State v. Coleman, No. 120,246

• Decision Date: 11 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. 120,246
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Curtis L. COLEMAN Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

472 P.3d 85

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Curtis L. COLEMAN Jr., Appellant.

No. 120,246

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Opinion filed September 11, 2020.

Curtis L. Coleman Jr., appellant pro se, was on the briefs.

Lois Malin, assistant district attorney, Mark A. Dupree Sr., district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by Ward, J.:

Curtis L. Coleman Jr. takes this appeal from the district court's decision summarily denying his postsentence motion to modify sentence. Determining that no legal avenue exists for the relief requested by Coleman, we affirm the district court's denial of Coleman's motion.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

Trial, Sentencing, and Direct Appeals

On March 11, 1999, a jury convicted Coleman of premeditated first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault for crimes he committed in October 1998 at age 15. Prior to trial, he was certified for adult prosecution. On May 14, 1999, the district court sentenced Coleman to a hard 40 life sentence on the murder charge pursuant to K.S.A. 21-4635. The court added 13 additional months in prison for the aggravated assault charges.

Coleman appealed to this court challenging the constitutionality of the adult certification statute as well as the constitutionality of his hard 40 life sentence. He also asserted that the district court committed instructional error and that the prosecutor made improper statements in final argument. And he argued that the district court improperly considered several nonstatutory aggravating factors when imposing the hard 40 life sentence.

In State v. Coleman , 271 Kan. 733, 26 P.3d 613 (2001) ( Coleman I ), this court upheld the convictions and rejected his several constitutional challenges. But we found that the district court erred in sentencing him to a hard 40 life sentence by considering two aggravating factors not found in the statute, namely the victim's age and the victim's state of mind between the time of her injury and the time of her death. The case was remanded for resentencing on the murder charge.

On September 14, 2001, Coleman was again sentenced to a hard 40 life term for first-degree murder, a sentence later affirmed in State v. Coleman , No. 88,159, 2003 WL 21664787 (Kan. 2003) (unpublished opinion) ( Coleman II ). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Coleman v. Kansas , 540 U.S. 994, 124 S. Ct. 494, 157 L. Ed. 2d 393 (2003).

Current Motion

On January 5, 2018, over 14 years after his direct appeals were finalized, Coleman filed a pro se motion seeking to have his hard 40 life sentence modified "to require no mandatory term of imprisonment." His motion cited Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 133 S. Ct. 2151, 186 L. Ed. 2d 314 (2013), and State v. Soto , 299 Kan. 102, 322 P.3d 334 (2014), in support of the contention that his sentence violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because the trial judge and not a jury made the factual findings necessary for sentence enhancement. He asserted that K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6628(c) was the statutory mechanism by which his constitutionally defective sentence could be remedied. The State filed a response to Coleman's motion and Coleman filed a reply.

On August 15, 2018, the district judge (the same district judge who sentenced Coleman 17 years earlier) filed a memorandum decision summarily denying Coleman's motion and request for hearing. The judge briefly noted the history of Coleman's trial, sentencing, and direct appeals, as well as a motion Coleman had earlier filed pursuant to K.S.A. 60-1507. Without addressing the applicability of K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6628(c), the district judge ruled that Coleman's reliance on Alleyne was misplaced, noting that the rule of law announced in Alleyne "cannot be applied retroactively to cases that were final when that case was decided as in the defendant's underlying case."

Coleman appeals the district court's denial of his motion. Because he received a life sentence for the first-degree murder charge, the jurisdiction of this court is proper under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 22-3601(b)(3)-(4).

ANALYSIS

Standard of Review

In his petition for review, Coleman contends the district court misconstrued his motion for sentence modification and, in doing so, committed a "manifest error of both fact and law ... thereby constituting an abuse of discretion." He cites State v. Santos-Vega , 299 Kan. 11, 321 P.3d 1 (2014), in support of an abuse of discretion standard of review. He also cites State v. Burnett , 297 Kan. 447, 301 P.3d 698 (2013), for the proposition that jurisdictional and statutory interpretation issues are questions of law over which an appellate court's scope of review is unlimited.

The State compares Coleman's motion for sentence modification to a motion to correct illegal sentence pursuant to K.S.A. 22-3504, asserting that when the district court summarily denies a motion to correct illegal sentence a reviewing court applies a de novo standard of review, citing, State v. Gray , 303 Kan. 1011, 1013-1014, 368 P.3d 1113 (2016). The State also characterizes this appeal as one involving statutory interpretation, namely K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6628(c), a question of law over which the appellate courts have unlimited review, citing, State v. Collins , 303 Kan. 472, 473-74, 362 P.3d 1098 (2015).

We conclude this appeal involves constitutional issues as well as questions of statutory interpretation. Constitutional claims are questions of law subject to de novo review. State v. Engelhardt , 280 Kan. 113, 138, 119 P.3d 1148 (2005). Interpretation of a statute is a question of law over which appellate courts likewise have unlimited review. State v. Bryant , 310 Kan. 920, 921, 453 P.3d 279 (2019).

Sentence Enhancement Based on Judicial Fact-finding

When Coleman was resentenced in 2001 following remand by this court, the district court found the existence of one or more aggravating factors by a preponderance of the evidence and imposed a hard 40 life sentence. The finding of these aggravating factors was not submitted to a jury for consideration.

Coleman argued in his direct appeal that his Sixth Amendment jury trial right had been violated per Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 476-77, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000), in which the United States Supreme Court held: "Taken together, these rights [to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury] indisputably entitle a criminal defendant to ‘a jury determination that [he] is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.’ " That Court added: "Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348.

The Coleman I court rejected his Sixth Amendment argument. Coleman I , 271 Kan. at 741, 26 P.3d 613. The issue had already been considered and resolved. In State v. Conley , 270 Kan. 18, Syl. ¶ 3, 11 P.3d 1147 (2000), the court held:

"Imposition of the K.S.A. 21-4638 hard 40 sentence based on a fact not found by the jury does not increase a defendant's maximum sentence of imprisonment for life imposed under K.S.A. 21-4706(c). The hard 40 sentence limits the lower end of the sentence. Defendant's hard 40 sentence violates neither the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, nor his right to trial by jury under the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution or § 5 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights."

The Conley court acknowledged Apprendi 's Sixth Amendment ruling but found that McMillan v. Pennsylvania , 477 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 2411, 91 L. Ed. 2d 67 (1986), controlled the issue rather than Apprendi . Conley , 270 Kan. at 34, 11 P.3d 1147. In McMillan, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania statute under which the sentencing court was required to impose a mandatory minimum sentence of five years if it found by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant visibly possessed a firearm during commission of the underlying crime. The McMillan Court concluded that the firearm possession finding was a sentencing factor to be determined by the court rather than an element of the underlying crime which the State must prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. 477 U.S. at 85-93, 106 S.Ct. 2411.

Two years after Conley , the United States Supreme Court decided Harris v. United States , 536 U.S. 545, 122 S. Ct. 2406, 153 L. Ed. 2d 524 (2002). That decision upheld a federal sentencing scheme which provided for increased mandatory minimum sentences based on a district court's finding that the defendant possessed, brandished, or discharged a firearm during commission of the underlying offense. Relying on McMillan and seeking to reconcile Apprendi , the Harris Court characterized the firearm finding as a judicial sentencing factor rather than an element of the underlying crime. 536 U.S. at 557, 564-565, 122 S.Ct. 2406. However, the same year the United States Supreme Court decided Harris it relied on Apprendi to hold that Arizona's capital sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because it permitted a judge and not a jury to find and balance aggravating versus mitigating circumstances in determining a sentence of death. Ring v. Arizona , 536 U.S. 584, 122 S. Ct. 2428, 153 L. Ed. 2d 556 (2002).

A decade later the landscape on this issue shifted when the United States Supreme Court decided Alleyne, 570 U.S. 99, 133 S.Ct. 2151. The Alleyne Court looked again at the federal sentencing scheme it had previously reviewed in Harris . It held that because the sentencing court's finding of an aggravating factor produces a higher range of penalty, it

"conclusively indicates that the fact is an element of a distinct and aggravated crime. It must, therefore, be submitted to the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Because there is no basis in principle or

...