Justia Kansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Pursuant to Kan. Stat. Ann. 22-4904(b), sex offenders must inform their local law enforcement agency within ten days of changing their address of residence. Defendant, a registered sex offender, left his residence on June 1. He then traveled the southwest United States for approximately three weeks before settling in Nevada and registering as an offender on July 9. Defendant was convicted of one count of failing to notify the county sheriff within ten days of changing his residence - for the period of June 1-11. The court of appeals affirmed, rejecting Defendant's argument that he had not yet established a new residence and therefore had no duty to register during that ten-day period. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that between June 1-11, Defendant never adopted a "place of habitation," to which, whenever he was absent, he had "the intention of returning." Accordingly, during that time period, Defendant did not "change the address of his residence" to a "new address" and therefore, Defendant was not required to register under section 22-4904(b). View "State v. LeClair" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and two counts of aggravated liberties with a child. Defendant was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences, each with a mandatory forty-year prison term. The Supreme Court reversed Defendant's convictions and remanded for a new trial, holding (1) the jury was improperly instructed with inaccurate and misleading language used in an Allen-type instruction; (2) the prosecutor improperly appealed to the emotions of the jurors by asking them to protect child victims by supporting their version of the events; (3) the judge improperly responded to a jury question by informing the jury that the abuse had happened more than once; and (4) these cumulative errors prejudiced Defendant and denied him a fair trial. View "State v. Burns" on Justia Law

More than fifty years ago, in Edwards v. Edwards, the Supreme Court stated that a child support order entered during the pendency of a divorce action is interlocutory and may be modified at any time and in any manner, even to the extent of discharging accrued and unpaid installments. This appeal raised the issue of whether that holding remained valid in light of statutory changes that have occurred over that fifty-year period. After reviewing the statutory changes, the Supreme Court held that the Legislature limited a district court's authority to discharge past-due child support in a final decree of divorce; specifically, a court's authority is limited by the provision in Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-1610(a)(1) that limits the retroactivity of a modification to a date at least one month after the date that a motion to modify was filed. Based on this conclusion, the Court (1) reversed the district court's order entered at the final divorce hearing that discharged all unpaid child support that had accrued under the court's interlocutory child support orders; and (2) reversed the court of appeals' decision to affirm the order discharging the past-due amounts. Remanded. View "In re Marriage of Brown" on Justia Law

Kan. Stat. Ann. 2011 Supp. 8-1002(c) provides that where a driver's license is being suspended because an illegal blood-alcohol level has been established by a blood test, the officer shall serve notice of the suspension "by mailing the notice." This driver's license suspension case involved the question of whether the phrase "mailing the notice" requires the officer who conducted the alcohol testing to personally deliver the notice of a driver's license suspension to the custody of a mail carrier or may instead follow his or her office's standard operating procedures for outgoing mail. The Supreme Court held (1) the statute imposes the responsibility to ensure mailing on the officer but does not require the officer to personally address, stamp, and place in a mailbox an envelope containing the notice; and (2) in this case, the officer ensured mailing by following the sheriff's standard operating procedure for mailing the notice and, thus, fulfilled the statutory requirement. In so holding, the Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals that reversed the district court, although the Court's analysis was different from that of the court of appeals. View "Byrd v. Kan. Dep't of Revenue" on Justia Law

Kody Bicknell sought review of a court of appeals decision permitting Tammy Anderson to pursue punitive damages in her lawsuit against him after Bicknell rear-ended Adamson's vehicle at a train crossing. The punitive damages claim was based, in part, on Bicknell's drug use prior to the collision. Bicknell also appealed from the panel's decision permitting Adamson to submit medical bill write-offs to the jury. On the punitive damages issue, the Supreme Court (1) agreed with the panel's decision that the district court set a higher burden of proof for the punitive damages claim than statutorily necessary by requiring that Adamson provide what would amount to scientific evidence of Bicknell's impairment resulting from his consumption of drugs; (2) concluded that the panel erred in deciding the district court should have permitted Adamson to amend for punitive damages based on the evidence as the panel perceived it; and (3) remanded for rehearing on that issue and application of the proper legal standard. On the medical bill write-off question, the Court held that the court of appeals erred in reaching the merits because the issue was not preserved for appeal. View "Adamson v. Bicknell" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and a weapons violation when he was seventeen. The district court judge sentenced Defendant to life in prison on each of the first two counts, fifteen years to life on the third count, and five years on the fourth count, with all of the sentences to run consecutively. Defendant appealed his sentences. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant's claim that his sentences were the products of judicial bias, prejudice, or corrupt motive failed on appeal; and (2) the district court judge did not err by considering the results of Defendant's psychological examination during sentencing, and the judge's consideration of statements Defendant made during the examination without having been given Miranda warnings beforehand was not error, as Miranda warnings were unnecessary in this case. View "State v. Schaeffer" on Justia Law

Appellant pled nolo contendere to and was convicted of a second drug offense that required his participation in a mandatory drug treatment program. Appellant was sentenced to an underlying prison term of eleven months and placed on eighteen months' probation. Appellant failed to comply with the terms of his probation, prompting the district court to revoke his probation and order him to serve his eleven-month prison sentence. Appellant appealed, claiming that the district court should have imposed a different sanction for his probation violation. By the time the matter came before the court of appeals, Appellant had completed his prison sentence and had been released from State custody and supervision. The court of appeals dismissed the appeal as moot. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant failed to refute the State's contention that the actual controversy had ceased or to establish an exception to the general rule that precludes appellate review of moot issues. View "State v. Montgomery" on Justia Law

In 2002, a jury convicted Appellant of premeditated first-degree murder and rape for acts committed two decades earlier, in 1982. Appellant was sentenced to life in prison. In 2007, Appellant filed a pro se petition for DNA testing pursuant to Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-2512, asserting that prior DNA test results were incompetent for a number of reasons. The district court summarily denied Appellant's petition, determining that the DNA evidence was properly offered and admitted by the court, that the DNA techniques used by the State were representative of the latest techniques available, and that Appellant's petition failed to state a cause of action upon which relief could be granted pursuant to section 21-2512. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Appellant's petition satisfied the criteria pursuant to section 21-2512. Remanded for an evidentiary hearing with appointed counsel. View "State v. Lackey" on Justia Law

Appellant was sentenced to serve two consecutive twelve-month probation terms for her convictions in two separate criminal cases. During the first term, the district court revoked both probations and ordered Appellant to serve her underlying prison sentences. Appellant appealed, claiming that the second probation term had not commenced when she violated the terms of the first probation term, so that the district court erred in sending her to prison on the second case. Appellant completed serving her prison terms before the case could be heard on appeal, and the court of appeals dismissed the appeal as moot. Finding that the issue raised by Appellant was one capable of repetition and of importance, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded to the court of appeals to reinstate the appeal. View "State v. Hilton" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of rape and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Appellant appealed, arguing, among other things, that the district court erred by imposing lifetime postrelease supervision instead of parole and by imposing electronic monitoring as a parole condition. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed Appellant's convictions; (2) vacated that portion of Appellant's sentence imposing postrelease supervision for the rape conviction, as the district court should have only sentenced Appellant to a life sentence with no parole for twenty-five years for the conviction, not lifetime postrelease supervision, and remanded to the district court for a nunc pro tunc order to correct a portion of the journal entry to delete reference to electronic monitoring, as the sentencing court did not have authority to impose such parole conditions; and (3) affirmed the remainder of Appellant's sentence. View "State v. Beaman" on Justia Law