Court Opinion

ID: 9925374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-19 16:05:11.888899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:06.112163
License: Public Domain

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

                                             No. 125,635

              IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

                                         STATE OF KANSAS,
                                             Appellee,

                                                   v.

                                  JOSEPH RANDALL GARRISON,
                                          Appellant.

                                  MEMORANDUM OPINION

       Appeal from Leavenworth District Court; GERALD R. KUCKELMAN, judge. Submitted without
oral argument. Opinion filed January 19, 2024. Affirmed.

       Jennifer C. Roth, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.

       Natalie Chalmers, assistant solicitor general, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee.

Before ARNOLD-BURGER, C.J., ATCHESON, J., and TIMOTHY G. LAHEY, S.J.

       ARNOLD-BURGER, C.J.: Once a district court pronounces a legal sentence, it
generally loses jurisdiction to modify that sentence except to correct mathematical or
clerical errors. State v. Johnson, 309 Kan. 992, 996, 441 P.3d 1036 (2019). Costs are not
considered to be part of a defendant's sentence. State v. Phillips, 289 Kan. 28, 34-35, 210
P.3d 93 (2009). Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) fees are court costs under K.S.A.
28-176(a)(1). Because KBI fees are not part of the sentence, we find the district court did
not lack jurisdiction when it imposed a KBI fee at Joseph Randall Garrison's
resentencing that it had rejected at his original sentencing hearing.

                                                   1
                          FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

       Garrison pleaded guilty to attempted possession of methamphetamine as part of a
plea agreement. The district court accepted Garrison's plea and eventually sentenced him
to 34 months in prison.

       At sentencing, the district court initially ordered Garrison to pay a $400 KBI lab
fee. Defense counsel said he did not believe there was a lab fee. The district court
believed the PSI report showed a lab fee but said if there was not a lab fee then it should
not be assessed. The prosecutor informed the district court that it did not look like they
"ha[d] a lab result back on this one." Based on this statement, the district court concluded
that the KBI lab fee would not be imposed.

       Less than a month after sentencing, and before any journal entry or notice of
appeal was filed, Garrison moved to correct an illegal sentence. He noted that he was
sentenced for possession of methamphetamine when his crime of conviction was
attempted possession of methamphetamine. Under K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 21-5301(d)(1),
"[a]n attempt to commit a felony which prescribes a sentence on the drug grid shall
reduce the prison term prescribed in the drug grid block for an underlying or completed
crime by six months." Accordingly, he argued, his sentence should have been reduced by
six months. The State agreed that Garrison's sentence should be reduced.

       The district court granted Garrison's motion and the case proceeded to
resentencing. The district court reduced Garrison's sentence pursuant to K.S.A. 2021
Supp. 21-5301(d)(1), resulting in a 28-month prison sentence.

       Relevant to this appeal, the $400 KBI lab fee was also discussed. Defense counsel
stated that he did not believe there was a KBI fee in the case and that it should not be
imposed. The prosecutor disagreed that there was no KBI fee and stated that she had the

                                              2
KBI lab reports. The prosecutor indicated that she had showed the report to defense
counsel, and she believed he agreed regarding the fee. Defense counsel stated his
agreement by responding, "Yeah." Defense counsel then stated that he did not receive the
lab report before the original sentencing, so he thought there was not one. The district
court assessed the $400 KBI lab fee and filed a journal entry reflecting the same. See
K.S.A. 28-176(a).

       Garrison appealed.

                                          ANALYSIS

       The sole issue on appeal is whether the district court had jurisdiction to impose the
KBI lab fee after it had elected not to do so at the initial sentencing.

       Whether jurisdiction exists is a question of law, subject to unlimited appellate
review. State v. Hillard, 315 Kan. 732, 775, 511 P.3d 883 (2022). 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. Clark, 313 Kan. 556, 560, 486 P.3d 591 (2021).

       Generally, the district court retains jurisdiction over a case until an appeal is
docketed with the appellate court. State v. Thurber, 313 Kan. 1002, 1006, 492 P.3d 1185
(2021). The district court's jurisdiction is limited after sentencing, because once the
district court pronounced a legal sentence, it generally loses jurisdiction to modify that
sentence except to correct mathematical or clerical errors. State v. Johnson, 309 Kan.
992, 996, 441 P.3d 1036 (2019).

       Although a person's legal sentence cannot be modified after sentencing, costs are
not considered to be part of a defendant's sentence. Phillips, 289 Kan. at 34-35
(explaining that costs are not punitive and therefore are not a part of the sentence

                                               3
imposed in a criminal case). KBI fees are one of the court costs that can be imposed on a
defendant under K.S.A. 28-176(a). In fact, K.S.A. 28-176(a) requires a fee be assessed by
the court anytime laboratory services are provided as part of the investigation in the case.
The court can only lessen or waive such fees if the defendant is indigent, and the court
makes such a finding on the record. K.S.A. 28-176(c). So to the extent laboratory
services were provided by the KBI, it would have been error for the district court not to
access the related fees.

       Moreover, Kansas appellate courts have previously held that costs can be assessed
after sentencing. For example, in Phillips, 289 Kan. 28, the district court ordered the
defendant to pay a docket fee, booking fee, and a Board of Indigents' Defense Services
(BIDS) application fee. The district court did not announce the imposition of these costs
at sentencing. Rather, the district court merely included them in the journal entry of
judgment. The Kansas Supreme Court found that this practice did not violate the rules
requiring a district court to announce a defendant's sentence in open court. 289 Kan. at
40. While the court said that while "announc[ing]the imposition of costs at the sentencing
hearing . . . is a preferred practice . . . the failure to do so will not void an order to pay
costs." 289 Kan. at 45. The court also found that this practice did not violate K.S.A. 22-
3803—the statute governing taxation of costs in a criminal case. That statute provides
that costs "'shall'" be taxed "'[a]t the conclusion of each criminal case.'" 289 Kan. at 40
(quoting K.S.A. 22-3803); see also State v. Dean, 12 Kan. App. 2d 321, 325, 743 P.2d 98
(1987) (approving extradition costs imposed four months after sentencing). We have no
trouble finding that the district court had jurisdiction to impose lab fees at the second
sentencing hearing.

       Garrison's brief also includes a single sentence in which he asserts that the district
court erred in imposing the lab fee "because there was no evidence of 'laboratory services'
having been provided by the KBI. See K.S.A. 28-176(a)." To the extent Garrison is
challenging the factual basis supporting the fee or the existence of a lab report, he did not

                                                4
preserve this issue. Garrison did not object to the KBI lab fee on these grounds at his
resentencing hearing. In fact, the brief exchange suggests that defense counsel agreed that
the fee should be imposed. So Garrison is raising this issue for the first time on appeal.
Generally, issues not raised before the district court cannot be raised on appeal. There are
several exceptions to this rule, but Supreme Court Rule 6.02(a)(5) (2023 Kan. S. Ct. R. at
36) requires an appellant to explain why this court should consider an issue for the first
time on appeal. State v. Williams, 298 Kan. 1075, 1085, 319 P.3d 528 (2014). Garrison
makes no such argument here.

       For these reasons, we affirm the district court's order assessing $400 in KBI lab
fees in this case.

       Affirmed.

                                            ***

       ATCHESON, J., concurring: For his only issue on appeal, Defendant Joseph
Garrison submits the Leavenworth County District Court improperly ordered him to pay
a statutorily mandated laboratory fee when the district court declined to impose the fee
during his sentencing hearing but included it in the journal entry of judgment after
discussing the matter with the prosecutor and his lawyer during a later proceeding. This
court has held the laboratory fee—to be assessed against defendants convicted of
specified crimes under K.S.A. 28-176 when the State's investigation requires laboratory
or forensic services—is an administrative court cost rather than a punitive sanction. State
v. Likins, 21 Kan. App. 2d 420, 434, 903 P.2d 764 (1995); State v. Robinson, No. 122,251,
2022 WL 17172086, at *3 (Kan. App. 2022) (unpublished opinion). The Kansas Supreme
Court, in turn, has held that a district court need not address, let alone order, the payment
of statutory costs during a sentencing hearing and may simply include them in the journal
entry of judgment. State v. Phillips, 289 Kan. 28, 34-35, 40, 210 P.3d 93 (2009)

                                              5
(explaining that costs are not punitive and, therefore, are not part of sentence imposed in
criminal case).

       Accordingly, a district court has no obligation to "pronounce" payment of the
standard statutory laboratory fee of $400 during a sentencing hearing and may simply list
the fee, among other mandated costs, in the journal entry. See Phillips, 289 Kan. at 40;
Robinson, 2022 WL 17172086, at *3 (affirming imposition of $400 laboratory fee,
among other costs, included in journal entry of judgment even though district court did
not mention fee at sentencing). That's what effectively happened here. So Garrison's point
is without merit, and the district court's order should be affirmed on that basis. I,
therefore, concur in the result the majority reaches, but I find its path to that conclusion
unnecessarily rocky.

       As part of an agreement with the State, Garrison pleaded guilty to one count of
attempted possession of methamphetamine. The State dismissed several other charges. At
the sentencing hearing in mid-August 2021, the district court ordered Garrison to serve
34 months in prison on the mistaken assumption that was the presumptive mid-level
sentence under the guidelines. The district court denied Garrison's request for a
dispositional departure to probation. During the hearing, the district court asked the
prosecutor and Garrison's lawyer about the statutory laboratory fee. The lawyers told the
district court they had not seen a lab report and inferred no testing had been done, so no
fee should be imposed. The district court, therefore, did not orally order Garrison to pay
the $400 fee.

       On September 7, 2021, Garrison filed a motion to correct the sentence as illegally
imposed because convictions for attempted drug felonies carry presumptive sentences six
months shorter than for the completed crimes. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 21-5301(d)(1). The
record reflects that a journal entry of judgment had not yet been entered. At a hearing on
the motion about a week later, the State agreed that the 34-month sentence was illegal.

                                               6
The district court granted Garrison's motion, ordered that a corrected presentence
investigation report be prepared, and continued the matter for what it termed
resentencing.

       At the "resentencing" hearing on September 15, 2021, the district court again
considered and rejected Garrison's motion for a dispositional departure and then imposed
a lawful guidelines sentence of 28 months in prison. The district court also raised the
issue of the statutory laboratory fee. The prosecutor informed the district court a lab
report had been received, so Garrison should be ordered to pay the fee. After conferring
with the prosecutor, Garrison's lawyer agreed there was a lab report and did not object to
the fee being assessed. The district court ordered Garrison to pay that fee and other court
costs and waived reimbursement of the attorney fees for his appointed lawyer.

       A journal entry of judgment that included the $400 laboratory fee was filed on
September 27, 2021. For some reason, a second journal entry of judgment, also including
the $400 laboratory fee and captioned as a journal entry nunc pro tunc, was filed on
September 23, 2022. Just why the second journal entry was prepared and filed has no
bearing on this appeal.

       Garrison offers a two-fold pitch as to why the district court erred in ordering him
to pay the $400 laboratory fee. First, Garrison identifies the well-settled rule that when
the district court pronounces a lawful sentence from the bench, that sentence cannot later
be changed. State v. Hall, 298 Kan. 978, 983, 319 P.3d 506 (2014); State v. Deck, No.
123,807, 2022 WL 983628, at *6 (Kan. App. 2022) (unpublished opinion), aff'd on other
grounds 317 Kan. 101, 525 P.3d 329 (2023). As I have indicated, Garrison would then
have us apply the rule to the imposition of the laboratory fee. But that aspect of
Garrison's argument is plainly foreclosed by Phillips and Likins.

                                              7
       For his second line of attack, Garrison says the district court should not have
orally ordered the laboratory fee in handling his motion to correct the illegal sentence
originally imposed on him for attempted possession of methamphetamine. In this respect,
Garrison has a point. But it ultimately doesn't get him very far. If a district court grants a
motion to correct an illegal sentence, it then has the authority (and, indeed, the duty) to
impose a proper sentence. But that is the extent of its authority. See State v. Guder, 293
Kan. 763, 767, 267 P.3d 751 (2012) (when sentence on one conviction is vacated as
illegal, district court on remand has no authority to modify lawful sentences already
imposed on other convictions). So granting Garrison's motion did not occasion a new
sentencing hearing to reconsider and again rule on anything and everything that typically
would be disposed of during such a hearing. (The term "sentencing hearing" is shorthand
for the proceeding following conviction in which the district court imposes punishment
on a defendant. But the district court typically also addresses and resolves various
nonpunitive matters, including the imposition of court costs, such as the laboratory fee,
and reimbursement of attorney fees for appointed counsel.)

       The district court, therefore, likely erred in orally ordering Garrison to pay the
laboratory fee in conjunction with correcting his sentence. And the majority has likely
strayed in endorsing the notion that a full "resentencing" necessarily follows when the
district court grants a motion to correct an illegal sentence. The remedy presumably
should be confined to correcting the illegality. By the same token, however, the district
court was free to discuss the matter of the laboratory fee with the lawyers while they were
present to argue the motion and at the continued hearing where the district court imposed
a corrected sentence.

       Because no journal entry of judgment had yet been entered, the district court
properly included the laboratory fee, along with other costs, in the journal entry of
judgment filed just after the hearing. The district court plainly had the authority under
Phillips and Likins to include the fee in the journal entry whether or not the fee had been

                                               8
orally ordered during any earlier hearing. The chronology of the various hearings
followed by the filing of the journal entry of judgment including the laboratory fee
undermines Garrison's argument for relief.

                                             9