CORRECTION 06/10/24, 8:51 a.m. The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Stephanie Burton previously ran for office as a Republican. This information is incorrect. Burton has not previously been on a ballot for election and has no affiliation with the Republican party.
Stephanie Burton is running for Jackson County prosecutor after spending years as a criminal trial attorney, with a focus on curbing violent crime, repairing relationships with the Kansas City Police Dept., and putting a stronger focus on a conviction integrity unit.
Burton moved to KC 21 years ago. She attended law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City while living in public housing and served as president of the Wayne Miner Tenant Association. There, she started working to address the crime she saw in the area.
“Hearing gunshots or witnessing things that me and my kids should not have seen gave me a unique perspective of being able to advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves,” says Burton. “It takes an extreme amount of courage to be able to speak up to the police and let them know what’s going on. Talking to police didn’t make me popular, but, a lot of times, it was choosing to do what was right, even when it didn’t feel good to do it.”
After law school, Burton worked as a public defender, probation & parole officer, and did 240 hours of pro bono work for the Midwest Innocence Project and other groups. Burton started her own law firm more than a decade ago, focused on criminal defense, and says her firsthand experience navigating the region’s criminal justice landscape uniquely qualifies her for the office of prosecutor.
“I witnessed the shortcomings of the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office,” says Burton. “And I can identify with people who have been accused of crimes and are facing their most important day in court.”
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Burton says a balanced approach is needed in the role and that she’d make wholesale changes to the prosecutor’s office.
She cites Jackson County’s high wrongful incarceration rate — the highest in the state — and says fully resourcing the county’s conviction integrity unit, which investigates previous convictions for accuracy, is a top priority. She says there isn’t justice in a wrongful conviction and that the county should do more to ensure that innocent people aren’t behind bars.
“On the one hand, you’ve got to seek justice for every victim,” says Burton. “In that process, you have to make sure that you are prosecuting the right person; too many times we have prosecutors more interested in convictions than truth and justice.”
Burton advocates swiftly prosecuting violent offenders and says the current prosecutor’s office lets cases sit for too long, which aids the defense and allows the accused to remain at large.
“We have to be able to curb this rate of violence; we’re seeing that a small percentage of the population is responsible for a vast majority of the violence, and it’s because we’re not prosecuting them quickly and efficiently,” says Burton.
Burton believes a “heavy hand” and incarceration are needed for violent offenders but would advocate for reentry programs and services to reduce recidivism once they are released.
She would prosecute property crime and drug distribution at a higher clip than the current prosecutor but says she’d direct non-violent offenders to specialty courts like the mental health or drug courts to get rehabilitative services. She says these courts are underutilized and valuable resources, but they have their limitations when dealing with violent offenders.
“Programming and specialty courts have a place for non-violent offenders, but you can’t sell a program to someone who had to throw dirt on someone who they love the most,” says Burton.
Addressing strained police relations is also a key focus for Burton. She says the police are the first witnesses that prosecutors call in a trial, and that relationship is important to mend after what she describes as a schism that has developed between the office and police.
“Right now, we have this distrust where the citizens of Jackson County have been like kids in a bad custody battle between the prosecutor’s office and the police department,” says Burton.
Burton says distrust has grown due to anti-police politics and the prosecutor deprioritizing certain nonviolent crimes like property crime and drugs, which has frustrated police. Burton is quick to say that while mending this relationship is important, she wouldn’t “cover for dirty cops.” She says that she’d advocate for more training, body cameras, and accountability within police departments.
“We are living in a very dangerous time, and this election is critical,” says Burton. “It’s going to be extremely important that we do something now — we can’t just accept that nothing can be done — we have a lot of people running, but experience is important.”
Burton hopes to defeat Melesa Johnson and John Gromowsky in the Democratic primary election Aug. 8. She says her experience picking juries, creating a conviction integrity unit, and appearing in 40 jury trials, and 100+ bench trials sets her apart from the other candidates in the race. For more info, visit BurtonForJCP.com.
