Dennis Hawver, the attorney who represented capital murder defendant Phillip D. Cheatham Jr., said in a court pleading the state is pursuing a disciplinary action against him based on his use of a trial strategy his client developed and advocated.

Hawver represented Cheatham during his first jury trial in 2005, in which the defendant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

On Jan. 25, 2013, the Kansas Supreme Court reversed Cheatham's convictions in Shawnee County District Court and ordered a new trial, ruling Cheatham received ineffective assistance of counsel from Hawver.

Hawver on Tuesday filed a brief with the Kansas Supreme Court contesting the findings of a three-member panel appointed by the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys. That panel split in recommending disciplinary action, with two members suggesting Hawver’s disbarment and one an indefinite suspension.

The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the disciplinary action.

In his brief, Hawver said the strategy of Cheatham — who he described as "an experienced and highly street-smart and intelligent criminal" who was a cocaine dealer convicted of killing another "dope dealer" — was to tell jurors that if he had killed two women in 2003, he wouldn't have left alive a third shooting victim to identify him to police.

The survivor was shot eight times by the real gunman to convince her to identify Cheatham as the killer, Hawver said in explaining the trial strategy.

"This trial strategy, developed and approved by Cheatham in writing, is the trial strategy that (Hawver) is now being prosecuted for," Hawver said.

In his 42-page brief, Hawver also slammed the Board for Discipline of Attorneys and the three-member panel that heard his case. He also contends the Kansas Supreme Court ordered the board to prosecute Hawver for following Cheatham's directions.

The "lockstep following of the bosses' (Supreme Court) orders shows that the Disciplinary Counsel and his hand-picked disciplinary tribunal know where their bread is buttered and, in standard political fashion, understand that they had better do as they are told or incur the bosses' ire," Hawver wrote.

On Wednesday, disciplinary administrator Stan Hazlett wasn't available for comment.

During his disciplinary hearing in November 2013, Hawver testified he never took courses in how to defend a client charged in a death penalty case. At the end of that hearing, he asked panel members to order him not to handle any murder cases but to allow him to handle other cases in his rural Jefferson County law practice.

The panel’s findings and divided recommendation on disciplinary action was issued March 14.

It found Hawver "was not competent to represent Cheatham" and cited 24 supporting points, one being that Hawver didn't appreciate the difference between trying a murder case and a capital murder case.

The panel also found Hawver had described Cheatham to jurors as a "professional drug dealer" and a "shooter of people." The panel said Hawver wasn't familiar with capital jury instructions, had spent only about 60 hours preparing for the case, and hadn’t filed a motion challenging the death penalty.

Hawver disputed all panel findings in an answer submitted April 7.

Cheatham, now 40, was convicted in the shooting deaths of two women and the wounding of a third woman, who identified him as the gunman. The shootings occurred in December 2003 in a southeast Topeka house. Cheatham is to return to court Jan. 5 for a new trial expected to take five to six weeks. His first trial with Hawver lasted eight days.

On Wednesday, Hawver said lawyering likely isn't in his future.

"I think I'm going to quit practicing law no matter what they do," he said. "I don't think practicing law is productive."

Hawver said he would devote his time to growing vegetables in an aquaponics garden, in which manure created by fish in a tank is pumped over vegetable plants growing in a trough.