Opinion ID: 172410
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether McCormick is in custody under Garlotte

Text: In Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 64-65, 88 S.Ct. 1549, 20 L.Ed.2d 426 (1968), the Supreme Court held that when a habeas petitioner is in custody under consecutive state-court sentences, reviewing courts should treat those sentences as a continuous series. Thus, for federal habeas purposes, a prisoner serving the first of two consecutive sentences is considered in custody under the second sentence, as well. Id. Garlotte extended Peyton 's holding to state prisoners seek[ing] to attack a conviction that ran first in a consecutive series, a sentence already served. Garlotte, 515 U.S. at 41, 115 S.Ct. 1948 (emphasis added). Reviewing courts do not disaggregate [the consecutive] sentences, but comprehend them as composing a continuous stream. Id. Provided that invalidation of the conviction underlying the already-served sentence would advance the date of [the prisoner's] eligibility for release from present incarceration, a habeas petitioner serving the latter of two or more consecutive sentences remains `in custody' under all of his sentences until all are served, and ... may attack the conviction underlying the sentence scheduled to run first in the series. Id. at 41, 43, 47, 115 S.Ct. 1948. McCormick posits that under Kansas law, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-4608(c), his 2004 sentence necessarily ran consecutively to his 2001 sentence, so that he remains in custody, pursuant to Garlotte, for the purpose of challenging his 2001 convictions. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that Garlotte is inapplicable here.
The Kansas statute provides, in pertinent part, that [a]ny person who is convicted and sentenced for a crime committed while on probation, ... on parole, on conditional release or on postrelease supervision for a felony shall serve the sentence consecutively to the term or terms under which the person was on probation,... or on parole or conditional release. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-4608(c). Kansas law further provides that a convicted defendant who is released on bond pending review of the sentence is considered to be on conditional release. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-4721(b). The Kansas Supreme Court has interpreted § 21-4608(c) to mandate that when a defendant commits a crime while he is serving a suspended sentence for an earlier felony, his sentence for the later crime must run consecutively with the sentence imposed on the prior conviction upon revocation of suspension.  State v. Kerley, 236 Kan. 863, 696 P.2d 975, 977 (1985) (citing State v. Ashley, 236 Kan. 551, 693 P.2d 1168 (1985)) (emphasis added). [2] In other words, § 21-4608(c) requires not that the sentence for the later conviction be served consecutively to the term of probation, parole, or conditional release, but rather that the later sentence be served consecutively to the sentence imposed or reinstated after a court has revoked probation, parole, or conditional release. [3]
As applied to McCormick's case, § 21-4608(c) thus mandated that because McCormick committed the crimes underlying his 2004 convictions during the conditional stay of his suspended sentence for his 2001 felony marijuana conviction, [4] his 2004 sentence was required to be run consecutively with the sentence imposed on the prior conviction upon revocation of suspension,  Kerley, 696 P.2d at 977 (emphasis added). However, McCormick has not alleged  and nothing in the record indicates  that Kansas ever actually revoked the suspension of his 2001 prison sentence for the felony marijuana conviction and imposed or reimposed upon him either his underlying prison term of eleven months or any other sentence. As a result, § 21-4608(c) did not apply to McCormick's 2004 sentencing, because there was no reimposed sentence for his 2001 conviction to which the 2004 sentence could be attached for consecutive service. Accordingly, the Journal Entry for the 2004 convictions left blank the space in which the court records all Prior Case(s) to Which the Current Sentence is to Run concurrent or Consecutive. (Journal Entry at 3.) While it is true that under Kansas law, a criminal sentence is effective when pronounced from the bench, rather than when the journal entry of sentencing is filed, and that a journal entry which imposes a sentence at variance with that pronounced from the bench is erroneous and must be corrected to reflect the actual sentence imposed, State v. Scaife, 286 Kan. 614, 186 P.3d 755, 764 (2008) (quotation omitted), the transcript of McCormick's 2004 sentencing proceeding contains no mention of any sentence to which the 2004 sentence was to run consecutively. Both as pronounced from the bench and as recorded in the Journal Entry, McCormick's 2004 sentence thus did not run consecutively to any prior sentence. Based on the February 16, 2003, crimes, it is certainly possible that Kansas erred by not exercising its discretion, pursuant to Kan. Stat. Ann. § 22-3716(b), to revoke McCormick's suspended sentence on the 2001 convictions and require him to serve his underlying eleven-month prison term or some other reinstated sentence. It is similarly possible that the state court erred when it did not check the appropriate boxes on the Journal Entry form to indicate that the crimes underlying McCormick's 2004 convictions were committed while he was either on Probation, Parole, etc., for a Felony or on Felony Bond. (Journal Entry at 2.) Even if Kansas did commit such errors under state law, however  and even if such errors, if corrected, would have meant that § 21-4608(c) did apply to McCormick's 2004 sentencing  it is simply not our province to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions, Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991). Such an inquiry... is no part of a federal court's habeas review of a state conviction ..., [because] `federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law.' Id. at 67 (quoting Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 780, 110 S.Ct. 3092, 111 L.Ed.2d 606 (1990)); see also Thomas v. Gibson, 218 F.3d 1213, 1222 (10th Cir.2000) ([Section] 2254 exists to correct violations of the United States Constitution, not errors of state law.); Miller v. Crouse, 346 F.2d 301, 304 (10th Cir.1965) ([T]he writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a substitute for an appeal[,] and alleged errors in a state court proceeding in exercise of jurisdiction over a case properly before it cannot be reviewed by federal habeas corpus unless there has been a deprivation of constitutional rights such as to render a judgment void or to amount to a denial of due process.). McCormick did not challenge in state court his 2004 sentencing proceedings, nor the Journal Entry that recorded the outcome of those proceedings. [5] He may not now use his § 2254 petition as a substitute for an appeal, Miller, 346 F.2d at 304, in the Kansas courts. We conclude that McCormick is not in custody under the rule of Garlotte.