Opinion ID: 2369159
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Defense Challenge to Offense Severity Level

Text: As mentioned above, the parties disagreed at sentencing about the appropriate sentencing guidelines nondrug grid box to which Judge Dowd should be permitted to depart from a Jessica's Law hard 25. The State took the position that the appropriate box was that for an offender with a criminal history of I and an offense severity level 1. The defense took the position that the appropriate box was that for an offender with a criminal history of I and an offense severity level 3. Although Spencer did not file a prophylactic cross-appeal of Judge Dowd's ruling in favor of the State on this point, and he has not filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence, he now seeks to have the issue decided in his favor by invoking K.S.A. 21-4721(e)(3), which reads: In any appeal, the appellate court may review a claim that: . . . the sentencing court erred in ranking the crime severity level of the current crime. . . . The State did not file a reply brief, and we thus have no response from it regarding the authority of the court to decide this issue. In Gracey, 288 Kan. 252, 200 P.3d 1275 (2009), the appeal was the defendant's; he challenged the State's failure to allege his age of 18 or more in the complaint and the sentencing court's refusal to consider a dispositional departure after departing from a Jessica's Law hard 25. After deciding those issues, Justice Rosen then wrote: [T]he State contends that the district court imposed a sentence lower than the guidelines sentence and that the imposition of such a sentence was illegal. He then observed that such an allegation raised a question of law over which an appellate court's review was unlimited, and quoted from K.S.A. 22-3504(1), which allows a court to correct an illegal sentence at any time. Gracey, 288 Kan. at 260-61, 200 P.3d 1275. Gracey 's structure and content thus implicitly permit a party that did not take an appeal or file a motion to correct illegal sentence to mount a challenge to a sentence's illegality during the other party's appeal. Consistent with Gracey, this court has authority to entertain Spencer's challenge to Judge Dowd's use of an offense severity level 1. This has a certain practical allure as well. A ruling on the merits of this issue will provide guidance on remand to the judge who replaces Judge Dowd. Settlement of the parties' argument over which offense severity level governs an aggravated indecent liberties conviction after a departure from Jessica's Law requires statutory interpretation or construction, over which this court has de novo review. See State v. Arnett, 290 Kan. 41, 47, 223 P.3d 780 (2010). The fundamental rule governing our interpretation is that `the intent of the legislature governs if that intent can be ascertained. The legislature is presumed to have expressed its intent through the language of the statutory scheme it enacted.' State ex rel. Stovall v. Meneley, 271 Kan. 355, 378, 22 P.3d 124 (2001). For this reason, when the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous, courts `need not resort to statutory construction.' In re K.M.H., 285 Kan. 53, 79, 169 P.3d 1025 (2007). Instead, `[w]hen the language is plain and unambiguous an appellate court is bound to implement the expressed intent.' State v. Manbeck, 277 Kan. 224, Syl. ¶ 3, 83 P.3d 190 (2004). Where a statute's language is subject to multiple interpretations, however, a reviewing court `may look to the historical background of the enactment, the circumstances attending its passage, the purpose to be accomplished, and the effect the statute may have under the various constructions suggested. [Citation omitted.]' Robinett v. The Haskell Co., 270 Kan. 95, 100-01, 12 P.3d 411 (2000). Generally, courts should construe statutes to avoid unreasonable results and should presume that the legislature does not intend to enact useless or meaningless legislation. Hawley v. Kansas Dept. of Agriculture, 281 Kan. 603, 631, 132 P.3d 870 (2006). We ascertain the legislature's intent behind a particular statutory provision `from a general consideration of the entire act. Effect must be given, if possible, to the entire act and every part thereof. To this end, it is the duty of the court, as far as practicable, to reconcile the different provisions so as to make them consistent, harmonious, and sensible. [Citation omitted.]' In re Marriage of Ross, 245 Kan. 591, 594, 783 P.2d 331 (1989); see also State ex rel. Morrison v. Oshman Sporting Goods Co. Kansas, 275 Kan. 763, Syl. ¶ 2, 69 P.3d 1087 (2003). Thus, in cases that require statutory construction, `courts are not permitted to consider only a certain isolated part or parts of an act but are required to consider and construe together all parts thereof in pari materia. ' Kansas Commission on Civil Rights v. Howard, 218 Kan. 248, Syl. ¶ 2, 544 P.2d 791 (1975). Board of Sumner County Comm'rs v. Bremby, 286 Kan. 745, 754-55, 189 P.3d 494 (2008). On the merits, the defense cites only to Gracey, asserting that it held a departure from the hard 25 sentence of Jessica's Law to a severity level 3 under the sentencing guidelines not illegal. This is true; but the mirror image procedural posture of Gracey, i.e., the State challenging the legality of a severity level 3 assignment on the defendant's appeal rather than the defense challenging the legality of a severity level 1 assignment on the State's appeal, means that Gracey does not directly control the outcome here. A holding that a severity level 3-based sentence is not illegal is not the same thing as a holding that a severity level 1-based sentence is illegal. Moreover, the Gracey parties' disagreement was limited to whether the sentencing judge had used the appropriate criminal history classification, not the appropriate offense severity level, in choosing the applicable grid box under the guidelines. In other words, in Gracey we never were asked to examine or rule upon whether a departure from a hard 25 under Jessica's Law to a sentence pursuant to the sentencing guidelines act under K.S.A. 21-4643(d) necessarily meant a grid sentence and, if so, which offense severity level was appropriate for an aggravated indecent liberties conviction. The same has been true in several other Jessica's Law cases, where mention has been made of a departure from Jessica's Law to a grid sentence or a particular severity level, but no appellate ruling on the propriety of that course of action has been sought or pronounced. See State v. Stone, 291 Kan. 13, 17, 237 P.3d 1229 (2010) (mentions district judge departed from Jessica's Law to 61 months); State v. Oehlert, 290 Kan. 189, 190-91, 224 P.3d 561 (2010) (mentions district judge departed from Jessica's Law to 60 months); State v. Ballard, 289 Kan. 1000, 1003, 218 P.3d 432 (2009) (district judge had granted joint recommendation from Jessica's Law to severity level 3); State v. Seward, 289 Kan. 715, 716, 217 P.3d 443 (2009) (mentions defendant sought departure from Jessica's Law to grid); State v. Easterling, 289 Kan. 470, 471, 213 P.3d 418 (2009) (suggestion that Jessica's Law departure would go to 118 months); Gracey, 288 Kan. at 254, 200 P.3d 1275 (departure from Jessica's Law apparently to 3H before application of durational, dispositional departures); State v. Thomas, 288 Kan. 157, 158-59, 199 P.3d 1265 (2009) (departure from Jessica's Law would have led to 59 months under a severity level 3); State v. Frost, 2010 WL 1379112, at , unpublished opinion filed April 2, 2010 (S.Ct.) (defendant had received departure from Jessica's Law to 72 months). Unfortunately, Jessica's Law and the sentencing guidelines act to which it refers a district judge when he or she departs from the hard 25 under K.S.A. 21-4643(d) are nothing if not ambiguous. Indeed, they set up an endless feedback loop with no plain or obvious resolution. Taking the crime at issue in this case as an example, aggravated indecent liberties with a child is defined in K.S.A. 21-3504. Specifically, Spencer pleaded guilty to two charges under K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(3)(A). K.S.A. 21-3504(c) states: Except as provided further, aggravated indecent liberties with a child as described in subsection[] . . . (a)(3) is a severity level 3, person felony. . . . When the offender is 18 years of age or older, aggravated indecent liberties with a child as described in subsection (a)(3) is an off-grid person felony. Jessica's Law, in K.S.A. 21-4643(a)(1)(C), makes Spencer's crime punishable by life with no possibility of parole for 25 years. But, once the district judge decides to depart from the mandatory minimum provision, Jessica's Law's departure provision, K.S.A. 21-4643(d), states that a departure sentence shall be the sentence pursuant to the sentencing guidelines act, K.S.A. 21-4701 et seq . . . . and no sentence of a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment shall be imposed hereunder. The only sentencing guidelines act provision for aggravated indecent liberties and the other Jessica's Law crimes when the defendant is 18 or older and the victim is younger than 14 is K.S.A. 21-4706(d), which reads in pertinent part: [S]uch violations are off-grid crimes for the purposes of sentencing.. . . [T]he sentence shall be imprisonment for life pursuant to K.S.A. 21-4643, and amendments thereto. The feedback loop for departures from Jessica's Law is thus complete: Jessica's Law sends the district judge to the sentencing guidelines act, which sends the district judge to Jessica's Law, which sends the district court to the sentencing guidelines act, and so on. How should the loop be broken? The legislative intent that a defendant in Spencer's shoes generally be punished with, and incapacitated by, a lengthy prison term seems clear. The legislative history on this point emphasizes this impression. See House J. 2006, p. 1323 (Speaker of the House, Michael O'Neal's explanation of vote: I vote `YES' on HB 2576. Between protecting the rights of those committing crimes against children and protecting children from heinous acts, I'll err in favor of protecting children EVERY time. I'll leave it to others to fret over whether we are being too tough. I make no apology. This is about protecting children. I hope the message we send to the sick criminal minds out there works, but if not and they break our laws, I want to know where they'll be the rest of their lives and if it's an added prison bed, sign me up.) Yet the inclusion of a departure option to remove the mandatory minimum term is express. K.S.A. 21-4643. It is regrettable that similar drafting precision to define a Jessica's Law departure's effect on the underlying life sentence was not employed and that the legislative history is silent on the solution to the statutory circularity. Florida was the first state to pass Jessica's Law, and Kansas looked to Florida when it passed Jessica's Law here. Forty-three states have passed some form of Jessica's Law, and of those states, nine have sentencing grid schemes similar to Kansas. But the interpretations of Jessica's Law-type statutes in our sister states also does not help us. The primary difference between Kansas and our sister states is that none of those states with a similar sentencing scheme to Kansas statutorily permit the trial court to depart from the mandatory minimum sentences. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-14-103 (2009) (offender convicted of Jessica's Law-type offense sentenced to minimum 25-year term; no indeterminate sentences; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); Fla. Stat. §§ 794.011 (2010), 775.08 (2010), 921.0022 (2010) (mandatory 25-year minimum for dangerous sexual felony offenders, sexual battery of a child under the age of 12, and lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 12; statutory scheme assigns criminal severity ranking of 10 for Jessica's Law-type offenses; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); La.Rev.Stat. §§ 14:42, 14:43, 15:537(B) (2011) (mandatory life sentence or mandatory 20 years for Jessica's Law-type offenses with child under the age of 13 at hard labor without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.520b (2010) (mandatory 25-year term if victim under the age of 13 and offender is 17 years of age or older; assigns felony level of Class A; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); Minn.Stat. § 609.3455 (2010) (mandatory life sentence for egregious first-time and repeat offenders; guidelines presumptive sentence does not apply to offenders under § 609.3455; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory life sentence); S.C.Code Ann. § 16-3-655 (Law. Co-op 2010) (up to 30-year term for offender convicted of criminal sexual conduct in first degree when offender is over 18 and victim is under 11 years of age; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-13-522, 40-35-211 (2010) (rape of a child is a Class A felony; mandatory 25-year term; no indeterminate sentences; no statutory reference to departure from mandatory sentence); Wash. Rev.Code § 9.94A.507 (2011) (legislature limits court's authority to depart for Jessica's Law offenses; mandatory 25-year term or more). In the absence of other guidance, we turn to subsequent legislative action, a canon of statutory construction, and the assumptions underlying our earlier Jessica's Law cases, remembering Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' admonition that the life of the law is not logic, but experience. The subsequent legislative action with some instructive power is the 2008 amendment to K.S.A. 21-4719, which governs departures from grid sentences. See K.S.A. 2008 Supp. 21-4719(a). It qualifies as subsequent in this case because Spencer's crimes of conviction were committed in 2007. Subsection (a) of that statute was altered, effective July 1, 2008, to include language limiting durational and dispositional departures in those Jessica's Law cases involving crimes of extreme sexual violence, which includes rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, and aggravated indecent liberties perpetrated on children younger than 14. See K.S.A. 21-4716 (defining crime of extreme sexual violence). After amendment, 21-4719(a) reads in pertinent part: The sentencing judge shall not impose a downward dispositional departure sentence for any crime of extreme sexual violence. . . . The sentencing judge shall not impose a downward durational departure sentence for any crime of extreme sexual violence, . . . to less than 50 percent of the center of the range of the sentence for such crime. Because we presume that legislation happens for a reason and that amendments usually work a change in existing law, see Hawley v. Kansas Dept. of Agriculture, 281 Kan. 603, 631, 132 P.3d 870 (2006) (presumption against meaningless legislation), and Ft. Hays St. Univ. v. University Ch., Am. Ass'n of Univ. Profs., 290 Kan. 446, 464, 228 P.3d 403 (2010) (presumption that statutory amendment modifies prior law), it appears that the legislature believed the statutory scheme as it existed before the 2008 amendment permitted both durational and dispositional departures in Jessica's Law cases. If this were not the case, it would not have taken the trouble in 2008 to disallow dispositional departures altogether and limit the extent of durational departures. In addition, because it placed the amendment in the sentencing guidelines act provision on departures from grid sentences, it also implied that the place to which a sentencing judge went when he or she departed from the mandatory minimum of Jessica's Law was not only a sentence pursuant to the sentencing guidelines act,  but a sentence pursuant to a sentencing guidelines grid. Finally, the limit it enacted for durational departures plainly clearly uses the grid as a starting place, keying the maximum reduction in prison time to 50 percent of the middle number in the assigned grid box. We deduce from all of these after-acquired clues that the legislature always intended a sentencing judge who departed from the mandatory minimum of Jessica's Law under K.S.A. 21-4643(d) to go to the applicable grid box to determine the departure sentence. The statutory canon of construction known as the rule of lenity compels the answer to the next question: What is the applicable grid box? As referenced above, both the definitional statutes for Jessica's Law crimessee K.S.A. 21-3447 (aggravated trafficking); K.S.A. 21-3502 (rape); K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(3) (aggravated indecent liberties); K.S.A. 21-3506(a)(1) and (a)(2) (aggravated criminal sodomy); K.S.A. 21-3513 (promoting prostitution); K.S.A. 21-3516(a)(5) and (a)(6) (sexual exploitation)and K.S.A. 21-4706(d), for sentencing of such crimes, identify them as off-grid crimes. And a defendant convicted of a Jessica's Law crime who receives a departure from the mandatory minimum under K.S.A. 21-4643, remains convicted of an off-grid offense. See Ballard, 289 Kan. at 1012, 218 P.3d 432. Nevertheless, if the appropriate sentence for a defendant who receives a Jessica's Law departure must be found not only in the sentencing guidelines act but on a sentencing guidelines grid, the defendant must have an offense severity level assigned to the crime of conviction. See K.S.A. 21-4704(d) (grid box determined by intersection of offense severity level rating for the current crime and criminal history score). The State, as it did in this case, has been known to argue that every Jessica's Law case not sentenced to the mandatory minimum cannot go below a severity level 1 once it moves to the sentencing guidelines grid. The defense bar, on the other hand, has argued that every Jessica's Law case not sentenced to the mandatory minimum must be sentenced dependent on the severity level assigned to the crime when it lacks the element of disparity between the defendant's and the victim's ages, i.e., defendant 18 or older and victim younger than 14. There is precious little statutory language to vindicate either position, so we fall back on the rule of lenity, see State v. Horn, 288 Kan. 690, 693-94, 206 P.3d 526 (2009) (invoking rule of lenity to assign severity level to attempt of Jessica's Law offense), and accept the defense argument. A sentencing judge who departs from the mandatory minimum of Jessica's Law should look to the severity level assigned to the crime when it lacks the element of disparity between the defendant's and the victim's ages. In other words, the offense severity level for a violation of K.S.A. 21-3447 (aggravated trafficking), K.S.A. 21-3502 (rape), and K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(1) and (a)(2) (aggravated criminal sodomy) is 1; for a violation of K.S.A. 21-3504(a)(3)(A) (aggravated indecent liberties) is 3; for a violation of K.S.A. 21-3513 (promoting prostitution) is 6; and for a violation of K.S.A. 21-3516(a)(5) and (a)(6) (sexual exploitation of a child) is 5. Finally, experience. The holdings set forth above appear to be consistent with the patterns adopted by various district court judges in the Jessica's Law cases that have so far reached this court. See, e.g., Ballard, 289 Kan. at 1003, 218 P.3d 432; Gracey, 288 Kan. at 253, 200 P.3d 1275; Thomas, 288 Kan. at 159, 199 P.3d 1265. When departing from the mandatory minimum under K.S.A. 21-4643(d), these judges have gone to the grid at the severity level dictated by the crime-defining statute less the element of the defendant's and victim's age disparity. This is a situation, perhaps emblematic of common-law development as a whole, in which all of us are learning by doing. Certainly, if the legislature believes we have misconstrued its intention, it will waste no time in letting us know. We pause to make a closing point, an explicit correction of the label this court has previously used for departures from the mandatory minimum of Jessica's Law. Although several of our cases have referred to such a departure as a durational departure or a downward departure or a downward durational departuresee State v. Huerta-Alvarez, 291 Kan. 247, 251-52, 243 P.3d 326 (2010) (downward departure from Jessica's Law sought); State v. Garza, 290 Kan. 1021, 1023, 236 P.3d 501 (2010) (downward departure); State v. Gomez, 290 Kan. 858, 861, 235 P.3d 1203 (2010) (durational departure denied by district judge); State v. Plotner, 290 Kan. 774, 780-81, 235 P.3d 417 (2010) (two-step process for considering downward durational departure); State v. Reyna, 290 Kan. 666, 689-90, 234 P.3d 761 (2010) (no abuse of discretion in denying motion seeking durational departure); State v. Trevino, 290 Kan. 317, 318, 227 P.3d 951 (2010) (State agreed to recommend durational departure); State v. Oehlert, 290 Kan. 189, 190-91, 224 P.3d 561 (2010) (district judge granted defendant's downward durational departure); State v. Marler, 290 Kan. 119, 127, 223 P.3d 804 (2010) (no abuse of discretion to deny downward durational departure); State v. Robison, 290 Kan. 51, 56-57, 222 P.3d 500 (2010) (same); State v. Mondragon, 289 Kan. 1158, 1162, 220 P.3d 369 (2009) (same); Ballard, 289 Kan. at 1006, 218 P.3d 432 (jurisdiction to review downward durational departure); State v. Seward, 289 Kan. 715, 721-22, 217 P.3d 443 (2009) (no abuse of discretion to deny downward durational departure); State v. Gonzales, 289 Kan. 351, 356, 212 P.3d 215 (2009) (defendant sought downward durational departure); State v. Spotts, 288 Kan. 650, 655-56, 206 P.3d 510 (2009) (no abuse of discretion to deny downward durational departure); Gracey, 288 Kan. at 254, 200 P.3d 1275 (downward durational departure from low-end presumptive sentencing range for severity level 3, criminal history H nondrug felony); State v. Thomas, 288 Kan. 157, 164, 199 P.3d 1265 (2009) (no abuse of discretion to deny motion for downward durational departure); State v. Ortega-Cadelan, 287 Kan. 157, 164-66, 194 P.3d 1195 (2008) (defense argument for downward durational departure rejected); State v. Frost, 2010 WL 1379112, at  unpublished opinion filed April 2, 2010 (S.Ct.) (defendant received downward durational departure); State v. Gilliland, 2010 WL 1379182, at  unpublished opinion filed April 2, 2010 (S.Ct.) (motion for downward durational departure denied)these actually are confusing misnomers. The sentence under Jessica's Law is life imprisonment. It is true that a departure to the grid for a determinate sentence displays at least numerical indicia of release from prison before either the expiration of the defendant's natural life or the Parole Board's dispensation of grace. Yet it is best to refrain from calling a departure from the mandatory minimum of Jessica's Law to the sentencing guidelines grid a durational departure or a downward departure or, the alliterative trifecta, a downward durational departure. These terms are best reserved for the last of the three types of departures available from a Jessica's Law sentence, the one Judge Dowd did not try to grant Spencer, i.e., a departure from the grid box sentence dictated by the intersection of severity level and criminal history to a shorter determinate prison sentence. See Gracey, 288 Kan. at 253, 200 P.3d 1275 (after departure from mandatory 25 years to 3H, durational departure to 3I range; then dispositional departure considered); see also Ballard, 289 Kan. at 1008-09, 218 P.3d 432 (once sentenced on grid, judge free to depart). That option, like the two departures granted by Judge Dowd, also will be in play on remand in this case.