Court Opinion

ID: 9564480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:01:33.968494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:27.402902
License: Public Domain

Allegrucci, J.,
dissenting: I agree with the majority on the issues raised by the defendant except as to Syl. ¶ 7 and the corresponding portion of the opinion.
K.S.A. 1994 Supp. 22-2902(1) states: “Every person arrested on a warrant charging a felony or served with a summons charging a felony shall have a right to a preliminary examination before a magistrate, unless such warrant has been issued as a result of an indictment by a grand jury.” Clearly, unless waived, the defendant has a right to a preliminary hearing. A preliminary hearing is jurisdictional, and, absent a preliminary hearing or waiver, the district court does not have jurisdiction to proceed with a felony criminal prosecution in the district court.
In State v. Boyd, 214 Conn. 132, 141, 570 A.2d 1125 (1990), a very similar fact situation was before the Connecticut Supreme Court. The court concluded:
“[W]e hold that Wilson’s statement was inadmissible on evidentiary grounds. Therefore, the trial court erred in admitting the statement at the defendant’s probable cause hearing. Thus, since Wilson’s statement was the only evidence offered by the state at the probable cause hearing that effectively implicated the defendant in Ann Viner’s murder, and since our decision in State v. McPhail, [213 Conn. 161, 170, 567 A.2d 812 (1989),] states that ‘insufficiency of the evidence presented at the probable cause hearing will deprive the trial court of jurisdiction over the person of the defendant,’ the defendant’s subsequent prosecution and conviction is rendered moot.”
*1071I agree that where harmless error occurs at the preliminar}''hearing, the district court has jurisdiction to proceed with the arraignment and trial. However, error is harmless if, absent the error, tire magistrate could have found from the evidence that it appeared a felony had been committed and there was probable cause to believe the defendant committed it. Under Syl. ¶ 7 of the majority opinion, I cannot conceive of any error that would not be harmless. The majority, in effect, renders the defendant’s right to a preliminary hearing under K.S.A. 1994 Supp. 22-2902 meaningless. The State could simply file the information directly in the district court and proceed with arraignment and trial. In such a case, the prejudice to a defendant would be no greater than in the present case. Here, the majority states that the evidence, absent the hearsay statement of Greer, “does not establish the required substantial factual basis from which a reasonable person could infer that Anthony and Butler were coconspirators or that Butler was involved in the crime. Therefore, the district court erred in admitting the hearsay statements at the preliminary hearing under the coconspirator exception.” Absent that statement, there was no evidence presented at the preliminary hearing to support the finding by the magistrate judge that there was probable cause the defendant committed the crime as charged in the complaint.
In Boyd, the majority stated:
“The dissent asserts that remanding this case for a new trial, after no error was found in the defendant’s first trial, is ‘a flagrant waste of judicial, resources and imposes a wholly unnecessary hardship on the family of the victim in being required to undergo the trauma of a second trial.’ We agree that, just like all cases that are remanded for a new trial following a finding of harmful error, another trial in this case will be traumatic. Nonetheless, we do not believe that this consideration warrants the abandonment of protecting constitutional principles. As Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court stated in his dissent in Guardians Assn. v. Civil Service Commission, 463 U.S. 582, 626, 103 S. Ct. 3221, 77 L. Ed. 2d 866 (1983), ‘a right without an effective remedy has little meaning.’ ” 214 Conn, at 141 n.ll.
In the present case, I ask the majority, what is the meaning of the right to a preliminary hearing if there is .no remedy? The defendant filed a timely motion challenging the sufficiency of the preliminary hearing, which the majority finds has merit. Yet, the majority sim*1072ply says the error is harmless because it did not cause prejudice at trial. If insufficient evidence to establish probable cause at a preliminary hearing is not prejudicial to the defendant, then what is?
I cannot accept the majority’s denying the defendant a right to a preliminary hearing, and I would set aside the defendant’s convictions and remand for further proceedings.
Holmes, C.J., joins the foregoing dissenting opinion.