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NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 121,800

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

STATE OF KANSAS,

Appellee,

v.

RANDALL RATLIFF,

Appellant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; WESLEY K. GRIFFIN, judge. Opinion filed May 1, 2020. 

Reversed and remanded with directions.

Submitted for summary disposition under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6820(g) and (h).

Before ARNOLD-BURGER, C.J., LEBEN, J., and MCANANY, S.J.

PER CURIAM: Randall Ratliff received probation following his conviction for an 

aggravated battery offense that he committed in November 2017. After sentencing, 

Ratliff served two jail sanctions for violating conditions of his probation. Then in June 

and July 2019, Ratliff committed more violations: he failed to report to his probation 

officer, to pay court costs, to refrain from drug use, to obtain employment, and to 

complete a mental-health evaluation. At a hearing in August, Ratliff admitted to some of 

these violations, and the court found that the State had proved the rest. Ratliff asked the 

court to impose a 180-day prison sanction for his violations. The court responded that a 

recently enacted amendment to the statute eliminated the 180-day prison sanction.

Ratliff's attorney questioned whether the 2019 amendment applied retroactively, but the 

court repeated its view that the amendment eliminated the prison sanction. Accordingly, 
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the district court revoked Ratliff's probation and imposed his underlying 21-month prison 

sentence.

Ratliff appealed. On Ratliff's motion, we accepted this appeal for summary 

disposition under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6820(g) and (h) and Supreme Court Rule 7.041A 

(2019 Kan. S. Ct. R. 47). In summary disposition cases like this, the parties do not submit 

full written briefs. Rather, our review is based "solely on the record that was before the 

sentencing court." Supreme Court Rule 7.041A(b) (2019 Kan. S. Ct. R. 48). If our review 

of the record before the district court discloses an error in the decision to revoke Ratliff's 

probation, we are required to consider this error on appeal.

Ratliff argues that the district court abused its discretion in revoking probation and 

imposing the underlying prison sentence. A district court's decision to revoke probation 

must be based on a factual finding that a condition of probation has been violated. That 

happened here. Once a violation has been established, the decision to revoke probation is 

within the district court's sound discretion. State v. Skolaut, 286 Kan. 219, 227-28, 182 

P.3d 1231 (2008); see State v. Graham, 272 Kan. 2, 4, 30 P.3d 310 (2001). But the 

district court can abuse its discretion in its ruling by committing a legal error. State v. 

Jones, 306 Kan. 948, Syl. ¶ 7, 398 P.3d 856 (2017). 

K.S.A. 22-3716 sets forth the grounds for revoking probation. The exercise of the 

district court's discretion is limited to the grounds expressed in the statute. The

Legislature amended K.S.A. 22-3716 in 2019. L. 2019, ch. 59, § 10. The amended statute 

took effect about a month before Ratliff's August 2019 revocation hearing. The issue here 

is whether the district court abused its discretion in applying the 2019 amended version of 

the statute in revoking Ratliff's probation.

Under the version of K.S.A. 22-3716 in effect when Ratliff committed his 2017 

aggravated battery, the district court had to impose a series of intermediate sanctions 
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before revoking Ratliff's probation and ordering him to serve his prison sentence. The 

district court could bypass these sanctions (1) if Ratliff committed a new crime or 

absconded while on probation, (2) if Ratliff had received probation from a dispositional 

departure, or (3) if the court stated particular reasons why imposing a sanction would 

jeopardize public safety or Ratliff's welfare. K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 22-3716(c)(8)-(9). Here, 

Ratliff did not commit a new crime or abscond while on probation, nor had he received a 

dispositional departure when originally sentenced. Moreover, the district court failed to 

make any particularized findings that imposing a 120- or 180-day prison sanction would 

jeopardize public safety or Ratliff's welfare. See K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-3716(c)(9)(A); 

State v. Dooley, 308 Kan. 641, 652, 423 P.3d 469 (2018). Thus, if the earlier version of 

the statute applied, the district court's only option was to impose an intermediate prison 

sanction. K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 22-3716(c)(1)(E). 

On the other hand, if the statute as amended in 2019 applied, the district court 

would not have been required to impose an intermediate prison sanction before revoking 

Ratliff's probation. The amended statute eliminated the 120- and 180-day prison 

sanctions. K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 22-3716(c)(1). Under the amended statute, a district court 

can revoke probation and impose the underlying sentence if the probationer has already 

served a two- or three-day jail sanction. K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 22-3716(c)(1)(C). Ratliff had 

already served intermediate jail sanctions. So if the amended statute applied, the district 

court was free to revoke probation and order Ratliff to serve his prison sentence. 

In resolving which version of K.S.A. 22-3716 applies, our Supreme Court's recent 

decision in State v. Coleman, No. 118,673, 2020 WL 1814334 (Kan. 2020), provides 

guidance. There, the State contended that a 2017 amendment to K.S.A. 22-3716 applied 

retroactively to Coleman, who committed his underlying crimes several years before that

amendment took effect. But the 2017 amendment had no express retroactivity language. 

For that reason, the court held that the amendment applied prospectively and could not be 

applied to probationers like Coleman, who committed their crimes before it took effect.
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The court remanded the case for a new revocation hearing that applied the law in effect 

when Coleman committed his crimes. 2020 WL 1814334, at *2-4.

Although our case involves a different amendment to K.S.A. 22-3716, the 

Coleman holding applies with equal force. Like the provision in Coleman, the 2019 

amendment eliminating the 120- and 180-day prison sanctions has no express 

retroactivity language. So as in Coleman, it applies prospectively only to probationers 

who committed their underlying crimes after July 1, 2019. Because Ratliff committed his 

offense in November 2017, the 2017 probation-revocation statute applied. Under that 

version of the statute, the district court had to impose a 120- or 180-day prison sanction 

before revoking Ratliff's probation and imposing his underlying prison sentence. Thus, 

the district court's legal error in applying the wrong version of the statute constitutes an 

abuse of discretion requiring us to reverse its revocation of Ratliff's probation and remand 

for a new revocation hearing that applies the law in effect when Ratliff committed his 

crime in November 2017. 

We note that because more than 180 days have passed since the revocation 

hearing, Ratliff has already served more than the longest sanction that the court could 

impose under the 2017 statute.

Reversed and remanded with directions.