Title: State v. Ditges
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 113775
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: May 26, 2017

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 
 
No. 113,775 
 
STATE OF KANSAS, 
Appellee, 
 
v. 
 
GARY A. DITGES, 
Appellant. 
 
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 
 
1. 
 
Although a district court must liberally construe a pro se pleading to give effect to 
its content, rather than its label or form, a district court is relieved of any duty to convert 
a motion to correct an illegal sentence under K.S.A. 22-3504 into a motion under K.S.A. 
60-1507, where the movant asserts that he or she is only challenging the legality of the 
sentence and is not seeking to reverse the underlying conviction. 
 
2. 
 
A defendant claiming that the district court should have construed a K.S.A. 22-
3504(1) motion to correct an illegal sentence as an untimely filed K.S.A. 60-1507 motion 
has the burden of showing that the motion, files, and record clearly established the 
manifest injustice necessary to allow a K.S.A. 60-1507 to be filed out of time. The 
district court has no duty to eliminate any possibility of manifest injustice. 
 
Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; WARREN M. WILBERT, judge. Opinion filed May 26, 
2017. Affirmed. 
 
Kristen B. Patty, of Wichita, was on the brief for appellant.  
 
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Julie A. Koon, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, 
attorney general, were on the brief for appellee. 
 
The opinion of the court was delivered by 
 
JOHNSON, J.:  Gary A. Ditges, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree 
murder, appeals the Sedgwick County District Court's summary denial of his pro se 
K.S.A. 22-3504 motion to correct an illegal sentence, filed more than 13 years after he 
was sentenced. Ditges' motion claimed that his sentence is illegal because the district 
court failed to include a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included 
offense to first-degree murder, and, consequently, he should have been convicted and 
sentenced for voluntary manslaughter instead of second-degree murder.  
 
 
On appeal, Ditges changes the issue, claiming the district court should have 
construed his pro se pleading as being a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507. Then, the district 
court should have, sua sponte, divined all of the arguments that the movant should have 
made in order to allow the untimely 1507 motion to proceed to the merits, and then 
should have ruled for the movant on both the procedural issues and the merits. Ditges' 
appeal is unavailing on all levels. 
 
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL OVERVIEW 
 
 
The State charged Ditges with first-degree murder in the March 1999 stabbing 
death of his landlord, Janzen Nguyen. At the jury trial, a neighbor testified that, about the 
time Nguyen was last seen alive, the neighbor saw Nguyen enter Ditges' apartment and 
heard a loud argument about a deposit.  
 
Nevertheless, the defense requested that the district court give no lesser included 
offense instructions. The trial court, noting its independent duty to instruct on applicable 
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lesser included offenses, even over a defense objection, gave a lesser included offense 
instruction on intentional second-degree murder. But the court found that the evidence 
did not support an instruction on voluntary manslaughter. The jury convicted Ditges of 
the lesser crime of second-degree murder. 
 
Ditges' direct appeal did not claim any instructional error. This court affirmed his 
conviction and sentence on the issues raised in the direct appeal. State v. Ditges, No. 
86,204 (unpublished opinion filed July 11, 2003). Thereafter, Ditges did not file any 
motions for post-conviction relief until the current filing in March 2014.  
 
The motion presented in March 2014 was entitled "Motion to Correct an Illegal 
Sentence." It began:  "COMES NOW Gary A. Ditges, the defendant, pro se, and moves 
the Court to correct his illegal sentence pursuant to K.S.A. 22-3504 (2012)." The body of 
the motion claimed that the trial court should have instructed on all lesser included 
offenses which were made applicable by the trial evidence, including voluntary 
manslaughter. The motion then concluded that "the defendant's sentence should be set 
aside, his conviction of second degree murder (intentional) should be reversed and the 
case be set for new trial to include the lesser offense of Voluntary Manslaughter, K.S.A. 
21-3403." The motion was accompanied by a Memorandum of Law which recited that, 
pursuant to K.S.A. 22-3504(1), a court may correct an illegal sentence at any time. 
Neither the motion nor the memorandum contained any further discussion of the 
timeliness of the motion. 
 
The State filed a response to the motion, pointing out that, while a motion under 
K.S.A. 22-3504 could be entertained at any time, such a motion had limited applicability. 
Specifically, the State argued that a K.S.A. 22-3504 motion cannot be used to collaterally 
attack a conviction or to breathe new life into an abandoned issue. The district court 
summarily denied the motion by checking a box on a motion minutes sheet and 
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handwriting that the court adopted the State's response as its findings of fact and 
conclusions of law. 
 
Ditges filed a motion to reconsider, stating that his original motion had incorrectly 
stated that he was seeking a reversal of his conviction. Rather, he asserted that he was 
accepting responsibility for killing Nguyen, but that his sentence should be corrected to 
one that was applicable to a voluntary manslaughter conviction. The district court 
summarily denied the motion to reconsider via handwriting on a preprinted motion 
minutes sheet that again simply referred to the State's response as the court's findings of 
fact and conclusions of law. Ditges appealed directly to this court. 
 
MOVANT NOT ENTITLED TO POST-CONVICTION RELIEF 
 
Before the district court, Ditges insisted that he was challenging only his sentence. 
On appeal, Ditges claims that the district court erred in not liberally construing his 
motion as a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion challenging his conviction based upon the trial 
court's failure to instruct on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter. If 
Ditges can get to the merits of his instructional complaint, he is faced with a clearly 
erroneous standard, if not invited error. His motion cannot prevail on any level. 
 
Standard of Review 
 
 
Whether a district court correctly construed a pro se pleading is a question of law 
subject to de novo review. State v. Gilbert, 299 Kan. 797, 802, 326 P.3d 1060 (2014). A 
district court's summary denial of a K.S.A. 22-3504 motion to correct an illegal sentence 
is reviewed de novo. Gilbert, 299 Kan. at 801.  
 
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The omission of a legally and factually appropriate jury instruction is reversible as 
clearly erroneous only if the appellant carries his or her burden to firmly convince the 
appellate court that the jury would have reached a different verdict had the instruction 
error not occurred. State v. Williams, 295 Kan. 506, Syl. ¶ 5, 286 P.3d 195 (2012). 
 
Analysis 
 
 
As noted above, Ditges titled his pleading as a motion to correct an illegal 
sentence and he specifically referred to K.S.A. 22-3504, which governs the correction of 
an illegal sentence. Likewise, his memorandum pointed out that, although his motion was 
being filed many years after his direct appeal was final, K.S.A. 22-3504(1) specifically 
states that an illegal sentence may be corrected at any time. Given that K.S.A. 60-1507(f) 
requires that type of motion to be filed within 1 year of the direct appeal becoming final, 
unless extended to prevent manifest injustice, Ditges' use of K.S.A. 22-3504 would not 
appear to be accidental.  
 
Moreover, Ditges filed his appeal directly with this court, which is the proper 
court where the subject matter is a motion to correct an illegal sentence. See K.S.A. 2016 
Supp. 22-3601(b)(3). If his motion was construed as a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion, that 
statute directs the first appeal to be taken to the Court of Appeals. K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 60-
1507(d). 
 
Nevertheless, the content of Ditges' motion sought a reversal of his conviction for 
second-degree murder based on the trial court's failure to instruct on the lesser included 
offense of voluntary manslaughter. That is the type of relief available through a K.S.A. 
60-1507 motion, and we have held that "[j]udges must liberally construe a pro se 
pleading to 'giv[e] effect to the pleading's content rather than the labels and forms used to 
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articulate the defendant's arguments.' [State v. Kelly, 291 Kan. 563, 565, 244 P.3d 639 
(2010)]." Makthepharak v. State, 298 Kan. 573, 581, 314 P.3d 876 (2013).  
 
 
Arguably, then, the district court should have initially considered liberally 
construing Ditges' pro se motion as a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion, rather than automatically 
relying on the State's response. But Ditges' motion to reconsider refuted the content of his 
original motion and insisted that he was only challenging his sentence, not his conviction. 
Given that assertion, the district court was relieved of any duty to convert the pleading 
into something the movant did not want.  
 
Treating the motion as it was titled, the district court's ruling was correct. The 
failure to give a lesser included offense instruction, without more, does not render illegal 
a sentence that conforms to the statutory provisions for the crime of conviction. In other 
words, Ditges has not shown that there is anything illegal about the sentence he received 
for second-degree murder. He just wants to be sentenced for the lesser crime of voluntary 
manslaughter, i.e., he challenged the conviction, not the sentence.  
 
Even if we were to reject the notion that the motion to reconsider relieved the 
district court of its duty to consider the content of the pro se motion and construe it as a 
K.S.A. 60-1507 motion, any error would be harmless. Obviously, Ditges' motion was 
untimely under K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(1), and there is nothing in the record that would 
support a finding that, under K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(2), an extension of the time limit was 
necessary to prevent manifest injustice. 
 
Ditges complains that the district court did not address whether he had adequately 
alleged manifest injustice under K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(2). But we have the motion, files, and 
records available to us, and there is no allegation of manifest injustice to be found 
therein. It is Ditges' burden to establish that he is entitled to relief under K.S.A. 60-1507. 
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Supreme Court Rule 183(g) (2015 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 271). That burden includes 
establishing the manifest injustice that would entitle him to file the motion out of time. 
The district court does not have a duty to eliminate any possibility of manifest injustice.  
 
 
Even if Ditges had cleared the manifest injustice hurdle to get a hearing on the 
merits of his complaint, he would still have a considerable obstacle in front of him. At the 
very least, his objection to the giving of all lesser included offense instructions would 
have triggered the clearly erroneous requirement of K.S.A. 22-3414(3). Then, he would 
have had the burden of firmly convincing the appellate court that the giving of a 
voluntary manslaughter instruction would have changed the outcome of the trial. From 
the record before us, that result is highly questionable, at best. 
 
 
In short, switching statutory provisions for Ditges' motion for post-conviction 
relief does not save the day for him. K.S.A. 22-3504(1) is the wrong vehicle to challenge 
the alleged instruction error, but a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion is untimely. Further, Ditges' 
failure to request an instruction on voluntary manslaughter erected a nearly 
insurmountable obstacle to obtaining relief on the basis of its omission.  
 
Affirmed.