Justia Kansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Subsequent to the sentencing hearing at which Appellant Justin Jones was sentenced for committing the crime of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, the Supreme Court filed several decisions that explained the steps to be taken if a sentencing court departed from the sentence provided for in Jessica's Law. The sentencing court did not explicitly take these steps or make the corresponding findings. As a result, under these recent decisions, Appellant's sentence would be considered illegal. The State argued that Appellant could not complain about his sentence because he had agreed to the sentence as part of a plea agreement. The Supreme Court vacated Appellant's sentence, noting that a defendant cannot agree to an illegal sentence. Remanded for resentencing. View "State v. Jones" on Justia Law

Shannon Bogguess requested a bench trial on stipulated facts after his motion to suppress his confession was denied. Bogguess was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and criminal possession of a firearm. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and dismissed in part, holding, inter alia, that (1) Bogguess reserved his right to appeal while proceeding to a bench trial on stipulated facts even through he did not do so expressly; (2) at the Jackson v. Denno hearing to determine whether Bogguess' confession was voluntary, the district court erred in ruling that Bogguess must answer questions about events that were the bases for the crimes charged, and the court erred in striking all of Bogguess' testimony after he refused to testify further because Bogguess had a valid Fifth Amendment privilege; and (3) the district court did not err in denying Bogguess' motion to suppress. View "State v. Bogguess" on Justia Law

Homeowners sued Contractor for, inter alia, breach of contract, negligence, fraud, and fraudulent concealment, claiming that Contractor negligently failed to perform contractually required work. The district court granted summary judgment in Contractor's favor on all claims. As to the negligence allegations of interest in this appeal, the district court held (1) the economic loss doctrine prevented Homeowners from bringing a tort action under circumstances governed by contract, and (2) the economic loss doctrine supplied an additional bar to Homeonwers' fraud claims. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court accepted the appeal to decide whether the economic loss doctrine barred any negligence claims. The Court reversed, holding that the doctrine should not apply in this case where (1) existing caselaw establishes that homeowners' claims against residential contractors may be asserted in tort, contract, or both, depending on the nature of the duty giving rise to each claim; and (2) rationales upholding the economic loss doctrine do not support its adoption for disputes between homeowners and their contractors. Remanded. View "David v. Hett" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Willie Dale was convicted of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, and aggravated assault. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted Dale's petition for review on the single issue of whether the district court erred in admitting a slow motion version of a patrol-car video. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) because the best evidence, namely the original video, had already been admitted at trial, and the modified video was not introduced to prove or disprove the content of the original video, the video's admission did not violate the best evidence rule; and (2) because the video was not unduly repetitious and added something to the State's case, its admission was not cumulative. View "State v. Dale" on Justia Law

Lester Dean was the sole and managing member of Glacier Development Company, LLC, which owned property that the Kansas DOT (KDOT) took for highway purposes. KDOT's eminent domain petition did not individually name Dean as a defendant or allege that he personally owned any of the property, but certain attorneys filed an entry of appearance declaring the defendants to be Glacier and Dean. After court-appointed appraisers awarded Glacier $2.19 million for the property, a jury verdict concluded that the property's value was $800,000. The district court ordered that judgment was awarded "against the Defendants." Dean filed a motion requesting his name be removed from the judgment because he did not own the subject property in his personal capacity. The district court denied the motion. At issue on appeal was whether the district court had the authority to adjudge Dean personally liable to KDOT for the amount of the appraisers' award paid out to Glacier that exceeded the compensation finally awarded on appeal. The Supreme Court found that it did not and reversed, holding that the district court did not have jurisdiction to make the findings necessary to hold Dean personally liable for an LLC debt. View "Miller v. Glacier Dev. Co." on Justia Law

In the garnishment action below, Plaintiffs sought to collect the consent judgments they had previously obtained in settlement of their tort actions against Americold Corporation, which was insured by Northwestern Pacific Indemnity Company (NPIC). NPIC, the garnishee in the instant action, appealed the district court's adverse rulings, contending that the underlying judgments against Americold had become dormant and extinguished, thus depriving the district court of subject matter jurisdiction to proceed with this garnishment action. Finding in favor of NPIC on that issue, the Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) when the district court entered its judgment against NPIC in this garnishment proceeding, Plaintiffs' underlying consent judgments against Americold had been extinguished by operation of the dormancy and revivor statutes; (2) because Americold was not legally obligated to pay an unenforceable judgment, NPIC was no longer indebted to Americold under its contract to pay the judgments for which Americold was legally liable; and (3) accordingly, without an indebtedness from NPIC to Americold, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to grant Plaintiffs judgment against NPIC in a garnishment proceeding. Remanded with directions to dismiss these garnishment proceedings. View "Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. v. Americold Corp." on Justia Law

Anthony Kidd was convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied dwelling, and aggravated battery. Kidd appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding, (1) the district court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on the defense of voluntary intoxication; and (2) the prosecutor violated his duty to inform the State that an order in limine prohibited reference to Kidd's prior crimes, but this error and one witness's subsequent violation of that order did not affect the outcome of the trial, and therefore, the error was harmless. The Court rejected Kidd's remaining claims. View "State v. Kidd" on Justia Law

Ricky Hyche pled guilty to aggravated indecent liberties with a child, a Jessica's Law offense, and received a hard twenty-five sentence with lifetime electronic monitoring. Hyche appealed, arguing (1) he should be eligible for parole after twenty years, not twenty-five, pursuant to Kan. Stat. Ann. 22-3717(b)(2); (2) lifetime electronic monitoring was an invalid component of his sentence under State v. Jolly; and (3) his motion for a downward departure from the hard twenty-five sentence should have been granted. The Supreme Court affirmed the balance of Hyche's sentence but vacated the component of his sentence imposing lifetime electronic monitoring, holding that under Jolly, this part of Hyche's sentence was inappropriate. View "State v. Hyche" on Justia Law

John Harsh pled nolo contendere to one count of rape for engaging in sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of fourteen. Prior to sentencing, Harsh moved for a downward departure from the mandatory minimum sentence under Jessica's Law, seeking instead a sentence of 258 months. The district court denied Harsh's motion and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment and lifetime postrelease supervision. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed the district court's denial of Harsh's departure motion, concluding that reasonable persons could take the view adopted by the district court; but (2) vacated the portion of Harsh's sentence ordering lifetime postrelease supervision, holding that the district court incorrectly interpreted the relevant sentencing statutes in this case. View "State v. Harsh" on Justia Law

Saul Miller was convicted of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Miller's first trial ended in a mistrial when the State repeatedly violated the trial court's pretrial order limiting admission of the victim's statement. After retrial, the court of appeals affirmed Miller's convictions and sentences. Miller filed a petition for review. The Supreme Court rejected all of Miller's arguments on appeal and affirmed Miller's conviction and sentences, holding, inter alia, that (1) double jeopardy did not bar Miller's second trial and convictions because, while the mistrial was warranted, there was no evidence the prosecutor intended to provoke the mistrial; and (2) under an objective evaluation of the totality of the circumstances, the child victim's statements to a sexual assault nurse examiner were nontestimonial, and therefore, the trial court did not err in admitting the statements. View "State v. Miller" on Justia Law