Opinion ID: 2574845
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Stipulate

Text: On appeal, Miller does not argue that the testimony from K.M. or the detective on the 1980 crimes was not relevant to the issue facing the jury. Rather, he challenges the district judge's decision allowing the State to use this particular method  live testimony from a victim and law enforcement  to prove its case. Miller characterizes this method as unduly prejudicial and cumulative of Donahue's relatively dispassionate evidence of his criminal history, including the 1980 case. On appeal, we review both a district court's assessment of undue prejudice and its decision on whether evidence should be excluded as cumulative for abuse of discretion. See State v. Vasquez, 287 Kan. 40, 50, 194 P.3d 563 (2008) (prejudice); State v. Green, 274 Kan. 145, 147, 48 P.3d 1276 (2002) (cumulative nature). Discretion is abused when no reasonable person would decide an issue in the same way. See State v. Reed, 282 Kan. 272, 280, 144 P.3d 677 (2006). Our Court of Appeals rejected Miller's argument that the district judge was compelled to accept Miller's stipulation to the 1980 offenses, relying on two decisions from the Texas Court of Appeals. See In re Care & Treatment of Miller, 39 Kan.App.2d 905, 186 P.3d 201 (2008) (citing In re Adams, 122 S.W.3d 451, 453 [Tex.App. 2003] [court may admit sex offender's prison disciplinary records, copies of previous conviction records despite offender's stipulation]); In re Commitment of Petersimes, 122 S.W.3d 370, 373 (Tex.App.2003) (court may admit copies of sex offender's indictments, judgments of prior offenses despite offender's stipulation). The Texas cases can be distinguished from the particular situation before us because neither involved the admission of live testimony on a subject of a stipulation. They stand for the broader proposition that a respondent's stipulation does not necessarily cut off the State's alternative proof options, but the documentary evidence at issue in the two Texas commitment proceedings obviously had far less potential to inflame a jury than the testimony Miller now challenges. Miller asserts that the United States Supreme Court decision in Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997), governs. There, the government charged defendant Johnny Lynn Old Chief, a felon, with criminal possession of a firearm. Defendant offered to stipulate to his prior felony conviction of assault, but the government refused and provided other evidence of Old Chief's prior conviction during trial. Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 175-77, 117 S.Ct. 644. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding: [A] district court abuses its discretion if it spurns [a defendant's] offer [to stipulate to a prior judgment] and admits the full record of a prior judgment, when the name or nature of the prior offense raises the risk of a verdict tainted by improper considerations, and when the purpose of the evidence is solely to prove the element of prior conviction. Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 174, 192, 117 S.Ct. 644. This court analyzed Old Chief in State v. Lee, 266 Kan. 804, 815, 977 P.2d 263 (1999), a case with similar facts, and held: When requested by a defendant in a criminal possession of a firearm case, the district court must approve a stipulation whereby the parties acknowledge that the defendant is ... a prior convicted felon. Lee, 266 Kan. at 815, 977 P.2d 263. This court, however, warned that [its] views should not be read as limiting the State in presenting a full in-depth story of a prior crime when the prior crime has relevance independent of merely proving prior felony status. Lee, 266 Kan. at 816, 977 P.2d 263. This court went further in In re Care and Treatment of Crane, 269 Kan. 578, 592, 7 P.3d 285 (2000) vacated on other grounds 534 U.S. 407, 122 S.Ct. 867, 151 L.Ed.2d 856 (2002), holding that Lee (and implicitly Old Chief ) did not apply to sexually violent predator commitment proceedings. There, the State refused to stipulate to respondent Michael Crane's convictions, instead calling a number of witnesses who testified about past instances of Crane's sexual behavior. 269 Kan. at 590, 7 P.3d 285. Most of these behavior witnesses, however, testified about incidents other than the aggravated sexual battery that was the basis for the conviction the jury was required to find. Crane 269 Kan. at 590, 7 P.3d 285. This court, distinguishing Lee, held: [E]vidence of prior conduct was material to the question of likelihood that the respondent would engage in repeat conduct as well as to the element of conviction of prior conduct. Crane, 269 Kan. at 592, 7 P.3d 285; see also Detention of Turay, 139 Wash.2d 379, 400-02, 986 P.2d 790 (1999) ( Old Chief not applicable to sexually violent predator commitment proceedings; district court may allow testimony from victim of sexual offense despite respondent's offer to stipulate to conviction). Thus we hold that the district judge did not abuse his discretion in denying Miller's motion to stipulate to his 1980 conviction. The evidence was neither unduly prejudicial nor cumulative.