Court Opinion

ID: 9757863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:02:22.774713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:45.086083
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree with the majority’s ultimate decision to review the K.S.A. 60-455 evidentiary issue. However, given the majority’s extended discussion on the preservation of the issue, I want to confirm that I do not read the plain language of K.S.A. 60-404 as requiring a defendant to reassert his or her objection to the admission of specific evidence after the district court has unequivocally ruled that the particular evidence is admissible. See State v. Hollingsworth, 289 Kan. 1250, 1260-61, 221 P.3d 1122 (2009) (Johnson, J., dissenting). In other words, once the district court rules that certain evidence is admissible, K.S.A. 60-404 does not require the defendant to, in essence, move for a reconsideration of the court’s evidentiary ruling each and every time a witness refers to tire judicially admitted evidence. Such a requirement, if it exists, is judicially manufactured and, in my view, unsupportable.
The majority apparently justifies its serial objection requirement on the possibility that the evidence at trial will unfold differently than it did at the pretrial hearing. I submit that there is a much less draconian solution to that potentiality. An appellate court presented with a defendant’s challenge to the district court’s pretrial ruling allowing the admission of contested evidence where the defendant did not reassert an objection at trial could simply review the matter on the basis of the evidence presented at the pretrial hearing. In other words, the defendant must have reasserted his or her objection at trial and requested a reconsideration of the court’s pretrial ruling in order to get an appellate review based upon the evidence presented at trial. In that manner, the defendant gets an appellate review of the precise ruling that he or she asked the district court to make, and the district court cannot be overruled based upon evidence that the court did not consider in making its ruling. On the other hand, the defense is relieved of the hypertechnical requirement that it engage in acts of futility to preserve a challenge to a ruling that has been made explicitly clear to everyone involved with the case.
*443Moving on to the principal purpose for my separate writing, I am still firmly convinced that sentencing a person for a crime for which the person was neither charged by the State nor convicted by the jury is just plain wrong — constitutionally, statutorily, jurisdictionally, and morally wrong. Cf. State v. Reyna, 290 Kan. 666, 690-95, 234 P.3d 761, cert. denied 562 U.S. 1014 (2010) (Johnson, J., dissenting); State v. Garza, 290 Kan. 1021, 1036-37, 236 P.3d 501 (2010) (Johnson, J., dissenting).
Ironically, the majority makes the point that the constitutional and jurisdictional aspects are well-settled law. Quoting from State v. Gonzales, 289 Kan. 351, 366, 212 P.3d 215 (2009), the majority acknowledges that the state and federal constitutions require sufficient clarity in the charging document so that the accused is informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. The complaint in this case contained the elements which would constitute the severity level 3 version of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. See K.S.A. 21-3504(c). The majority points to that circumstance— i.e., where the complaint “otherwise specifically listed the elements of the crime” — as being sufficient to adequately inform the defendant that he was being charged with the off-grid Jessica’s Law version of the offense. I confess that I am confused by that logic. For instance, if a complaint contained the elements for second-degree intentional murder, I would not opine that it adequately informed the defendant that he or she could be sentenced for premeditated first-degree murder because, even though the complaint omitted the premeditation element, it otherwise specifically listed die elements of intentional murder. To the contrary, it is more misleading to a defendant where the elements fisted in the complaint constitute all of the elements of a lesser version of a crime, than where the fisted elements are incomplete to charge any crime. I would not find that the complaint in this case passed constitutional muster with respect to the off-grid version of the crime.
The Gonzales quote selected by the majority also recites that a complaint that fails to include an essential element of the crime charged is “ ‘fatally defective, and the trial court lacks jurisdiction to convict the defendant of the alleged offense.’ ” 289 Kan. at 366 *444(quoting State v. Moody, 282 Kan. 181, 197, 144 P.3d 612 [2006]). There is no question that the complaint in this case failed to include an essential element of the off-grid version of aggravated indecent liberties with a child — that the defendant was age 18 or older. Accordingly, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to convict Inkelaar of tire Jessica’s Law off-grid version of the crime. Given that the district court lacked jurisdiction; there is no basis for us to exercise jurisdiction and declare Inkelaar guilty of the uncharged crime. See State v. McCoin, 278 Kan. 465, Syl. ¶ 2, 101 P.3d 1204 (2004) (“If the district court’s order was entered without jurisdiction, then an appellate court does not acquire jurisdiction on appeal.”).
The majority notes that Inkelaar raises the charging document issue for the first time on appeal and, therefore, it employs the post-Hall analysis of essentially determining whether the defendant has been prejudiced by the defective complaint. I cannot square that approach with the rather fundamental principle that subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time, whether for the first time on appeal or even on the appellate court’s own motion. State v. Sales, 290 Kan. 130, 135, 224 P.3d 546 (2010). Moreover, a party’s failure to challenge a district court’s jurisdiction cannot create subject matter jurisdiction where it did not already exist. State v. Hoffman, 45 Kan. App. 2d 272, 275, 246 P.3d 992 (2011) (parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction by consent, waiver, or estoppel; a failure to object to the court’s jurisdiction does not invest the court with the requisite subject matter jurisdiction). Indeed, as the majority’s author very recently declared: “An appellate court has no authority to create equitable exceptions to jurisdictional requirements.” Board of Sedgwick County Comm’rs v. City of Park City, 293 Kan. 107, Syl. ¶ 3, 260 P.3d 387 (2011). Accordingly, we lack subject matter jurisdiction to engage in fact-finding to determine Inkelaar’s guilt as to the off-grid severity level of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.
Next, I would add that there is a statutory mandate, omitted from the majority’s analysis, which provides that “[u]pon prosecution for a crime, the defendant may be convicted of either the crime charged or a lesser included crime, but not both.” K.S.A. 21-*4453107(2). The statute does not permit the defendant to be convicted of a greater degree of the crime charged.
Finally, it simply offends ones innate notion of fair play to have a defendant charged with a specific crime, defend against that crime, and be convicted by the jury of that crime, but then allow the sentencing judge to impose the sentence for a crime of greater severity. If a person test-drove, selected, and took title to a subcompact automobile, we would not allow a judge to make an after-the-fact order requiring the purchaser to pay the dealership the sticker price on the most expensive luxury model on the lot. I see no difference here and I would not permit it to happen.