Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and three counts of criminal sodomy for the sexual abuse of his daughter. The district court imposed a hard twenty-five sentence for the aggravated criminal sodomy count and an additional 118 months’ imprisonment for the remaining counts. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the district court for a State v. Van Cleave hearing to determine whether Defendant was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, either because trial counsel was not constitutionally competent or was not constitutionally conflict-free. View "State v. Moyer" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and criminal threat. The court of appeals affirmed on direct appeal. The Supreme Court accepted review to address Defendant’s claims that the prosecutor committed three separate acts of prosecutorial misconduct during trial. The court of appeals applied the prosecutorial misconduct standard as explained in State v. Tosh in rejecting Defendant’s contentions of prosecutorial misconduct. Before the Supreme Court Defendant argued that this traditional multi-prong test was flawed because it leaves open the possibility the misconduct affected the verdict. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant’s criticism of the traditional prosecutorial misconduct standard was unwarranted; and (2) the court of appeals correctly found that there was no merit to two of Defendant’s misconduct claims, and the prosecutor’s misconduct in using a jigsaw puzzle analogy during voir dire and closing arguments did not deprive Defendant of a fair trial. View "State v. Crawford" on Justia Law

A petition to convene a citizen-initiated grand jury alleged wrongdoing by the officers and directors of the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas (Unified Government). The grand jury returned an indictment charging Rodney Turner, an attorney who did consulting and legal work for BPU, with two counts of theft and fifty-five counts of presenting a false claim. Turner moved to dismiss the indictment for grand jury abuse and violation of his constitutional rights. The district court granted the motion. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that Turner did not possess the full panoply of constitutional rights at the investigatory proceedings by the grand jury and that the constitutional violations that did occur during the proceedings did not prejudice him. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the indictment, holding that the record established grave doubt that the decision to indict was free from the substantial influence of abuses of process and constitutional violations caused by the State’s agents during the grand jury proceedings. View "State v. Turner" on Justia Law

A bullet fatally wounded a man sitting inside the house of Defendant's neighbor. After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of felony murder based upon the underlying felony of criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied building. Defendant was sentenced to life with parole eligibility after twenty years for felony murder. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err in admitting prior shooting evidence; (2) Defendant failed to preserve his appeal of the district court’s order denying his motion to suppress his post-Miranda statements to police; and (3) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found during a warrantless search of a locked storage area of Defendant’s residence. View "State v. Richard" on Justia Law

After a second jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting death of the social guest of Defendant’s girlfriend. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) any error in the district court’s admission of and failure to give limiting instructions on evidence of other crimes or civil wrongs was harmless; (2) the district court correctly refused to give an instruction on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter; (3) there was no prosecutorial misconduct arising from references to school shootings during closing argument; and (4) Defendant received a fair trial untainted by cumulative error. View "State v. Story" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with five drug- and firearm-related felonies after a law enforcement officer stopped him for driving a vehicle with a defective headlight and arrested him when he could not produce proof of insurance. The district court concluded that the evidence seized from Defendant’s automobile in the warrantless search incident to his arrest should be suppressed. The court of appeals reversed the suppression ruling. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals, holding that the search of Defendant’s vehicle was illegal because the warrantless search of Defendant’s vehicle for evidence incident to his arrest was conducted at a time when searches incident to arrest were governed in the state by statute, and the statute in effect at the time the search at issue was conducted did not authorize searches for the purpose of discovering evidence. View "State v. Julian" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with abuse of a child and felony murder with the underlying felony of child abuse arising from the death of an eleven-month-old child who was in Defendant’s care. The first jury trial resulted in a conviction on the child abuse charge. Because the first jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the felony-murder charge, a second trial was held, after which Defendant was convicted of felony murder. Defendant appealed, raising several issues relating to both trials. The Supreme Court affirmed the felony-murder conviction but reversed the abuse of a child conviction, holding that because Defendant did not present a unified defense to the child abuse charge, the district court’s failure to give a unanimity instruction despite evidence of multiple acts was clearly erroneous. Remanded. View "State v. De La Torre" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of felony murder and attempted aggravated robbery for crimes committed when Defendant was thirteen years old. Defendant was tried as an adult. The district court sentenced Defendant to a hard twenty life sentence for the murder conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not abuse its discretion in waiving juvenile jurisdiction and in authorizing the State to prosecute Defendant as an adult; (2) the district court did not err in instructing the jury that a killing in the flight from an attempt to commit an inherently dangerous felony constitutes felony murder; (3) there was sufficient evidence to support Defendant’s aggravated attempted robbery conviction; (4) the prosecutor made improper statements during closing argument, but there was no reasonable possibility the prosecutor’s improper commentary affected the trial’s outcome; and (5) Defendant’s argument that her mandatory life-with-parole sentence was unconstitutional was without merit. View "State v. Brown" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree felony murder, the alternative charge of second-degree murder, aggravated burglary, and aggravated assault. Defendant raised several issues on appeal, including an allegation that the district court abused its discretion by allowing the withdrawal of his pro se in pro se motion for new counsel without making a sufficient inquiry into the circumstances prompting the motion. The Supreme Court remanded on this issue, holding that the district court erred in not inquiring before allowing the apparently nonconsensual withdrawal of Defendant’s pro se motion for new counsel. The Court also remanded for a nunc pro tunc order correcting the severity level of Defendant’s second-degree murder conviction. The Court rejected Defendant’s remaining claims of error. View "State v. Brown" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of fourteen and was sentenced to concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole for forty years. Defendant appealed, raising five issues relating to alleged trial errors and one issue relating to sentencing. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions and sentences, holding (1) Defendant failed to preserve several of his arguments by not making a timely objection to evidence or not creating a sufficient record for appeal; and (2) Defendant’s remaining arguments lacked merit. View "State v. Reed" on Justia Law