A convicted rapist has appealed his sentence more than a year after he was convicted of his crime.
Ira Wayne Flynn was in court Thursday, asking for a motion of file an appeal out of time, stating his lawyer at the time failed to file an appeal on his behalf within the 10-day limit following his sentencing.
Flynn was convicted of one count of rape and sentenced to more than 15 years for the crime — 186 months in prison with 36 months of probation after his release. Flynn will also have to register as a sex offender and remain on the list for the rest of his life.
During Flynn’s trial, Capt. Mike Yoder of the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department — a first responder on the scene — relayed the victim’s story to the court.
He said the victim told him, she had left to take Flynn home, allowing Flynn to drive himself to the a residence on Harvey, where he was staying.
She told Yoder Flynn had taken a wrong turn on H Street, going north to 20th Avenue, driving past Worden Park but not to Oil Field Road where he should have been driving.
At that point, Yoder said the victim was raped with Flynn taking off her clothes and forcing her to have vaginal and oral sex.
After the alleged rape, she put her clothes back on and Flynn drove her back to town and parked in an alley. The victim then ran to their home.
Flynn told detectives the two might have gotten a “little wild” and had slammed onto the ground during the encounter and that the two had done “more than a moderate amount of drinking” the night in question. Flynn claimed the sex was consensual during the trial.
On Thursday, Flynn stood with his lawyer Shawn DeJarnett while the motion was being heard by District Court Judge William Mott.
DeJarnett said despite his client trying to get in contact with his trial attorney Sean Shores multiple times through phone calls and letters, he has had no contact back and the appeal was not filed within the 10-day limit as set by the court.
DeJarnett said Flynn has a right to effective assistance from counsel — whether they are court-appointed or not — and argued Shores was not effective in filing the appeal. DeJarnett also said Flynn has the right to an appeal in his case.
In the motion to appeal out of time, DeJarnett stated there are three exceptions to filing outside the 10-day limit, when defendants aren’t informed of their right to appeal, when the defendant isn’t given an attorney to appeal the case, and when the defendant furnished an attorney but the attorney failed to “perfect an appeal.”
DeJarnett said the third exception is what his client has experienced. For proof of this, both Flynn and his father Ira Lee Flynn testified to the court.
Flynn said he had spoken to his lawyer about filing an appeal and Shores told him it would be done by the end of the day of his sentencing. It wasn’t done, Flynn said, even though his father paid Shores to file the appeal.
Ira Lee Flynn said he had spoken to Shores’ secretary numerous times and she said she “would see what she could do.” He also said he had given $2,000 to the attorney to file the appeal, though nothing had come of it, thus Flynn hired DeJarnett to “do the job Sean Shores should have done in the first place.”
In a surprising move, Court reporter Rebecca Stocking told Mott she remembered Shores stating he would file an appeal during the sentencing hearing. Her testimony was taken under advisement of the court.
Though Sumner County Attorney Evan Watson disagreed with the motion to appeal, Mott granted the motion to Flynn.
Flynn’s mother, who was sitting in the front row of the courtroom started crying and smiling, watching her son as he finished the hearing. After the hearing, a large group of audience members met the Flynn’s outside the courtroom, talking with them and smiling about the Judge’s decision.
Flynn will now have a court-appointed attorney for his appeal case, as he filed for one the same day. This attorney, yet to be appointed, will now help with the appeal process.
Wellington, Kan. —
