State v. Albright

The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion for resentencing, in which Defendant argued that Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99 (2013), rendered his hard forty sentence unconstitutional.After a second trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder. The district court sentenced Defendant to life in prison with no possibility of parole for forty years. The Supreme Court affirmed the sentence in 2007. In 2016, Defendant filed a motion for resentencing, asserting that his sentence was unconstitutional pursuant to Alleyne. The district court construed Defendant’s motion as a collateral challenge under Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-1507 and concluded that Defendant was not entitled to relief because Alleyne cannot be applied retroactively to a sentence that was final when Alleyne was decided. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that whether Defendant’s pleading was construed as a motion to correct an illegal sentence or a collateral attack under section 60-1507(b), Defendant was not entitled to relief because Alleyne did not render his sentence unconstitutional. View "State v. Albright" on Justia Law