Opinion ID: 2369159
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Permissible Actions on Remand

Text: We must also discuss the appropriate scope of the new sentencing judge's authority on remand. This question appears to have been decided by Blackmon, although Blackmon was not a Jessica's Law case. See Blackmon, 285 Kan. at 730-32, 176 P.3d 160. Under that case, if a Jessica's Law sentence is vacated and a remand ordered for resentencing, the judge may re-evaluate the factors bearing on sentencing, including adding to them, and re-grant or deny a departure from Jessica's Law and a dispositional departure from the default guidelines sentence to probation, as well as a durational departure. This vacate-and-remand situation matches that before us in Blackmon; as discussed above, the situation in which Judge Dowd found himself between Spencer's sentencing and the hearing on the motion regarding the journal entry did not.