Justia Kansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court affirmed on appeal. Defendant later filed a second motion to correct an illegal sentence based on Alleyne v. United States and State v. Soto. The district court granted Defendant’s motion, concluding that the sentencing procedure violated Alleyne. The court then sentenced Defendant to a life term without eligibility for parole for a minimum of forty years. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the decisions in Alleyne and Soto do not render judgments illegal that were final before those decisions were issued. View "State v. Lee" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, two counts of aggravated endangering a child, and aggravated assault. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the State’s failure to charge Defendant specifically with “aiding and abetting” aggravated assault and aggravated child endangerment offenses and the State’s oral amendment to the felony-murder charge did not deprive the district court of jurisdiction; (2) sufficient evidence supported Defendant’s felony-murder conviction; (3) the jury instructions did not require reversal; (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the case detective to sit at or near the prosecution’s table during trial and its decision to exempt the case detective from a sequestration order did not prejudice Defendant; and (5) the cumulative error doctrine did not require reversal of Defendant’s convictions. View "State v. Dupree" on Justia Law

After a bench trial, Defendant was found guilty of possession with marijuana with the intent to distribute. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence resulting from a search of a house where he was staying. The search was conducted pursuant to an anticipatory search warrant which purported to give law enforcement authority to search the house once a suspicious package was successfully delivered to a resident of the house. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the district court did not err in finding that the search warrant was supported by probable cause and that Defendant’s retrieval of the package from the front porch while under police surveillance was sufficient to trigger execution of the search warrant. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) there was a substantial basis for the district court judge’s determination that probable cause supported a search warrant of the home; (2) the event triggering execution of the search warrant - a controlled delivery of the package to a resident of the home - occurred in this case; and (3) the police acted appropriately when they entered the house pursuant to the search warrant. View "State v. Mullen" on Justia Law

In 2003, Plaintiff pled guilty to one count of indecent liberties with a minor. Plaintiff successfully completed his probation in 2006. At the time of his conviction, the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) required Plaintiff to register for a period of ten years from the date of his conviction. Before Plaintiff was scheduled to complete his reporting requirements, Plaintiff was notified that his period of registration had been extended from ten years to twenty-five years under the amendments to KORA that were to become effective in 2011. Plaintiff filed a petition for declaratory judgment seeking a judicial determination that the retroactive application of the 2011 KORA amendments violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. The district court granted Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in concluding that the KORA amendments could not be retroactively applied to Plaintiff without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause. View "Doe v. Thompson" on Justia Law

In 2001, Appellant pled no contest to one count of indecent solicitation of a child fourteen to fifteen years old. Appellant was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but the district court suspended the sentence and placed Appellant on probation. The district court also ordered Appellant to register as a sex offender. Under the 2001 version of the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) Appellant’s registration term would have expired after ten years. Under the 2011 KORA amendments, Appellant’s crime of conviction required registration for twenty-five years. In 2012, the State charged Appellant with three counts of violating KORA for failing to report in person on three dates outside the original ten-year registration period. Appellant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the charges against him violated the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. The district court granted Appellant’s motion to dismiss on ex post facto grounds. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant’s ten-year registration period could not be retroactively increased to twenty-five years and that, without a statutory duty to report, Appellant could not be prosecuted for failing to report. View "State v. Redmond" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with various firearm and drug-related crimes. Defendant filed numerous motions to suppress the evidence obtained during a search of a residence and a vehicle parked in the driveway. The district court granted Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence found in the vehicle on the grounds that it was not within the scope of the search warrant. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the search warrant for the “premises” authorized the search of vehicles within the curtilage of the home. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the search of the vehicle was authorized by the warrant, and therefore, the incriminating evidence located in the vehicle was lawfully discovered. View "State v. Patterson" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and criminal damage to property. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence, holding (1) the prosecutor violated Doyle v. Ohio during his cross-examination of Defendant, but Defendant was not entitled to reversal of his convictions on the basis of the Doyle error alone; (2) there was one instance of prosecutorial misconduct during closing, but this single error did not affect the outcome of the trial in light of the entire record; (3) the district court judge did not commit clear error in failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of attempted voluntary manslaughter; (4) the district judge did not err by telling the jury at the beginning of the trial that a mistrial attributable to jury misconduct would be a burden on the parties and taxpayers; (5) the criminal damage conviction was supported by sufficient evidence; (6) cumulative error did not deprive Defendant of a fair trial; and (7) the district judge did not err in determining Defendant’s criminal history score. View "State v. Fisher" on Justia Law

Appellant pled guilty to multiple felony charges and was sentenced to sixty-eight months’ imprisonment. Appellant later filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence, asserting that his criminal history score should not have included an Oklahoma nonperson felony because he received a deferred judgment for that crime, which did not constitute a conviction for criminal history scoring purposes. The district court denied the motion. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that the invited error doctrine barred Appellant’s challenge to his criminal history score. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) Appellant illegal sentence challenge was subject to appellate review; and (2) a successfully completed Oklahoma deferred judgment is not to be counted as a conviction when calculating a Kansas criminal history score. Remanded for resentencing. View "State v. Hankins" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of rape. The district court sentenced Defendant to a term of imprisonment with lifetime postrelease supervision and lifetime registration as a sex offender under the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA). Defendant appealed, arguing that the requirement of lifetime registration as a sex offender is unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of section 9 of the Kansas Bill of Rights and the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that lifetime registration as a sex offender pursuant to KORA does not qualify as punishment for either section 9 or Eighth Amendment purposes. View "State v. Petersen-Beard" on Justia Law

In 2009, Defendant pleaded no contest to one count of indecent liberties with a child. The district court sentenced Defendant to a term of imprisonment and lifetime post-release supervision. The court further ordered Defendant to register as an offender under the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) for his lifetime, finding that this was Defendant’s second conviction based upon a prior juvenile adjudication. Defendant appealed, arguing that his juvenile adjudication could not count as a prior conviction to enhance the time period of registration. The Court of Appeals concluded that the district court erred in imposing a lifetime registration term but that the 2011 amended registration term of twenty-five years, rather than the ten-year registration term in effect when Defendant committed his crime, could be applied retroactively to Defendant. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Ex Post Factor Clause precludes the retroactive application of the 2011 version of KORA to any sex offender who committed the qualifying offense prior to July 1, 2011. View "State v. Buser" on Justia Law