Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of felony murder and aggravated kidnapping. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions and sentences, holding (1) assuming the trial court erred in not instructing the jury on lesser included offenses of aggravated kidnapping, the error was harmless, and the court did not err in failing to give a self-defense instruction; (2) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to grant Defendant’s motion for a mistrial; (3) the trial court did not err in using a juvenile adjudication to determine Defendant’s criminal history for sentencing purposes; and (4) Defendant’s convictions and sentences for felony murder and aggravated kidnapping did not violate the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. View "State v. Waller" on Justia Law

More than ten years after Appellant was sentenced for felony murder, he filed a pro se motion to “Correct Illegal Sentence,” making an instructional error claim. The district court construed Appellant’s pleading as a motion to correct an illegal sentence and summarily denied the motion. On appeal, Appellant argued that the motion should have been liberally construed as invoking Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-1507(a), which would have allowed the district court to determine whether resolving Appellant’s motion was necessary to prevent manifest injustice. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court correctly treated the pro se motion as a motion to correct an illegal sentence; and (2) the motion was appropriately denied because Appellant’s jury instruction claim challenged his conviction, not his sentence, and could not be raised in a motion to correct an illegal sentence. View "State v. Gilbert" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with involvement with a theft. Defendant moved to suppress evidence obtained through a search warrant authorizing the seizure of his biological material. The district court denied the motion to suppress, and Defendant was subsequently convicted of felony theft and felony criminal damage to property. The court of appeals affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress. The Supreme Court reversed Defendant’s convictions, holding that it was objectively unreasonable for the officer to rely on the warrant , and therefore, the district court erred by applying the United States v. Leon good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule after finding the warrant lacked the required probable cause. Remanded. View "State v. Powell" on Justia Law

Two days after Defendant’s arrest for marijuana possession, the United States Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant, which invalidated certain searches incident to arrest. Defendant moved to suppress the drug evidence pursuant to Gant. The district court granted the motion, concluding that a good-faith exception did not apply in this case. While Defendant’s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in State v. Daniel, which held that an officer’s pre-Gant search incident to a lawful arrest was subject to the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule based on the officer’s objectively reasonable reliance on Kan. Stat. Ann. 22-2501. Defendant argued that the good-faith exception should not apply in his case because the search exceeded the physical scope permitted by section 22-2501. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the State’s arguments did not justify application of a good-faith exception to the plain language of section 22-2501. View "State v. Pettay" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm in the shooting death of the mother of his child. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) if the district court’s failure to grant a mistrial was error, the error was invited because the district judge gave Defendant the option of having a mistrial declared and Defendant deliberately chose to continue the trial; (2) any error on the district judge’s part in failing to analyze evidence of a previous dispute between Defendant and the victim under Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-455 was harmless; (3) although the district judge’s oral instruction on reasonable doubt differed from his written instruction, reversal was not required; and (4) while it was error for the district judge to fail to read an answer to a jury question in open court with Defendant present, the error was harmless. View "State v. Verser" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of one count each of first-degree murder on the combined theories of premeditated murder and felony murder, aggravated robbery, and burglary. Defendant was sentenced to a hard twenty life sentence for the murder conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err when it denied Defendant’s change of venue motion, as Defendant failed to show there existed so great a prejudice in Osborne County that prevented him from receiving a fair and impartial trial; (2) sufficient evidence supported the convictions; and (3) cumulative error did not deprive Defendant of a fair trial because he failed to raise a single issue resulting in a showing of error. View "State v. McBroom" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes. The Supreme Court concluded that Appellant’s convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated battery were multiplicitous and reversed the conviction for aggravated battery but otherwise affirmed. Ten years after the Court’s decision, Appellant filed a motion for habeas relief, contending that Kansas law on premeditation was unconstitutional. The district court denied the motion as untimely under Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-1507(f). The court of appeals affirmed the denial because Appellant failed to justify the untimeliness of his motion, and thus failed to show manifest injustice under section 60-1507(f)(2) that would allow him to proceed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a prisoner’s failure to provide the reasons for a delay in filing a motion for habeas relief does not automatically exclude the untimely motion, and rather, manifest injustice must be determined based on the totality of the circumstances in each case; and (2) there was no manifest injustice established under the totality of the circumstances in this case. View "Vontress v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of criminal possession of a firearm. Defendant was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fifty years (hard fifty) on the murder conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions but vacated his hard fifty sentence, including the district court’s unauthorized imposition of lifetime postrelease supervision, holding that Defendant’s hard fifty life sentence was unconstitutional under Alleyne v. United States and State v. Soto and that the district court erred in imposing lifetime postrelease supervision for Defendant’s off-grid convictions. View "State v. Molina" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder, and abuse of a seventeen-month-old child. Defendant was sentenced to life without possibility of parole for fifty years (hard fifty). The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions but vacated his hard fifty life sentence, holding that the hard fifty sentencing procedure set out in Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-4635 was unconstitutional under Alleyne v. United States and State v. Soto because the sentencing scheme permitted a judge, rather than a jury, to find aggravating circumstances necessary to impose an increased mandatory minimum sentence in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. View "State v. Lloyd" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder on the combined theories of premeditated murder and felony murder and criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied building. Defendant was sentenced to life without parole for twenty-five years. The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences, holding (1) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence, as the newly discovered evidence came from witnesses who were without credibility; and (2) the district judge erred in sentencing Defendant to the mandatory minimum imprisonment term for premeditated murder rather than the mandatory imprisonment term consistent for felony murder, as, when a jury cannot agree on whether a defendant is guilty of first-degree murder on a premeditation theory or a felony-murder theory, the defendant can only be given a sentence for felony murder. View "State v. Laurel" on Justia Law