As part of a May plea agreement with a 75-year-old man accused of having sex with a 6-year-old and a 7-year-old, Shawnee County District Attorney Robert Hecht agreed that the state would “stand silent at sentencing” - even though the judge who was assigned the case is notorious for handing out light sentences for sex crimes involving children.

The sentencing took place on Friday, when Shawnee County District Court Judge Matthew Dowd sentenced Harold Spencer to probation for crimes that could have drawn two life sentences.

It was the latest in a series of decisions in which Dowd, a Democrat, has departed from sentencing guidelines to give child rapists milder sentences. It also may be Dowd's last such decision, since it launched a series of events that culminated with the judge announcing he would no longer take part in trials in which sex crimes against children were alleged.

Earlier in the week, the district judge had reduced the sentence of Christopher Henderson-Brown, convicted of raping a 5-year-old. And just last year, Dowd drew criticism for sentencing three adults who had raped children to probation instead of prison.

After sentencing Spencer, Hecht said he would appeal Dowd’s decision, as well as the reduced sentence given Henderson-Brown.

Hecht said that in 50 years of trying cases, he had never seen a case in which a defendant facing the possibility of two life terms had been sentenced instead to three years of probation.

Last May, however, the Shawnee County district attorney’s office entered into the plea agreement in the Spencer case, saying the state would not comment during the sentencing hearing.

The state retained the right, however, to question any witnesses called by the defense. And the agreement did not prohibit or limit statements from the victims or their family members.

Spencer agreed to plead guilty to the two charges for sex crimes involving two children, ages 6 and 7, in exchange for the district attorney’s vow of silence at the sentencing hearing.

The district attorney’s reason for agreeing to the plea agreement was addressed in the plea agreement, signed on behalf of the district attorney’s office by Assistant District Attorney Jason Hart.

Hart said the plea agreement was “in the best interest of the state, this community, the victim and the defendant.” He added that victims and their families had been “fully informed” of conditions of the plea agreement.

In handing out the sentence, Dowd said Spencer’s lack of a criminal record, his age and his family support network were factors in his decision.

Dowd last Tuesday sentenced 32-year-old Henderson-Brown, who was convicted by a jury of raping a 5-year-old, to a sentence of 155 months, instead of the recommended 166 to 186 months.

In a statement released on Friday, Hecht noted, "The attack was so violent and so egregious that multiple doctors and surgery were required to reconstruct and repair the physical damage done to this 5-year-old."

That reduced sentence continued a pattern of light-handed treatment toward sex offenders that has troubled critics and led them to protest the judge’s action during a rally at the courthouse Monday. There were about 70 protestors there, according to the Capital-Journal.

Critics also hammered Dowd in 2007, when he departed downward from sentencing guidelines to sentence three suspects convicted of sex crimes to probation.

Judge sentences himself to silence

On Tuesday, Chief Shawnee County Judge Nancy Parrish released a statement saying, "Judge Matthew Dowd has disqualified himself from hearing cases involving allegations of sexual offenses due to the appearance that his impartiality might be questioned because of the intense public reaction to some of his prior sentencings."

Dowd had already announced that he would be retiring on September 1, 2008.

The organizer of an effort in Johnson County to have judges elected said judges like Dowd provide ammunition for the elect-judges movement.

Tim Golba, founder of Kansas Judicial Review of Johnson County, said members of his group gathered enough signatures in Johnson County to force a vote on whether judges should be elected. Voters will decide the issue in November.

Golba said he met recently with some Topeka citizens who were interested in mounting a similar effort in Shawnee County.

Although there was a lot of support for the concept of electing Shawnee County judges, no leader has emerged, Golba said, to undertake the daunting challenge of collecting sufficient signatures to force the issue onto an election ballot.

Golba said he was surprised at the level of animosity toward judges expressed by Johnson Countians, as he walked through neighborhoods collecting signatures for the effort.

“I saw one poll about a year and a half ago that showed 52 percent of the people in Johnson County would favor election of judges and 40 percent prefer the current system. But I went door to door one Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and of the 115 people I talked to, 112 signed the petition,” he said.

A group sponsored by bar associations in Kansas City and Johnson County, called Johnson Countians for Justice, has been formed to oppose the initiative.

Members have argued that it would create a conflict-rich environment for judges if they had to raise money and campaign for office. In addition, they point out that citizens have the ability periodically to vote on whether judges should be retained in office, although it’s almost unheard of for judges to be non-retained by voters.

In most Kansas counties, including Shawnee and Johnson, when a judgeship opens up, a judicial nominating committee made of lawyers elected by other lawyers is added to a group of non-lawyers appointed by the county.

In Shawnee County, the nominating committee has three members elected by lawyers in the district and three appointed by the Shawnee County Commission. There's also a non-voting chairman on the committee. They give the governor a list of three names from which to choose and the governor chooses one of them. After a first four-year term, they must stand in a retention election. Voters can choose to dismiss a judge, but that has happened but rarely.

Kansas Meadowlark, a blog that focuses on Kansas issues, recently featured an informative case study of the replacement of a 10^th District Judge that suggested the process was tainted by political partisanship.

• This story was updated and revised July 6, 2008, at 4:58pm.