Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Water District No. 1 (WaterOne) of Johnson County filed an eminent domain petition seeking to condemn ten tracts of land. WaterOne pleaded that its interests would be “‘[s]ubject to existing easements of record.’” The district court granted the petition. D.P. and Wanda Bonham and their trust (collectively, the Bonhams) owned an easement in one of the ten condemned tracts. The Bonhams appealed the condemnation award and moved to void the district court’s order, asserting that WaterOne took their easement without complying with the Eminent Domain Procedure Act (EDPA) as to their easement. The district court denied the Bonhams’ motion to void, concluding that WaterOne did not condemn the Bonhams’ easement. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court correctly determined that WaterOne’s petition contained no statutory defects; and (2) the Bonhams failed to establish an error in the journal entry. View "Water Dist. No. 1 of Johnson County v. Prairie Ctr. Dev., LLC" on Justia Law

On February 11, 2016, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the holding of the three-judge district court panel that found changes made to the State's K-12 funding system through enactment of the Classroom Learning Assuring Student Success Act of 2015 (CLASS) violated the equity component of Article 6, section 6(b) of the Kansas Constitution. Specifically, the Court determined the operation of capital outlay state aid and local option budget (LOB) supplemental general state aid, as formulated under CLASS, still allowed inequitable distribution of funding among school districts that it had held unconstitutional in "Gannon v. State," (319 P.3d 1196 (2014) (Gannon I)). This case required the Supreme Court to determine whether the State met its burden to show that recent legislation brought the State's K-12 public school funding system into compliance with Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution. After review, the Court held that it had not: (1) H.B. 2655 cured the capital outlay inequities affirmed to exist in "Gannon II;" (2) H.B. 2655, which included a hold harmless and extraordinary need provisions, failed to cure the LOB inequities affirmed to exist in Gannon II; and (3) the unconstitutional LOB funding mechanism was not severable from CLASS, thus making CLASS unconstitutional. View "Gannon v. Kansas" on Justia Law

In 2011, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant for a methamphetamine laboratory in Gregory Rosa's home in Leavenworth County. The house had four long-term residents. Rosa and Maureen Evans were in a relationship at the time and lived together in the upstairs master bedroom where they were found during the raid. Randall Smith lived in a bedroom on the main floor. Smith was found hiding behind a water heater in the basement. Joshua Sigler also lived in the house but was not present during the raid. Brian Brice and O'rian Heckman were also in the house in a separate bedroom during the raid. Neither lived at the house, but both would sometimes "crash there." Rosa owned the home and paid the utilities. Smith, Sigler, and Evans did not lease their rooms or otherwise pay rent. The State prosecuted Rosa on the theory that he possessed the methamphetamine found in his house. The State intended to prove its case by demonstrating that Rosa owned and exercised general control over all areas in the house and that he knew methamphetamine was in the house. Rosa did not deny he owned the premises or that the drugs were found there. Rosa challenged his conviction for possession of methamphetamine on three grounds: (1) the evidence was insufficient; (2) evidence of his prior drug use was improperly admitted; and (3) prosecutorial misconduct. The Kansas Supreme Court found no reversible error and affirmed Rosa's conviction. View "Kansas v. Rosa" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Tyrone Walker of first-degree premeditated murder for the killing of Janis Sanders. Sanders was discovered in the overgrown grass behind a vacant home apparently strangled to death; her personal effect were discovered in a nearby dumpster. The State presented DNA evidence from three different samples taken from the victim's body. The jury also heard about a prior strangulation homicide committed by Walker. Walker appealed, attacking instructional errors and alleging his sentence was unconstitutional. The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Walker's conviction and sentence and held: (1) any error by the district court in failing to provide a lesser included instruction was harmless; (2) the State did not err during closing argument; (3) while the district court should have suppressed Walker's statements from the interrogation after he invoked his right to remain silent, the error was harmless; (4) cumulative error did not deny Walker a fair trial; and (5) Walker's hard 50 sentence was not unconstitutional. View "Kansas v. Walker" on Justia Law

Defendant Anson Bernhardt appealed his conviction for premeditated first-degree murder. Bernhardt raised three issues on appeal, arguing the district judge erred by: (1) adding language to a pattern jury instruction defining premeditation; (2) giving two separate jury instructions on intentional second-degree murder and reckless second-degree murder instead of a single instruction covering both theories; and (3) failing to instruct on voluntary manslaughter. He also claimed the cumulative effect of these errors deprived him a fair trial. Defendant further contended the district judge erred by applying the 2013 amendments to Kansas' hard 50 sentencing scheme retroactively, and he challenged the aggravating circumstances ultimately relied upon to support imposition of his hard 50 sentence. After review, the Kansas Supreme Court held there was no error and affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence. View "Kansas v. Bernhardt" on Justia Law

Ebony Nguyen appealed the district court's denial of her motion for a downward durational departure of her life sentence for felony murder. Nguyen unwittingly received counterfeit money from Jordan Turner in exchange for her marijuana. Upon discovering the deception and with the assistance of three others, Nguyen retaliated by luring Turner to a secluded location where he was shot and killed. With kidnapping serving as the underlying felony, Nguyen pled no contest to one count of felony murder. The Kansas Supreme Court found that because the district court had no discretion to depart, it rejected Nguyen's arguments and affirmed. View "Kansas v. Nguyen" on Justia Law

After a bench trial, Defendant was found guilty of possession with marijuana with the intent to distribute. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence resulting from a search of a house where he was staying. The search was conducted pursuant to an anticipatory search warrant which purported to give law enforcement authority to search the house once a suspicious package was successfully delivered to a resident of the house. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the district court did not err in finding that the search warrant was supported by probable cause and that Defendant’s retrieval of the package from the front porch while under police surveillance was sufficient to trigger execution of the search warrant. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) there was a substantial basis for the district court judge’s determination that probable cause supported a search warrant of the home; (2) the event triggering execution of the search warrant - a controlled delivery of the package to a resident of the home - occurred in this case; and (3) the police acted appropriately when they entered the house pursuant to the search warrant. View "State v. Mullen" on Justia Law

In 2003, Plaintiff pled guilty to one count of indecent liberties with a minor. Plaintiff successfully completed his probation in 2006. At the time of his conviction, the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) required Plaintiff to register for a period of ten years from the date of his conviction. Before Plaintiff was scheduled to complete his reporting requirements, Plaintiff was notified that his period of registration had been extended from ten years to twenty-five years under the amendments to KORA that were to become effective in 2011. Plaintiff filed a petition for declaratory judgment seeking a judicial determination that the retroactive application of the 2011 KORA amendments violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. The district court granted Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in concluding that the KORA amendments could not be retroactively applied to Plaintiff without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause. View "Doe v. Thompson" on Justia Law

In 2001, Appellant pled no contest to one count of indecent solicitation of a child fourteen to fifteen years old. Appellant was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but the district court suspended the sentence and placed Appellant on probation. The district court also ordered Appellant to register as a sex offender. Under the 2001 version of the Kansas Offender Registration Act (KORA) Appellant’s registration term would have expired after ten years. Under the 2011 KORA amendments, Appellant’s crime of conviction required registration for twenty-five years. In 2012, the State charged Appellant with three counts of violating KORA for failing to report in person on three dates outside the original ten-year registration period. Appellant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the charges against him violated the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. The district court granted Appellant’s motion to dismiss on ex post facto grounds. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant’s ten-year registration period could not be retroactively increased to twenty-five years and that, without a statutory duty to report, Appellant could not be prosecuted for failing to report. View "State v. Redmond" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with various firearm and drug-related crimes. Defendant filed numerous motions to suppress the evidence obtained during a search of a residence and a vehicle parked in the driveway. The district court granted Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence found in the vehicle on the grounds that it was not within the scope of the search warrant. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the search warrant for the “premises” authorized the search of vehicles within the curtilage of the home. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the search of the vehicle was authorized by the warrant, and therefore, the incriminating evidence located in the vehicle was lawfully discovered. View "State v. Patterson" on Justia Law