Opinion ID: 2369159
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Existence of Substantial and Compelling Reasons for Departure from Jessica's Law

Text: The parties agree that the standard of review governing this issue is abuse of discretion, which is consistent with the synthesis above. Again, the State did not make this argument before the district court. It had agreed, in exchange for Spencer's guilty pleas, to stand silent at sentencing. Again, because Spencer has not objected, we address the merits. The parties first contest a threshold question of law, i.e., the significance, if any, of the seven mitigating circumstances not included in the State's original proposal for the journal entry. These seven mitigating circumstances were listed in the defense objection to the journal entry, which Judge Dowd attempted to endorse explicitly and add to the record supporting his decision by way of the hearing on the objection and, apparently, his signatures on both an order drafted by the defense and the State's journal entry. The transcript of sentencing includes the judge's mention of the three factors originally listed by the State, i.e., Spencer's age, his lack of a criminal record, and the support of his family and friends, and a factor listed under K.S.A. 21-4716(c)(1)(E), i.e., [t]he degree of harm or loss attributed to the current crime of conviction was significantly less than typical for such an offense. The court's comments at the time of sentencing, not the written journal entry, govern as to the reasons for departure. State v. Murphy, 270 Kan. 804, 806, 19 P.3d 80 (2001) (citing State v. Jackson, 262 Kan. 119, 135, 936 P.2d 761 [1997]). In addition, Jessica's Law explicitly requires the downward departure factors upon which a judge relies to be articulated by the judge on the record at the time of sentencing. K.S.A. 21-4643(d). The defense cites Blackmon to support Judge Dowd's ability to supplement the record by way of the hearing to settle the journal entry and his dueling signatures. Blackmon permitted a remand so that a sentencing court could clarify its reasoning, rejected on appeal, to justify a downward departure. See Blackmon, 285 Kan. at 730-32, 176 P.3d 160. The opinion included the following language: This analysis raises the question of whether upon remand it is appropriate for the sentencing court to clarify the reasons for departure or whether the initial failure dooms Blackmon's departure motion. Kansas precedent shows that remand for clarification of departure reasons has been allowed with respect to upward departures. . . . . . . . We can discern no reason why the same policy would not apply to downward departures. Consequently, when a sentencing court fails to state substantial and compelling reasons for a downward departure from a presumptive sentence on the record at an initial sentencing hearing and as a result the sentence is vacated on appeal, upon remand the sentencing court may cite appropriate reasons justifying the imposition of a downward departure sentence and may impose such a sentence subject to the usual review process. In the case at hand, the limited record available on appeal indicates the sentencing court may have had additional reasons for departure but did not clearly state those reasons on the record at the sentencing hearing. Consequently, rather than reverse the sentence as did the Court of Appeals panel, the appropriate remedy is to vacate the sentence. On remand, if the sentencing court determines there are reasons for departure other than the court's disagreement with the jury's determination that the State established an element of the crime of conviction, the sentencing court may impose a departure sentence, which then would be subject to appeal under K.S.A. 21-4721. Blackmon, 285 Kan. at 730-32 [176 P.3d 160]. In short, this court must decide whether Spencer could receive the essence of the same benefit bestowed on the defendant in Blackmon a second bite at the departure justification apple. On the surface, it seems at least as fair here, from a procedural perspective, to allow some post-sentencing supplementation of Judge Dowd's reasoning, because Spencer lodged an objection in the district court to what he viewed as omissions from the State's proposed journal entry. This was the case, even though he had received everything he could have hoped for in terms of leniency. But a close review of the timing of events reveals that Spencer's objection probably was not merely an altruistic move to complete the court's file. The sentencing was held on June 27, 2008, and the State filed its notice of appeal of the departure sentence immediately. It served its proposed journal entry a few days later, and Spencer did not file his objection until July 29, 2008. The hearing to settle the journal entry was held September 10, 2008, and the order filed the same day. The original proposed journal entry also was signed by the judge on September 10 and filed on September 12, 2008. The State filed a motion to docket its appeal out of time on September 15, 2008, and the motion was granted and the docketing statement filed on September 29, 2008, finally depriving the district court of jurisdiction. In other words, long before Spencer filed his objection with his list of not 3 or 4 but 10 substantial reasons the judge (mostly silently) harbored for granting the two departures, Spencer knew that those reasons would be scrutinized by the Court of Appeals or by this court. For that matter, it is highly likely Judge Dowd also was aware of the filing of the State's appeal. We hold that the aspect of the Blackmon ruling on which Spencer now seeks to rely should be limited to like situations, i.e., those in which a Jessica's Law sentence has been vacated by an appellate court and the case remanded for resentencing. See Blackmon, 285 Kan. at 730-32, 176 P.3d 160. Blackmon was not a case in which the content of the record may have been manipulated. It also cannot excuse the express Jessica's Law requirement that departure factors be stated by the judge on the record at sentencing. We therefore limit our evaluation at this time of whether the mitigators cited in arriving at Spencer's departure from Jessica's Law are substantial and compelling to the four factors Judge Dowd originally referenced at sentencing. Under the standard of review synthesis outlined above, we review these mitigating factors to determine whether Judge Dowd abused his discretion in deciding that they constituted substantial and compelling reasons to depart from Jessica's Law. The State does not question whether the record on appeal contains substantial competent evidence to support these mitigators. Age of defendant. The State makes a compelling argument that Judge Dowd's reference to Spencer's age of 76 had nothing to do with Spencer's judgment or lack thereof at the time of the crimes, which is the traditional significance of an age mitigator. See Murphy, 270 Kan. at 807, 19 P.3d 80; Favela, 259 Kan. at 235, 911 P.2d 792. The statute expressly states that it is the age of the defendant at the time of the crime that matters. See K.S.A. 21-4643(d)(6). But Judge Dowd appears to have considered Spencer's age as significant only because of the likelihood that a Jessica's Law hard 25 would actually mean life behind bars. In essence, the State argues that the length of a sentence in relation to the defendant's probable lifespan cannot be a substantial and compelling reason for departure in this case. The defense offers little in the way of counterargument, pointing out only that the age of the defendant is a listed mitigator in the statute. We hold that the State is correct on this mitigator. No reasonable person would rely on the age of the defendant in the way Judge Dowd did as a substantial and compelling reason to grant a departure from Jessica's Law in this case. Lack of criminal record. The State concedes that this is a listed mitigating factor under Jessica's Law, but it nevertheless argues that it was insufficient on its own to constitute a substantial and compelling reason for Spencer's departure from Jessica's Law. It mentions, in particular, that Spencer's sexual abuse of his granddaughter had continued for years by the time the allegations came to light. Again, the defense makes little response, except to emphasize that the absence of a prior record is a statutory mitigator. Despite the lack of a criminal record being a listed Jessica's Law mitigator, the State makes an accurate and sensible assessment of this factor. The only evidence before the court, which would not include the several family members who disbelieved Spencer's confession, was that Spencer had engaged in lewd fondling of his granddaughter for years. No reasonable person would regard the fact that he had never been caught and prosecuted before as a substantial and compelling reason to grant him a departure from Jessica's Law. Support of Family and Friends. The State attempts to undercut the repeated praise of Spencer by (almost exclusively) family members by emphasizing that these persons also expressed disbelief in his guilt. The State takes the aggressive position that such disbelief would actually be harmful, making Spencer likely to reoffend while on probation. The defense response to this argument is to regurgitate those parts of support statements that do not assert Spencer's innocence. Although we agree with the State that the protestations of Spencer's innocence have a tendency to weaken the support statements in the sentencing transcript and in the letters reviewed by Judge Dowd, as do repeated, desperate references to the need for someone to care for Spencer's wife, our abuse of discretion standard limits our exercise of skepticism. Even though the record makes clear that such support was not the uniform response of Spencer's family, including at least one of his young victims, we reluctantly concede that a reasonable person could decide that the support of family and friends was a substantial and compelling reason to grant Spencer's departure from Jessica's Law. Degree of Harm. On this factor, the State argues that this should not be a permissible mitigator under Jessica's Law, given legislative testimony about the lifelong consequences from sexual victimization of children. (The State evidently fails to grasp that this is a legal argument, rather than an abuse of discretion argument.) It also argues that Judge Dowd failed to acknowledge anything beyond the great-granddaughter's mother's statement that no one talks about the crimes, while the record also included the other victim's personal statement that she still suffers from the trauma caused by her grandfather's abuse. The defense brief overstates its record support, asserting that the parents of the victims, i.e., plural, said that the victims were not hurt by Spencer's actions. This factor again favors the State, even if one ignores its legal argument and concentrates only on its argument regarding Judge Dowd's incomplete review or comprehension of the victim impact statements under the forgiving abuse of discretion standard of review. No reasonable person would extrapolate from one victim's mother's lukewarm statement that the crimes are never discussed and thus her daughter is back to her old self to a degree of harm . . . significantly less than typical for such an offense. K.S.A. 21-4716(c)(1)(E). There was a second victim, at a similar vulnerable age to the first victim, who had the misfortune of living with the defendant and therefore being handy for repeated molestation. Judge Dowd did not account for the harm done to her. Conclusion. We have previously said that [a]s long as one factor relied upon by the sentencing court is substantial and compelling, the departure sentence should be upheld, State v. Blackmon, 285 Kan. 719, 725, 176 P.3d 160 (2008), and that each mitigating factor standing alone need not be sufficient to justify a departure, if the reasons taken collectively constitute a substantial and compelling basis for departure, see Blackmon, 285 Kan. at 724-25, 176 P.3d 160; State v. Minor, 268 Kan. 292, 311, 997 P.2d 648 (2000). Here, the collective does nothing to strengthen the only individual factor of support of family and friends. Moreover, to the extent support of Spencer's family and friends can reasonably be characterized as a substantial and compelling reason to depart, the record on appeal demonstrates that it is far from an unalloyed good. A significant faction of Spencer's family, including the victim most affected by his crimes, wanted him in prison. Although an abuse of discretion standard is always difficult for any appellant to meet, Judge Dowd's overall performance at this sentencing was inadequate. He disregarded undisputed evidence. He failed to conduct an appropriate weighing of competing information. His belated, defense-scripted effort to improve upon his performance only served to emphasize its original deficiencies. We therefore hold, under the circumstances of this case, that Judge Dowd abused his discretion in granting the departure from Jessica's Law. As a result, Spencer's sentences must be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing. A different judge will conduct the resentencing, as Judge Dowd is now retired.