Adams v. State

• Decision Date: 31 October 2014
• Docket Number: 110,850.
• Citation: 337 P.3d 72 (Table)
• Parties: Kenneth ADAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Kansas, Appellee.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

337 P.3d 72 (Table)

Kenneth ADAMS, Appellant
v.
STATE of Kansas, Appellee.

110,850.

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

Oct. 31, 2014.
Review Denied July 24, 2015.

Sam S. Kepfield, of Hutchinson, for appellant.

Natalie Chalmers, assistant solicitor general, for appellee.

Before POWELL, P.J., LEBEN, J., and HEBERT, S.J.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM.

Kenneth Adams appeals the district court's denial of his habeas corpus motion. He argues that his trial counsel was ineffective and that, as a result, he was convicted of several drug-related crimes in violation of his constitutional rights. Specifically, he alleges that his counsel failed to go over a video of his roommate's arrest—which led to Adams' convictions—before a pretrial hearing, failed to introduce the video at trial, and failed to cross-examine witnesses about the video. Adams claims that the video proves that his roommate, Rachel Nelson, never implicated him as a drug user or manufacturer and that the police lied when they said that she did on their request for a search warrant. But the video wasn't a complete record of the State's communication with Nelson, and Nelson testified that she had told the police that Adams used and manufactured drugs. Because the video would not have exonerated Adams and was not otherwise relevant, his counsel's decision not to use the video was within the wide range of reasonable choices counsel may constitutionally make. The district court correctly held that Adams' counsel's performance was adequate and could not be the basis for habeas corpus relief. We therefore affirm the district court's judgment, which dismissed Adams' K.S.A. 60–1507 motion.

Factual and Procedural Background

In 2008. Adams was arrested after an investigation that began when police stopped Nelson for running a slop sign. The police believed that Nelson was intoxicated, and she later admitted to drinking alcohol and using methamphetamine. After her arrest, the police searched Nelson's car and found a list of supplies used to manufacture methamphetamine. Though she first stated that the manufacturing was done in another stale, she eventually admitted that some of the items from the list could be found at the house she shared with Adams in Kansas. Based on her statements, the police obtained a warrant to search the home where Nelson and Adams lived. At the home, the police discovered an operational meth lab. Accordingly, they arrested Adams and charged him with six drug-related crimes, including the possession and manufacture of methamphetamine.

Adams moved to suppress the evidence obtained by the search based on his belief that Nelson had not made any statements about the house when she was arrested and that the police had fabricated the statements that tied methamphetamine to his home. The police had videotaped Nelson's traffic stop and arrest, and Adams alleged that the video did not show Nelson making any statements that indicated he produced methamphetamine. But the video wasn't introduced at trial, and Nelson testified that she had told the police alter she had been arrested that she and Adams had used methamphetamine and that Adams had manufactured it.

A jury convicted Adams on all six charges, and he was given a controlling prison sentence of 148 months. He appealed both his sentence and conviction to this court, which affirmed the district court. See State v. Adams, 43 Kan.App.2d 842, 232 P.3d 347 (2010), aff'd in part, rev'd in part 294 Kan. 171, 273 P.3d 718 (2012). On further review before the Kansas Supreme Court, that court upheld Adams' conviction but found he had been sentenced erroneously. State v. Adams, 294 Kan. 171, 185–87, 273 P.3d 718 (2012). It remanded his case to the district court for resentencing, but the new sentence ultirnatcly entered did not change Adams' controlling prison term of 148 months. See 294 Kan. at 185–87.

In 2012, Adams filed a habeas claim under K.S.A. 60–1507, arguing that the State of Kansas was subjecting him to continuing manifest injustice because his trial counsel, Robert Slinkard, had been ineffective. Adams argued generally that Slinkard was ineffective because he didn't review certain evidence with him—namely, the video of Nelson's arrest—before his pretrial—motion hearing and didn't effectively cross-examine the State's witnesses.

The district court held an evidentiary hearing on Adams' motion, where Adams and Slinkard testified. Slinkard said that Adams claimed that the...