The dispute started last month, when Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor announced that a 10 percent budget cut to his office in 2012 meant he would no longer be prosecuting any of the city's misdemeanors, effective immediately. Topeka city council members say they can't afford the estimated $800,000 yearly cost of prosecuting those misdemeanors and jailing offenders

 

Next week, the council will vote on a measure that will strip domestic battery from a list of crimes that are illegal in the city.

 

"They need to invest in headstones, because these women are going to end up in cemeteries,"