Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

James Simpson was charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child and aggravated child endangerment. Simpson filed a motion seeking a psychiatric evaluation of the complaining child witness. The district court ordered the evaluation, but the child’s mother refused to consent to the child’s evaluation. Eventually, Simpson filed a motion in limine seeking to suppress the child’s testimony and statements based on her failure to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The district court granted the motion. The State filed an interlocutory appeal, asserting that the child was a competent witness and qualified to testify. The Court of Appeals reversed after considering multiple alternative bases for the trial court’s suppression order. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and affirmed the district court on the narrow issue framed by the State, holding that the record did not support the State’s contention that the district court based its ruling solely on a determination that the child was incompetent to testify. Remanded. View "State v. Simpson" on Justia Law

After Defendant’s first two trials ended in mistrials, Defendant was found guilty of aggravated robbery. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) any taking, incidental or intentional, suffices for a robbery conviction, and therefore, the State presented sufficient evidence to establish that Defendant committed robbery by forcibly taking possession of property; and (2) the district court did not commit reversible error when it allowed the State to present expert witness testimony without following the procedures set forth in Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-226, as the State is not required to provide advance notice of expert witnesses called for the purpose of rebutting expert witnesses called for the defense, and the civil discovery rules in section 60-226 relating to expert witnesses do not apply in criminal proceedings. View "State v. Edwards" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to a drug-related offense. The sentencing guidelines prescribed presumptive sentence range of 169 to 187 months’ imprisonment, but as part of Defendant’s plea agreement, the State recommended a downward durational departure to 72 months. The district court denied Defendant’s request for a downward dispositional departure to probation but granted the durational departure request and imposed 72 months’ imprisonment. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion. The court of appeals summarily dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed the summary dismissal, holding that the court of appeals had jurisdiction to consider Defendant’s appeal. Remanded. View "State v. Looney" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of first-degree premeditated murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder arising out of a drive-by shooting. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court (1) did not err by failing to give an unrequested limiting jury instruction regarding evidence of Defendant’s gang membership; (2) erred by instructing the jury it could consider the degree of certainty with which eyewitnesses identified Defendant, but the error did not require rreversal; and (3) did not commit sufficient errors to deprive Defendant of a fair trial. View "State v. Briseno" on Justia Law

Defendant pled nolo contendere to first-degree premeditated murder and aggravated robbery and was sentenced to a hard twenty-five life sentence for the murder. Eleven years after the crimes, Defendant filed a pro se motion for postconviction DNA testing of a knife found at the crime scene and presented as the murder weapon in this case. The district court summarily denied the motion, concluding that the DNA testing was not likely to prove Defendant did not commit the crime. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court properly denied Defendant’s motion because DNA testing could not produce exculpatory evidence impacting Defendant’s conviction or sentence. View "State v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant entered an Alford plea pleading guilty to one count of first-degree felony murder and two counts of arson. The district court calculated Defendant’s criminal history score by classifying a prior Ohio conviction as a person crime instead of a nonperson crime, which elevated Defendant’s overall score and led to a sentence that was increased in severity. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court (1) correctly determined that Defendant’s prior out-of-state conviction was comparable to aggravated burglary, a person offense, under Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-3716; and (2) therefore properly classified Defendant’s Ohio conviction as a person crime. View "State v. Williams" on Justia Law

After a jury trial in 1991, Appellant was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated arson, and forgery. The sentencing court imposed three consecutive life sentences. Appellant unsuccessfully appealed and then brought several collateral attacks on his convictions and sentences, to no avail. In 2012, Appellant filed a pro se motion for relief from judgment seeking relief from his first-degree murder conviction and sentence, claiming that the trial court erred in its instructions to the jury. The district court denied the motion without appointing counsel or conducting a hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the claims raised by Appellant in his motion were barred by the doctrine of res judicata. View "State v. Kingsley" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of one count of premeditated first-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault. The district court sentenced Defendant to a hard fifty life sentence for the murder conviction. Defendant appealed, arguing, among other things, that the procedure used to impose his sentence violated his constitutional right to a trial by jury. The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions but vacated the hard fifty sentence, holding that because the district court, rather than a jury, found the existence of an aggravating circumstance, the district court violated Defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Remanded for resentencing. View "State v. Hayes" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, burglary, kidnapping and other charges and was sentenced to five life imprisonment sentences as an aggravated habitual sex offender. The Supreme Court affirmed Appellant’s convictions but vacated his five life sentences and remanded for resentencing, holding that the aggravated habitual sex offender statute did not apply to Appellant because (1) the prior convictions in Appellant’s presentence investigation report all occurred on the same day and in the same case and therefore constituted only a single prior conviction event; and (2) because at the time of Appellant’s crimes the aggravated habitual sex offender statute applied only to Defendants with two prior conviction events, Appellant’s life sentences were illegal. View "State v. Lewis" on Justia Law

Defendant pled nolo contendere to aggravated robbery, possession of marijuana, burglary and contributing to a child’s misconduct. Defendant was sentenced to a controlling term of 144 months’ imprisonment. The court of appeals affirmed the district court’s classification of a prior Florida juvenile adjudication was for third-degree burglary as a person felony for purposes of calculating Defendant’s Kansas criminal history score. The Supreme Court vacated Defendant’s sentences, holding that the lower courts failed to simply identify the prior Florida adjudication as a third-degree burglary or to identify the facts necessary to support a third-degree burglary and instead impermissibly used judicial factfinding to elevate the degree of burglary above that for which Defendant was actually adjudicated in Florida. Remanded. View "State v. O'Connor" on Justia Law