State v. Weekes
State v. Weekes
Opinion
Lawson J. Weekes III seeks review of the Court of Appeals decision to dismiss his appeal of the district court's failure to modify his guideline sentence upon revocation of his probation. We reverse the Court of Appeals dismissal and remand to that court to reinstate the appeal.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL OVERVIEW
Pursuant to a nolo contendere plea, the district court found Weekes guilty of unlawful possession of hydrocodone and sentenced him to 12 months' probation with an underlying prison term of 30 months. About halfway through the probation period, the State filed a motion to revoke Weekes' probation; an amendment to the motion alleged that Weekes had been convicted of a new crime. Prior to the hearing on that motion, Weekes filed a motion for resentencing upon revocation pursuant to
State v. McGill
,
At the revocation hearing, Weekes stipulated to violating his probation. Defense counsel told the district court that Weekes was not arguing that he should remain on probation, but rather that he was seeking a reduced term of 12 months on the underlying prison term or requesting that he be allowed to serve the original sentence concurrently with his other sentences. The district court revoked probation, denied Weekes' motion to modify his sentence, and imposed the original underlying sentence.
Weekes' timely appeal to the Court of Appeals was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The panel relied on
State v. Everett
, No. 111,168,
Weekes petitioned for our review, claiming that the Court of Appeals erred by dismissing his appeal for lack of jurisdiction and asking us to consider the merits and find the district court abused its discretion by not modifying his sentence. We hold that the Court of Appeals did have jurisdiction to hear Weekes' appeal, but we decline to consider the merits of his appeal. We remand to the Court of Appeals to reinstate the appeal.
APPELLATE JURISDICTION
Weekes first quibbles with the panel's statement that he did not argue that the district court abused its discretion when it revoked his probation. Weekes' brief does incidentally mention that the district court abused its discretion by revoking his probation, but he then makes no substantive argument as to why the revocation was an abuse of discretion in the face of Weekes' stipulation that he violated his probation in multiple ways, including two new criminal convictions. See
State v. Sprague
,
Standard of Review
"Whether an appellate court has jurisdiction is a question of law subject to de novo review."
Fuller v. State
,
Analysis
As noted, Weekes filed a
McGill
motion in his probation revocation proceeding, asking the district court to modify his original sentence. In
McGill
, this court held that the long-standing plain language of K.S.A. 22-3716(b) (now K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 22-3716 [c][1][E] ) grants a district court jurisdiction to modify a defendant's original sentence upon revoking probation by imposing a lesser sentence.
Very recently, we reiterated that the district court has the authority to impose a lesser sentence upon revoking probation and that the court's discretion on the terms of the lesser sentence is not constrained by the KSGA. The modified sentence need not be a presumptive sentence under the KSGA; it does not even need to be a legal sentence that conforms to the applicable statutory provisions regarding the term of authorized punishment.
State v. Sandoval
, 308 Kan. ----,
Obviously, then, the district court had jurisdiction to entertain Weekes' motion for modification at the probation revocation hearing. But the question before us is whether the district court's decision to deny the motion-thereby leaving the original presumptive sentence in place-is appealable. As noted, the panel below relied on
Everett
, which in turn relied on K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-6820(c)(1), which is part of the KSGA and provides: "On appeal from a judgment or conviction entered for a felony committed on or after July 1, 1993, the appellate court shall not review ... [a]ny sentence that is within
*864
the presumptive sentence for the crime[.]" While recognizing the district court's authority to impose a lesser sentence upon probation revocation,
Everett
declared that "nothing in the KSGA grants us the jurisdiction to revise the district court's decision if the sentence imposed is a presumptive sentence."
The Everett rationale suffers some logical fallacies. First, the statutory provision upon which it is based is applicable to appeals "from a judgment or conviction." K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-6820(c). Our caselaw would suggest that an appeal from a "judgment" in a criminal case refers to the direct appeal of the original sentence:
"A sentence is effective when pronounced from the bench. State v. Mason ,294 Kan. 675 , 677,279 P.3d 707 (2012) ; State v. Jackson ,262 Kan. 119 , 140,936 P.2d 761 (1997). A sentence is the judgment of the court that formally declares to the accused the legal consequences of his or her conviction. State v. Van Winkle ,256 Kan. 890 , 895,889 P.2d 749 (1995). The final judgment in a criminal case is the sentence.256 Kan. at 895 [889 P.2d 749 ]. Once sentence is pronounced and judgment entered, the district court loses jurisdiction over a criminal case except to correct arithmetic or clerical errors. State v. Hall ,298 Kan. 978 , 983,319 P.3d 506 (2014)." State v. Tafoya ,304 Kan. 663 , 666-67,372 P.3d 1247 (2016).
Next, the concept of a "presumptive sentence" is inapplicable to the probation revocation process. The KSGA defines "presumptive sentence" as "the sentence provided in a grid block for an offender classified in that grid block by the combined effect of the crime severity ranking of the offender's current crime of conviction and the offender's criminal history." K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-6803(q) ; see also
State v. Ortega-Cadelan
,
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, as the
Reeves
panel pointed out, " K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 22-3716(c)(1)(E) is found in the Kansas Code of Criminal Procedure; the statute is not part of the revised Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act (KSGA). See K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 21-6801
et seq
."
Moreover, our historical treatment of appellate jurisdiction in this circumstance belies the
Everett
rationale. In
State v. Ardry
,
In sum, it was error for the panel to dismiss based on an incorrect determination that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the appeal.
Judgment of the Court of Appeals dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction is reversed, and the case is remanded to the *865 Court of Appeals for consideration of the merits.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Lawson J. WEEKES III, Appellant.
- Cited By
- 17 cases
- Status
- Published