photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Former Douglas County DA Suzanne Valdez addresses the Kansas Supreme Court at her disciplinary hearing Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Her attorney, Stephen Angermayer, is at right.

Suzanne Valdez’s tumultuous, singular term as Douglas County’s district attorney ended three months ago, but on Tuesday she found herself facing the Kansas Supreme Court for a disciplinary matter that arose during her very first months in office, back in 2021.

It’s a position, she told the court in a sometimes shaky and tearful voice, that she never expected to be in, even in her “craziest of nightmares.” While acknowledging that she had made “a grave mistake” and offering an apology, she also sought to provide mitigating context for her behavior.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Former Douglas County DA Suzanne Valdez addresses the Kansas Supreme Court at her disciplinary hearing Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

Besides hearing from Valdez herself, the justices, who oversee attorney discipline in the state, heard oral arguments from Valdez’s attorney and a special prosecutor concerning what punishment is warranted for Valdez, who was found by a panel for the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys to have engaged in “undignified or discourteous conduct” toward Douglas County Chief Judge James McCabria during the COVID pandemic when the court system was considering how to safely conduct jury trials. Such conduct was degrading to a tribunal, the panel found.

Valdez and her attorney, Stephen Angermayer, argued to the five justices hearing the case that Valdez deserved at most an informal admonition. Special prosecutor Kimberly Bonifas, on the other hand, told the court that public censure should be the minimum punishment.

When Bonifas tried the case in 2023 before the disciplinary panel, she had pushed for Valdez to lose her law license for a year. The panel ultimately recommended a punishment of censure, and the Supreme Court will now have the final say.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Five justices of the Kansas Supreme Court hear oral arguments in the disciplinary case of former Douglas County DA Suzanne Valdez on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Topeka.

The justices, who asked numerous questions during the hourlong hearing, including whether Valdez’s comments about McCabria occurred in the context of an “adjudicative process” and whether they were protected by the First Amendment, took the matter under advisement Tuesday and will issue a written ruling at some point.

As the Journal-World has reported, the disciplinary matter stemmed from McCabria publicly stating during the pandemic that he had consulted with all stakeholders to ensure safety at trials. Valdez, however, disputed that she had been consulted, which led to her issuing a news release and social media posts in which she implied that McCabria was untruthful, “insecure” and sexist.

The panel last year found that Valdez violated “her duty to the legal system, the legal profession, and the public as a result of her comments about Judge McCabria” in the press release and in the Facebook post. It found that she did so knowingly and that her misconduct “caused actual injury to the legal system, the legal profession and the public.”

The panel also found that she had “impugned Judge McCabria’s character in a publicly issued press release and by referring to him as an ‘insecure man.'”

Though Bonifas and Angermayer had expressed the view that the nature of the punishment was the only issue before the court, some justices implied through their questions that more substantive matters might come under review regarding the attorney code of conduct and what kind of speech is permitted.

In particular, Justice Caleb Stegall and Justice Dan Biles appeared to downplay the seriousness of Valdez’s conduct against McCabria, asking Bonifas if Valdez’s words against McCabria, even if unseemly or “petty,” were actually made in the context of a “tribunal,” an adjudicative process vs. an administrative one and whether Valdez had a First Amendment right to say what she did.

Bonifas argued that the words were indeed directed at a tribunal because they were spoken in the context of a chief judge speaking for the entire local bench on a matter related to the jury trial process. As for Valdez’s First Amendment rights, Bonifas said that being a lawyer comes with the understanding that one’s speech can be curtailed in certain instances as clearly outlined by the attorney code of conduct.

As Valdez’s lawyer began his argument, Justice Eric Rosen quickly noted that his fellow justices had dipped into questions of fact and conclusions of law. He reminded Angermayer that the hearing was simply about mitigation and proposed punishment, not whether a rule violation had occurred.

“You’re not contesting those findings and conclusions that there was a rule violation — two of them. Is that right?” Rosen asked, to which Angermayer responded, “That is correct.”

“She’s embarrassed and pained to be here,” Angermayer said of Valdez, whose record was clean before the present action. In seeking only an informal admonition, she was attempting to keep her record “as stain-free as possible,” he said.

Valdez, addressing the justices, said that her conduct, which she regretted, occurred during a very “chaotic” time, including the recent overdose death of her brother, which she said devastated her family. She had also just taken office during the pandemic and had not been given the access she desired to the office by the outgoing DA. She felt that her voice as the DA-elect had been ignored.

But, “I should have taken the high road,” said Valdez, who also recounted to the justices her decades of public service in the legal field as a “woman of color” and as a person who grew up in a blue-collar family and worked hard for what she had achieved.

Five justices, instead of all seven, heard the case because one justice, Evelyn Wilson, was absent. Wilson has announced that she’ll be retiring in July due to a medical diagnosis. Another justice, K.J. Wall, had recused himself.

Valdez, 56, who told the justices that she is now in private practice, was elected DA in 2020 after defeating longtime DA Charles Branson in the Democratic primary. In August 2024, she was defeated in a landslide by Democratic challenger Dakota Loomis, who went on to win the general election.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing can be viewed on the court’s YouTube channel.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Special prosecutor Kimberly Bonifas addresses the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Special prosecutor Kimberly Bonifas addresses the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, at the disciplinary hearing for former Douglas County DA Suzanne Valdez, pictured at right with attorney Stephen Angermayer.