Title: State v. Hachmeister

State: kansas

Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court

Document:

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 
 
No. 112,260 
 
STATE OF KANSAS, 
Appellee, 
 
v. 
 
JASON HACHMEISTER, 
Appellant. 
 
 
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 
 
1. 
As a general rule, issues not raised before the district court cannot be raised on 
appeal. 
 
2. 
A reviewing court must determine the sufficiency of a search warrant affidavit 
from the four corners of the affidavit. 
 
3. 
Search warrants and their supporting affidavits are presumed valid, and one 
attacking their validity carries the burden of persuasion. 
 
4. 
Lifetime postrelease registration for sex offenders mandated by the Kansas 
Offender Registration Act, K.S.A. 22-4901 et seq., does not constitute punishment for 
purposes of applying provisions of the United States Constitution or § 9 of the Kansas 
Constitution Bill of Rights.  
 
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Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed December 4, 
2015. Appeal from Shawnee District Court; EVELYN Z. WILSON, judge. Opinion filed June 16, 2017. 
Judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the district court is affirmed on the issues subject to our 
review. Judgment of the district court is affirmed. 
 
Gerald E. Wells, of Jerry Wells Attorney-at-Law, of Lawrence, argued the cause, and Peter 
Maharry, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, was on the brief for appellant.  
 
Jodi E. Litfin, deputy district attorney, argued the cause, and Michael F. Kagay, district attorney, 
Chadwick J. Taylor, former district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with her on the 
briefs for appellee. 
 
The opinion of the court was delivered by 
 
BILES, J.:  A jury convicted Jason Hachmeister of 105 counts of sexual 
exploitation of a child after police discovered child pornography on his computer while 
investigating the homicide of Hachmeister's mother. On petition for review from a 
decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals, we consider two claims of error:  (1) whether 
the evidence from Hachmeister's computer should have been suppressed because it was 
not properly within the scope of various search warrants issued during the homicide 
investigation; and (2) whether the district court violated Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 
U.S. 466, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000), when it made a factual finding that 
the victims were under 14 years old, which was a predicate finding required for ordering 
Hachmeister to register as a sex offender. We affirm. 
 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
 
In September 2011, Topeka police began investigating the death of Hachmeister's 
mother, whose body was found at her home where Hachmeister also lived. The police 
obtained six search warrants as the inquiry unfolded. The first five were for the homicide 
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investigation and the sixth was to search Hachmeister's computers for child pornography. 
Officers recovered more than 100 pornographic images of children, most of whom 
appeared prepubescent. Hachmeister unsuccessfully moved to suppress the photographs. 
 
The jury convicted Hachmeister of 105 of the 108 counts of sexual exploitation on 
which the State tried him. The district court sentenced him to 86 months in prison. And 
after finding the images depicted victims 14 years old and under, the court ordered 
Hachmeister to submit to lifetime offender registration under the Kansas Offender 
Registration Act, K.S.A. 22-4901 et seq.  
 
Hachmeister timely appealed, raising multiple issues including whether the district 
court erred refusing to suppress the images recovered from his computers and whether 
the registration requirement violates Apprendi because it was imposed based on a factual 
finding not submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. A Court of 
Appeals panel affirmed. State v. Hachmeister, No. 112,260, 2015 WL 8175905, at *1 
(Kan. App. 2015) (unpublished decision). We granted review of the panel's disposition of 
the suppression and Apprendi questions. Jurisdiction is proper. See K.S.A. 60-2101(b) 
("[A]ny decision of the court of appeals shall be subject to review by the supreme 
court."). 
 
It should be noted Hachmeister was convicted for the first-degree murder of his 
mother in a separate criminal proceeding, which is presently on appeal. See State v. 
Hachmeister, No. 114,796. His murder case is not part of this appeal. 
 
NO ERROR AS TO THE CHALLENGED SEARCH WARRANTS  
 
Investigating officers secured six search warrants during their months-long 
investigation. Four warrants are relevant to this appeal. Using the identifying labels for 
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the warrants adopted by the panel, the four relevant warrants and the searches or seizures 
pursuant to each that Hachmeister argues were illegal are:  (1) SW-A, the seizure of a 
Gateway laptop; (2) SW-D, the seizure of a Lenovo laptop; (3) SW-E, the search of the 
Lenovo laptop; and (4) SW-F, the searches of both the Gateway and Lenovo laptops, 
resulting in the discovery of the pornographic images. We must consider these along with 
the district court's handling of three separate motions to suppress. This requires a more 
comprehensive factual recitation, including a chronological summary of each of the six 
warrants involved in this case. 
 
The search warrants 
 
SW-A:  September 10, 2011 
 
The affidavit supporting SW-A stated that Hachmeister had called 911 around 
4:05 p.m. to report that he found his mother Sheila "deceased lying on the floor with a 
blood pool around the head and twine or small rope around her neck and a cut or gash on 
[her] forehead." He told police he last saw his mother the day before around 10:45 p.m. 
He said he left the house at approximately 11:30 a.m. the day of her death to run errands 
and heard her "moving around up stairs but did not physically see her." He also told 
police she had "been talking with a couple of gentlemen via her lap top computer." 
Relying on these statements, investigators secured SW-A, which authorized them to 
search Sheila's home and to seize her body and "any blood evidence, occupancy 
documents, any trace evidence, and bloody clothing, and cell phone(s), computers, twine 
or small rope." (Emphasis added.)  
 
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SW-B:  September 10, 2011 
 
The affidavit supporting SW-B contained substantially the same statements but 
added, "AMR roll[ed] the victim over to check for signs of life . . . [and noticed] the 
victim was in full rigor but that does not occur until approximately twelve hours after 
death." The affidavit noted this was inconsistent with the timeline established by 
Hachmeister's earlier statements, so the affiant concluded, "Hachmeister is not telling the 
full truth about what has occurred to his mother and where he had been while driving his 
car earlier today." SW-B permitted the police to search Hachmeister and Sheila's cars for 
"[a]ny blood evidence, ownership documents, any trace evidence, any bloody clothing, 
twine or small rope." 
 
SW-C:  September 12, 2011 
 
The affidavit supporting SW-C included substantially the same recitations as SW-
A and B but added that while executing SW-A, the police seized two Gateway 
computers:  a laptop owned by Hachmeister and a desktop that "could either be the 
victim's computer or used by both victim and son Jason." The affidavit further noted 
Hachmeister claimed the desktop belonged to him and had been removed from the 
basement but could not explain why it had been removed. SW-C authorized police to 
search both Gateway computers, another laptop, an external hard drive, and three flash 
drives for "[a]ny and all digital evidence including but not limited to email, internet 
searches, written documents, online chat, images." 
 
SW-D:  December 6, 2011 
 
A few months later, investigators requested the fourth warrant (SW-D). The 
affidavit supporting SW-D contained largely the same statements as the first three but 
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added new facts further implicating Hachmeister in his mother's murder. The affidavit 
stated in pertinent part: 
 
"Throughout the duration of this investigation, JASON HACHMEISTER has 
become the suspect in his mothers' [sic] death. He has been caught changing his story . . . 
and . . . failed a Polygraph. Detectives have interviewed people who have had 
conversations with JASON in public business. JASON has bragged to them how he killed 
his mother and the Police think he is a 'stone cold killer[.'] While telling these people this, 
he would also say he was just kidding. . . . 
 
 
"SHEILA had another son, [AARON] HACHMEISTER who is a Police Office 
[sic] with Lawrence Kansas. I have been in contact with him throughout this 
investigation. He advised me he is the executor of his mothers' [sic] . . . life insurance 
policy and informed them that JASON was the suspect in his mothers' [sic] death and told 
them not to pay out any money until the Police rule out JASON as a suspect . . . . 
 
"The Topeka Capitol Journal received an anonymous letter post marked 
November 12, 2011. The anonymous person who wrote this letter claimed responsibility 
for the death of SHEILA . . . . The letter states that the suspect took a computer, cash and 
a purse; this information was not released to the public. The letter also states that after he 
killed her he took a shower in her room to get the blood off of him. This envelope was 
post marked from the Kansas City Area and had a commemorative MARK TWAIN 
stamp on it. The letter also advised he learned how to make a 'bump key' . . . . 
Instructions on how to make and use a 'bump key' can be found on the internet. . . . 
AARON [told the police] JASON was in Kansas City a few days prior to the post mark 
on the envelope. . . . 
 
"On November 15, 2011 Crime Stoppers received an anonymous tip about this 
homicide. . . . The tip was that two men from Kansas City were the killers and that the 
victims' [sic] sons were not the suspects. . . . 
 
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"Both of these leads were received days after AARON told JASON that he would 
not get paid until the Police ruled him out as a suspect. . . . It is my belief that JASON 
sent both of these leads in an attempt to turn our attention to someone else so he can get 
the insurance money." 
 
SW-D authorized a search of Sheila's home and Hachmeister's vehicle for such 
items as blood samples, DNA swabs, stationary matching the received letter, stamps 
matching the one on the letter, CSI photographs, computers and data storage devices, and 
handwritten documents. 
 
SW-E:  December 13, 2011 
 
The affidavit supporting SW-E contained substantially the same facts as SW-D but 
added that police had seized Hachmeister's Lenovo laptop while executing SW-D. SW-E 
authorized a search of the Lenovo laptop for evidence of Sheila's murder, financial 
documents concerning reimbursement for the mother's death, IP addresses, evidence on 
crime scene staging, personal documents containing a description of the crime scene or 
murder, and evidence of any storage facilities Hachmeister had access to. 
 
SW-F:  January 4, 2012 
 
Again, the supporting affidavit SW-F included largely the same facts as the 
previous affidavits, adding that while executing SW-E, detectives 
 
"conduct[ed] a search of the internet history files as extracted using a forensic tool, they 
looked under searches for the requested terms. When a filter was applied to just locate 
general user-created search terms to look for terms related to the murder investigation  
. . . , the search results showed user-entered search terms that were indicative of child 
pornography. Terms such as preteen and childlove were located. Although noted, they 
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did not believe that the current warrant covered the location of child pornography graphic 
and movie files." 
 
SW-F authorized police to search Hachmeister's Gateway and Lenovo laptops for 
evidence of child pornography, including internet searches, images, videos, files, 
communications, peer to peer software, and related searches. From this warrant, police 
discovered 177 images of children involved in sexually explicit activity on the Gateway 
laptop, which had been seized from Sheila's home pursuant to SW-A. 
 
The motions to suppress 
 
Hachmeister filed three motions to suppress. The first challenged only warrants 
SW-D and SW-F and was denied after a hearing. The second was a pro se motion also 
challenging only warrants SW-D and SW-F. This motion was never heard by the court. 
But at a pretrial hearing the court asked Hachmeister's attorney to review the motion to 
determine if it was "appropriate for further prosecution." The court gave him eight days 
to file "something . . . address[ing] . . . [issues] that were raised by . . . Hachmeister." The 
attorney did not object to this deadline. Seven days after the deadline and five days before 
trial, the court held a hearing on another matter during which the attorney asked for an 
additional one or two days to file a third motion to suppress. The court granted this 
request.  
 
On the first day of jury trial, Hachmeister filed his third motion to suppress, 
challenging all the warrants except SW-B. The district court noted the motion was filed 
"at the very, very last minute" and denied it as untimely, noting it had not yet reviewed 
the motion. The court characterized the motion as a request for reconsideration and 
informed the parties that despite its ruling it would review the motion and advise the 
parties if it changed its mind.  
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No further discussion of evidence suppression occurred until the State moved to 
introduce 108 pornographic images into evidence at trial. At that time, Hachmeister 
objected arguing the evidence was obtained as "a result of an illegal search and seizure." 
The court responded, "Your objection is noted for the record. My ruling is the same. 
Your objection is overruled." The court admitted the images. 
 
Preservation 
 
Hachmeister only challenged warrants SW-D and SW-F in his first two motions to 
suppress. While, as we have noted, the third motion challenged all warrants except SW-
B, for reasons that are unclear the Court of Appeals construed it as also failing to 
challenge SW-C and SW-E. Based on this reading, the panel held Hachmeister failed to 
preserve any challenge to those warrants. Hachmeister, 2015 WL 8175905, at *3. 
Clearly, the panel erred in this regard, but there is another problem preventing appellate 
consideration of Hachmeister's challenges to SW-A, SW-C, and SW-E. 
 
As the Court of Appeals correctly observed, the third motion to suppress was 
denied by the district court as untimely. It further noted Hachmeister offered no legal 
argument as to why that ruling was unreasonable or an abuse of discretion. 2015 WL 
8175905, at *3. On review, Hachmeister maintains the panel erred by not construing the 
district court's decision as a ruling on the merits. Hachmeister offers no legal support for 
his position. 
 
The district court made clear why it was denying the third motion, by stating:  
"And so my ruling, at this time, the motion is untimely and it has already been 
considered, the request for reconsideration is therefore denied. We will not reconsider it."  
 
 
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It continued,  
 
"After I read it, if I change my mind and decide that perhaps it is something that needs to 
be taken up, then I would advise counsel of the same, but this—this bridge was crossed 
almost a year ago and things have happened. We are literally at the—past the 11th hour 
before trial, so we're going to go ahead." 
 
It is obvious the district court considered the third motion as a motion to 
reconsider its ruling on the first motion, which dealt exclusively with warrants SW-D and 
SW-F. As to the other warrants addressed for the first time in the motion, the court 
deemed the challenges untimely. Nothing in the record indicates the district court ever 
abandoned this view or ruled on the merits of the challenges to SW-A, SW-C, and SW-E. 
 
Without a ruling from the district court on the merits, any substantive challenges 
to warrants SW-A, SW-C, and SW-E on appeal are not preserved. As a rule, issues not 
raised before the trial court cannot be raised on appeal. State v. Kelly, 298 Kan. 965, 971, 
318 P.3d 987 (2014); see Rule 6.02(a)(5) (2017 Kan. S. Ct. R. 35). 
 
SW-D and SW-F 
 
Despite some warrant mislabeling in Hachmeister's brief, it is clear his underlying 
challenge concerns SW-D, which he then contends tainted SW-F. Hachmeister argues 
SW-D lacked probable cause. 
 
Standard of review 
 
Generally, when reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to suppress, 
appellate courts use a bifurcated standard:  the district court's factual findings are 
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reviewed under a substantial competent evidence standard and the legal conclusions 
drawn from those findings are assessed de novo. State v. Powell, 299 Kan. 690, Syl. ¶ 3, 
325 P.3d 1162 (2014). When material facts underlying defendant's claim are not disputed, 
"the issue is a question of law over which an appellate court has unlimited review." 299 
Kan. at 700. But a more deferential standard is appropriate when reviewing a warrant 
application for probable cause.  
 
When deciding whether an affidavit supplies probable cause for a search warrant,  
 
 
"[a] judge . . . considers the totality of the circumstances presented and makes 'a 
practical, common-sense decision whether a crime has been or is being committed and 
whether there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in 
a particular place.'" State v. Mullen, 304 Kan. 347, 353, 371 P.3d 905 (2016) (quoting 
State v. Hicks, 282 Kan. 599, 613-14, 147 P.3d 1076 [2006]).  
 
We have explained that,  
 
"'When an affidavit in support of an application for search warrant is challenged, 
the task of the reviewing court is to ensure that the issuing magistrate had a substantial 
basis for concluding probable cause existed. This standard is inherently deferential. It 
does not demand that the reviewing court determine whether, as a matter of law, probable 
cause existed; rather, the standard translates to whether the affidavit provided a 
substantial basis for the magistrate's determination that there is a fair probability that 
evidence will be found in the place to be searched. Because the reviewing court is able to 
evaluate the necessarily undisputed content of an affidavit as well as the issuing 
magistrate, the reviewing court may perform its own evaluation of the affidavit's 
sufficiency under this deferential standard.'" (Emphasis added.) Mullen, 304 Kan. at 353 
(quoting Hicks, 282 Kan. 599, Syl. ¶ 2). 
 
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Accordingly, a reviewing court determines the sufficiency of a search warrant 
affidavit from the four corners of the affidavit itself. See State v. Malm, 37 Kan. App. 2d 
532, 543, 154 P.3d 1154 (2007). "[W]arrants and their supporting affidavits are 
interpreted in a commonsense rather than a hypertechnical fashion so as not to discourage 
police officers from submitting their evidence to a judicial officer before acting." State v. 
Ames, 222 Kan. 88, Syl. ¶ 2, 563 P.2d 1034 (1977). "Search warrants and their supporting 
affidavits are presumed valid, and one attacking their validity carries the burden of 
persuasion." Ames, 222 Kan. 88, Syl. ¶ 2. 
 
Discussion 
 
SW-D authorized a search of Sheila's home and Hachmeister's vehicle for various 
items including computers and data storage devices. During the search, the police seized 
the Lenovo laptop. Hachmeister argues the affidavit in support of SW-D lacked probable 
cause because it contained "no information about what evidence of criminal activity 
related to the murder is expected to be on the computers" and did not indicate the 
computer was "used . . . in some manner to facilitate the murder." 
 
But the affidavit did contain sufficient facts implicating Hachmeister as a suspect 
in Sheila's death, including: 
 
 Hachmeister changed his story as to what happened and failed a polygraph.  
 He bragged to people how he killed his mother and told them the police think he 
was a "stone cold killer." 
 His brother, Aaron, told Hachmeister that he asked mother's life insurance 
company to delay paying out Sheila's insurance benefits until the police ruled out 
Hachmeister as a suspect in Sheila's death.  
13 
 
 
 
 A local newspaper received an anonymous letter postmarked from Kansas City on 
November 12—two days after the conversation between Aaron and 
Hachmeister—claiming responsibility for the murder. The letter contained some 
information unknown to the public. Aaron told the police that Hachmeister was in 
Kansas City shortly before the letter was postmarked. 
 Another local newspaper received an anonymous tip on November 15 stating that 
two men from Kansas City murdered Sheila. The tip further informed that the 
victim's sons were not the suspects.  
 
As the panel stated, the evidence of the anonymous letter and tip might have been 
found on his computer or digital data storage devices. Hachmeister, 2015 WL 8175905, 
at *5. Accordingly, we hold that the facts averred in support of SW-D provided a 
substantial basis for the district court to conclude there was a fair probability evidence 
related to Sheila's murder might have been found on a computer within the possession of 
Hachmeister. Because SW-D was supported by probable cause, it did not taint warrant 
SW-F. 
 
NO VALID APPRENDI CHALLENGE 
 
Hachmeister argues the district court violated his rights under Apprendi v. New 
Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000), by increasing the 
duration of his duty to register under the Kansas Offender Registration Act, K.S.A. 22-
4901 et seq., based on the court's factual finding that several victims in his sexual 
exploitation of a child convictions were under 14 years old. This argument fails because 
lifetime sex offender registration is not punishment, so it falls outside the scope of 
Apprendi. 
 
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This court recently held lifetime sex offender registration does not constitute 
"punishment for purposes of applying the United States Constitution" and therefore could 
not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment or 
§ 9 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights. State v. Petersen-Beard, 304 Kan. 192, 377 
P.3d 1127 (2016). In doing so, the court noted it derived this holding from caselaw 
addressing whether offender registration was punishment for the purposes of the Ex Post 
Facto Clause, but declared "there exists no analytical distinction between or among the 
different constitutional contexts in which the question of punishment versus a civil 
regulatory scheme can arise." 304 Kan. at 196. The defendant in Petersen-Beard 
challenged lifetime registration under the same version of KORA from which 
Hachmeister's lifetime registration requirement arises. See 304 Kan. at 208. 
 
Because lifetime registration requirement is not "punishment" for constitutional 
purposes, it is not a "penalty" subject to Apprendi's protections. See State v. Charles, 304 
Kan. 158, 178-79, 372 P.3d 1109 (2016) (determining whether Apprendi applied in 
offender registration context by assessing whether registration requirement "qualifie[d] as 
punishment under the Due Process Clause"); Petersen-Beard, 304 Kan. at 196 ("[I]f 
KORA's lifetime sex offender registration requirement is punishment for either ex post 
facto or double jeopardy purposes, it must necessarily also be punishment for Eighth 
Amendment purposes. The reverse would likewise be true."). 
 
Accordingly, the finding that Hachmeister's victims were under 14 years of age 
did not expose him to an increased penalty within the meaning of Apprendi. There was no 
constitutional violation when that fact was found by the court, rather than by a jury.  
 
Affirmed. 
 
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* * * 
 
 
BEIER, J., dissenting:  Consistent with my votes in State v. Buser, 304 Kan. 181, 
371 P.3d 886 (2016), State v. Redmond, 304 Kan. 283, 371 P.3d 900 (2016), and Doe v. 
Thompson, 304 Kan. 291, 373 P.3d 750 (2016), which dealt with the Ex Post Facto 
Clause, and in State v. Peterson-Beard, 304 Kan. 192, 377 P.3d 1127 (2016), which dealt 
with the Eighth Amendment and Section 9 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights, I 
respectfully dissent from the majority's holding that lifetime sex offender registration is 
not punishment. As a result, Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 
L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000), applies. The offender registration requirement could not be 
imposed on the defendant on the basis of a fact found by the district judge rather than the 
jury. 
 
 
ROSEN and JOHNSON, JJ., join in the foregoing dissenting opinion.