{"id":196745,"date":"2026-01-13T09:28:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T09:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/lawrences-municipal-court-judge-to-retire-in-march-lawrence-journal-world\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T09:28:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T09:28:42","slug":"lawrences-municipal-court-judge-to-retire-in-march-lawrence-journal-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/lawrences-municipal-court-judge-to-retire-in-march-lawrence-journal-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence\u2019s Municipal Court judge to retire in March &#8211; Lawrence Journal-World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 12, 2026 @ 4:46pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Staff report<\/span><br \/>Lawrence Municipal Court Judge Chris Kopecky will soon retire, according to a news release Monday from the city.  Kopecky has been the presiding judge in Municipal Court for nearly three and a half years. His last day will be March 2.  Kopecky was selected following a competitive national &#8230;<br \/>Jan 12, 2026 @ 4:02pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Kim Callahan<\/span><br \/>Attorneys with the Douglas County Public Defender\u2019s Office are seeking a new trial for a man who was convicted of rape last fall. In their supporting motion, they are asking a judge to find that some of Kansas\u2019 rape and sodomy statutes are unconstitutional because they allow for conviction &#8230;<br \/>Jan 11, 2026 @ 5:05pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Rochelle Valverde<\/span><br \/>Hundreds turned out Sunday in downtown Lawrence for a demonstration against federal violence after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday.   Demonstrators filled each corner of Ninth and Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence on &#8230;<br \/>Jan 9, 2026 @ 5:33pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Kim Callahan<\/span><br \/>A judge had little to say to a violent sex offender Friday after she sentenced him to nearly a quarter of a century in prison for abusing a Lawrence girl.  &#8220;I acknowledge that you have taken responsibility via a plea (deal),&#8221; Judge Amy Hanley told Kyle Elder, 36, of New York. &#8220;That is the only &#8230;<br \/>Jan 9, 2026 @ 4:21pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Kim Callahan<\/span><br \/>A drug dealer&#8217;s attorney told a judge Friday that his client was &#8220;very happy&#8221; with the plea deal she had made with the Douglas County District Attorney&#8217;s Office \u2014\u00a0a deal that reduced one count of distribution of heroin causing death to two much lower-level offenses of unlawful distribution &#8230;<br \/>Jan 9, 2026 @ 12:17pm <span class=\"cat_article_author\"> &#8211; Staff Report<\/span><br \/>A day after the year&#8217;s first rainfall on Thursday, Lawrence could receive a dusting of snow and wintry mix on Friday night.   The National Weather Service in Topeka is forecasting a band of precipitation will move across central and northeast Kansas later in the afternoon, and portions of &#8230;<br \/>The latest headlines from the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, delivered straight to your inbox.<br \/>Copyright \u00a9 2026 Ogden Newspapers of Kansas, LLC | https:\/\/www2.ljworld.com | 1035 N. Third Street, Lawrence, KS 66044 | 785-843-1000 | <a style=\"font-family:'Roboto Slab'; color:#999\"  href=\"\/terms-of-service\/\">Terms of Service<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiV0FVX3lxTE9ETzNqeldrZERBN1M1ZWFGekU4UHkzMHZGN1k1NEdzZXVRbnNELXN6QXdUcWc4ZVNIMnBJWU1FT3N6bHQ4Q3VmazJtQUhZRmF6WVZlVW1fMA?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 12, 2026 @ 4:46pm &#8211; Staff reportLawrence Municipal Court Judge Chris Kopecky will soon retire, according to a news release Monday from the city. Kopecky has been the presiding judge in Municipal Court for nearly three and a half years. His last day will be March 2. Kopecky was selected following a competitive national [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}