Resentencing in battery case brings comments from Riley County Attorney

It doesn’t happen very often, but a Manhattan man originally sentenced for felony battery of a county employee was resentenced in Riley County District Court earlier this week on a misdemeanor battery charge. As KMAN reported earlier this month, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed a Kansas Court of Appeals decision in the case, involving the lower district court’s previous conviction in a case involving Tracey Toliver.

Toliver’s original case occurred in February of 2014, with Toliver spitting at a law enforcement officer while in a correctional facility. The 13 page Supreme Court document dealt with the statutory interpretation regarding the definition of a correctional officer or employee, with the Riley County attorney’s office trying for the felony charge which applies to county correctional officers or employees.

Wilkerson adds every few years his office will see this type of case, and then the legislature will make amendments to the statues. In this case he indicates that would make things on an equal playing field so a police officer would receive the same protection as a correctional officer when he’s in a corrections facility. The County Attorney further stresses it wasn’t anything Sr. Deputy Attorney Barry Disney did wrong or any type of error on the county attorney office’s part.

Wilkerson’s complete statement can be heard here: