Justia Kansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

James Woods appealed the district court's dismissal of his appeal of the appraisers' award in an eminent domain action initiated by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas. The district court found that Woods' notice of appeal, filed forty-eight days after the filing of the appraisers' report, was untimely. Woods contended that Unified Government failed to comply with the notice requirements applicable to eminent domain proceedings and, therefore, the district court should have extended the thirty-day statutory deadline for appealing the appraisers' award. The Supreme Court dismissed Woods' appeal, holding that the district court did not have the authority to extend or modify the jurisdictional requirement that a party's notice of appeal of an appraisers' award must be filed within thirty days of the filing of the appraisers' report. View "Woods v. Unified Gov't of WYCO/KCK" on Justia Law

Jose Portillo appealed his conviction for one count of rape of a child under age fourteen. At sentencing, recognizing that it had failed to properly charge Portillo with the off-grid version of the crime, the State filed a motion to amend the presentence investigation report to indicate that Jessica's Law applied and that Portillo was subject to a mandatory minimum hard-twenty-five life sentence. Ultimately, the district court found that the State's failure to charge Portillo with the off-grid offense version of the crime was mere clerical error and did not prejudice his defense and held that Portillo had been convicted of an off-grid felony. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed Portillo's conviction, holding that there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction for the on-grid version of the crime; but (2) vacated Portillo's sentence, holding that because the information did not contain the essential element of the off-grid version of the crime, the omission rendered the information fatally defective and deprived the trial court of jurisdiction to convict Portillo of the off-grid version of rape. Therefore, the district court's sentence, based upon a conviction for the off-grid offense, was error. Remanded for resentencing. View "State v. Portillo" on Justia Law

After allowing discovery on the issue of whether Kansas courts could exercise personal jurisdiction over some of the defendants in this case, the district court granted defendant Tel-Instrument Electronics Corp.'s (TIC) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. At issue on interlocutory appeal was the correct standard for judging a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction when that motion is decided after discovery but without an evidentiary hearing. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) plaintiff Aeroflex Wichita, as the party with the ultimate burden of establishing jurisdiction and as the party responding to a motion to dismiss presented to the court without an evidentiary hearing, need only establish a prima facie basis for jurisdiction; (2) in determining if that prima facie burden has been met, a district court should view factual disputes in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and an appellate court applies the same standard de novo; and (3) in this case, the district court erred erred by weighing the evidence rather than granting all favorable inferences to Aeroflex, and Aeroflex presented a prima facie case of jurisdiction based on a conspiracy between TIC and its codefendants, over whom the court had jurisdiction. View "Aeroflex Wichita, Inc. v. Filardo" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Steven Hernandez was found guilty of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and the lesser included offense, attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Hernandez moved for a mistrial, claiming there was a fundamental error in the jury verdicts, but the trial court denied the motion. In an unrelated case, Hernandez pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery. On Hernandez' motion, the trial court consolidated the two cases for appeal. The Supreme Court (1) reversed and remanded the aggravated indecent liberties conviction, holding that the trial court abused its discretion in denying Hernandez' motion for a mistrial based on the inconsistent verdicts; and (2) affirmed the trial court's use of criminal history for sentencing on the aggravated sexual battery conviction. View "State v. Hernandez" on Justia Law

Kansas One-Call System (One-Call) managed and operated a centralized notification center for diggers working on underground utility infrastructure to use before they started excavating pursuant to the Kansas Underground Utility Damage Prevention Act (KUUDPA). The Kansas Legislature later amended the KUUPDA, which financially affected One-Call. One-Call sued to enjoin enforcement of the amendments on the grounds that the amendments violated (1) the original purpose provision of the Kansas Constitution, (2) the one-subject rule, (3) the separation of powers doctrine, and (4) the Equal Protection Clause and the Taking Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the State. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the challenged amendments were valid. View "Kansas One-Call Sys. v. State" on Justia Law

Pedro Torres was convicted of two counts of rape against an eleven-year-old girl. At trial, the State was allowed to present evidence related to Torres' conviction nearly two decades earlier for one count of indecent liberties with a child, evidence that was admitted to show Torres' plan by evidence that he had such a similar method a committing such crimes that it would be reasonable to conclude that he had committed this one based on the earlier one. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the district court erred in admitting evidence of Torres' prior conviction because Torres' prior crime was not sufficiently similar to the later alleged rape to meet the test set forth in State v. Prine for admission of plan evidence; and (2) the error was not harmless. Remanded for a new trial. View "State v. Torres" on Justia Law

Defendant M.L. Snellings pleaded no contest to eight drug-related charges and a ninth charge of criminal possession of a firearm. Snellings appealed his sentence, primarily arguing that two of his convictions were assigned the wrong severity level by the sentencing court under the identical offense sentencing doctrine. The Supreme Court vacated Snellings' sentence for possession of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine with intent to manufacture a controlled substance, holding that this offense, which the district court classified as a severity level two drug felony, should be classified as a severity level four drug felony because it had identical elements to the offense of possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to manufacture a controlled substance, which was a severity level four drug felony. Remanded for resentencing on this count as a severity level four drug felony. View "State v. Snellings" on Justia Law

Ten years after Rolland Berreth was convicted and sentenced for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated criminal sodomy with a child under fourteen years of age, Berreth filed a pro se motion to correct an illegal sentence. Berreth's appointed counsel later filed several motions, all of which argued multiplicity, expanding Berreth's pro se motion. The district court ruled Berreth's aggravated kidnapping conviction was multiplicitous with the aggravated criminal sodomy convictions, reduced Berreth's aggravated kidnapping conviction to kidnapping, and therefore reduced Berreth's sentence. The State filed its notice of appeal and docketing statement, each specifically describing the appeal as one taken upon a question reserved under Kan. Stat. Ann. 22-3602(b)(3). The court of appeals reversed the district court and ordered reinstatement of Berreth's original sentence, holding that the district court erred in determining Berreth's convictions were multiplicitous and in resentencing. The Supreme Court reversed, remanded, and ordered reinstatement of Berreth's reduced sentence, holding that the court of appeals failed to properly treat the State's appeal as a question reserved. View "State v. Berreth" on Justia Law

Defendant Kenneth Adams was convicted by a jury of six counts relating to a conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine. Adams appealed, claiming error at various stages of the trial. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed Adams' convictions and affirmed in part and vacated in part Adams' sentences, specifically vacating Adams' sentence for possession of lithium metal with intent to manufacture a controlled substance, holding that the trial court erred in classifying this offense as a severity level two drug felony under the identical offense sentencing doctrine. Remanded for resentencing on that count as a severity level four drug felony. View "State v. Adams" on Justia Law

On July 1, 2010, the legislature enacted the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act. The Act generally prohibits smoking in public places but exempts Class B clubs, premises operated for profit to which members resort for the consumption of food or alcoholic beverages, as long as the clubs were so licensed as of January 1, 2009. Downtown Bar & Grill was not licensed as a Class B club on January 1, 2009, and thus was ineligible for a smoking ban exemption under the Act. Downtown Bar brought this declaratory judgment action asking the trial court to declare that the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause and to accordingly issue temporary and permanent injunctive relief. The trial court agreed, holding that the cut-off date of January 1, 2009 was arbitrary, which therefore meant the statute could not be rational. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the trial court erred in finding that the statute was not rational; and (2) therefore, Downtown Bar was unable to establish an element essential to issuance of a temporary injunction: a substantial likelihood of eventual success on the merits. Remanded. View "Downtown Bar & Grill v. State" on Justia Law