Court Opinion

ID: 9887131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 17:09:04.610809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:49:33.521839
License: Public Domain

Beier, J., concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority today and in most of its expressed rationale.
I write separately only to distance myself from its statements that how a district judge labels or characterizes evidence or the fact it has been admitted to prove is of no moment. Such statements are, at best, overbroad, and at worst, wrong. They are also unnecessary to reach the correct outcome and promise more, rather than less, confusion in the district courts.
The words a district judge uses to describe what he or she is deciding and why matter. Indeed, they are often all an appellate court has to go on when determining whether the judge adhered to the law. Appellate judges do not sit to determine what a lower court judge must have meant to say. They sit to determine what he or she did say and whether the words used demonstrate an error under the applicable standard of appellate review.
Because I see no abuse of discretion in what the district judge did say here-with or without the majority's criticism and clarification of State v. Jolly , 301 Kan. 313, 342 P.3d 935 (2015) -I agree that the Court of Appeals decision must be reversed and the district court judgment affirmed.
Nuss, C.J., and Johnson, J., join the foregoing concurring opinion.