some way? [39:20]

    

13. Use of data (from the audience): What metrics will you use to identify budget priorities for reducing crime in Johnson County? [42:21]
14. Best practices in other states (from the audiences): What best practices in other states are you familiar with that you think the Johnson County DA’s office could emulate? [45:06]
15. Drug crimes: There have been several high-profile cases in recent years of drug overdose deaths, particularly those of teenagers, ending in criminal prosecutions of those who supplied the victims with the drugs. There have also been a string of prominent cases involving drug deals involving juvenile offenders that ended in violence. Under your watch, what will be the DA office’s approach to targeting and prosecuting crimes involving drugs? [48:03]
16. Cases you’ve prosecuted (from the audience): Discuss a case you have successfully prosecuted. [50:43]
17. Guns and shootings: A reader sent us this email, “Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in America. As the mother of a young daughter, this issue is very important to me as it is to many other parents in Johnson County. If elected DA, what policies will you enact or support within the confines of your office to help curb gun violence in our community and ensure the safety of all children?” [54:15]
18. Closing statements [57:06]