Justia Kansas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated burglary. The trial court sentenced Defendant to a hard twenty-five life sentence for the first-degree murder conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err in failing to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter, unintentional second-degree murder, and reckless involuntary manslaughter; (2) the district court did not err by excluding evidence that the shooting happened in a high crime area; (3) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s request for a trial continuance; (4) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion for new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel; and (5) cumulative error did not deprive Defendant of a fair trial. View "State v. Johnson" on Justia Law

State v. Ortiz created judicial exceptions to the general rule barring untimely appeals. In the instant case, Appellant, who was sixteen years old at the time, pleaded nolo contendere to first-degree felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, and other crimes. The district court sentenced Appellant to life sentences for the murder and aggravated kidnapping convictions. Appellant asserted that he told his appointed counsel (Attorney) after sentencing that he wanted to file an appeal. Attorney filed a motion to modify Appellant's sentence but never filed a direct appeal of Appellant’s sentence. The motion to modify was overruled. Nearly two decades later, Appellant filed a pro se notice of appeal, a motion for an out-of-time appeal, and a motion for appointed counsel. The district court denied the motion, finding that the passage of time was a bar to Appellant’s appeal. Appellant appealed, arguing that he should be allowed to bring his direct appeal out of time, pursuant to Ortiz, because Attorney did not file an appeal despite Appellant’s direction to do so. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the case was presented to the Court without adequate factual findings. Remanded to the district court to make the requisite findings. View "State v. Smith" on Justia Law

On February 5, 2016, Governor Sam Brownback received statutorily required notice of District Magistrate Judge Tommy Webb’s departure from the bench. On June 15, 2016, three judges filed this petition for a writ of mandamus seeking a writ requiring the governor to immediately appoint an interim district magistrate judge for Haskall County. Specifically, Petitioner alleged that the governor failed to appoint a successor district magistrate judge in violation of Kan. Stat. Ann. 25-312a, which states that any “appointment made by the governor…shall be made within 90 days following receipt of notice….” The Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the ninety-day time limit for the governor’s appointment of a district magistrate judge is directory rather than mandatory under precedent and is thus a discretionary act not subject to mandamus. View "Ambrosier v. Brownback" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with first-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm. After a trial, the jury convicted Defendant of the firearm charge but failed to reach a verdict on the murder charge. The district court subsequently declared a mistrial. Before the State pursued a second trial on the murder charge, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that any retrial would violate his rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause. The district court denied the motion. The Supreme Court dismissed Defendant’s appeal, holding that Kansas statutes only allow an appeal in the case of a final judgment, which requires a conviction and sentence, and therefore, Defendant’s appeal was not properly before the court and must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. View "State v. Webb" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of capital murder and four counts of attempted capital murder. The jury sentenced Defendant to death on the capital offense. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Defendant did not waive his privilege against self-incrimination by presenting a voluntary intoxication defense to the capital murder charges. The United States Supreme Court vacated the Supreme Court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the rebuttal testimony presented by the State in the form of Dr. Michael Welner’s expert opinion was admissible. Because the Supreme Court ruled that Welner should not have been allowed to testify at trial, the Court did not consider whether his testimony exceeded the scope of rebuttal. On remand, the Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions and sentences, holding (1) Welner’s testimony did not exceed the proper scope of rebuttal allowed by the Fifth Amendment or by Kansas evidentiary rules; and (2) none of the remaining issues raised on appeal required reversal or remand. View "State v. Cheever" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to first-degree murder. Defendant was sentenced to a hard twenty-five sentence and ordered to pay restitution. Years later, Defendant filed a pro se motion seeking leave from the district court to file his appeal out of time, arguing that his attorney failed to file a timely appeal despite Defendant’s request. The district court denied Defendant’s motion. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) despite Defendant’s argument to the contrary, Defendant’s sentence was final for purposes of appeal; and (2) the district court did not err when it denied Defendant’s motion to file an untimely appeal. View "State v. Northern" on Justia Law

While executing a search warrant at Defendant’s residence, law enforcement officers seized marijuana and methamphetamine. None of the drugs bore the requisite drug tax stamps. After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of numerous drug offenses. Relevant to this appeal were Defendant’s convictions for possession of marijuana with no drug tax stamp and possession of methamphetamine with no drug tax stamp. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part, holding (1) Defendant’s possession of both marijuana and methamphetamine without the appropriate drug tax stamps affixed constituted a single crime that should not have been charged in two counts, and therefore, one count is reversed; (2) Defendant was not deprived of a fair trial by the prosecutor’s closing argument; and (3) Defendant’s sentence was not unconstitutional. View "State v. Pribble" on Justia Law

In this case, the Supreme Court revisited and realigned the Kansas approach to charging document sufficiency. Defendant was convicted of one count each of forgery and stalking. For the first time on appeal, Defendant argued that the charging document failed to allege all of the elements of the crime of forgery, thereby depriving the trial court of subject matter jurisdiction. In so arguing, Defendant urged the Supreme Court to reject State v. Hall in the respect that Hall made it more difficult for defendants to mount a jurisdictional challenge based on charging document error raised for the first time on appeal. The Supreme Court ultimately affirmed, holding (1) there is no reason for Hall’s differentiation between treatment of charging document error and other types of types of errors; (2) charging documents need not allege every element of a crime in order to invoke a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction or sustain an appellate court’s jurisdiction; (3) omission of certain information from a charging document may give a defendant a successful claim for relief that will take various forms at various stages of a prosecution before the trial court and on appeal; and (4) under the revised analysis described in this opinion, Defendant’s convictions are affirmed. View "State v. Dunn" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was Kansas’ speedy trial statute, which provides that a criminal case in which a defendant has been “held to answer on an appearance bond” shall be dismissed if a trial does not occur within 180 days after arraignment. In City of Elkhart v. Bollacker, the Supreme Court held that the legislature intended the statute to apply even when a defendant had not been held on an appearance bond. In the instant case, Defendant, who was not on bond, relied on the speedy trial statute in seeking dismissal of the criminal charges. The district court dismissed the charges because a trial did not take place within 180 days after Defendant’s arraignment. The Court of Appeals affirmed based on Bollacker. The Supreme Court overruled Bollacker, holding (1) the Bollacker court violated the rules of statutory interpretation, and (2) a defendant not held to answer on an appearance bond has no statutory speedy trial right under the statute. The Court, however, affirmed the dismissal of the charges against Defendant because its right to dismissal for a statutory speedy trial violation had vested under the prior binding law. View "State v. Spencer Gifts, LLC" on Justia Law

In 1987, Appellant pled no contest to felony murder and one count of aggravated robbery and pled guilty to three counts of aggravated robbery. The district court imposed a controlling prison term of life without the possibility of parole for thirty years. In 2014, Appellant filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence, arguing that State v. Murdock required that his sentence be converted to a guidelines sentence under the 1993 version of the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act (KSGA). The district court denied the motion. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant’s sentence was ineligible for retroactive application of the KSGA today, and therefore, his 1987 sentence was not illegal. View "State v. Jeffries" on Justia Law