State v. Harris

• Citation: 467 P.3d 504
• Decision Date: 17 July 2020
• Docket Number: No. 116,515,116,515
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Christopher M. HARRIS, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Kansas

467 P.3d 504

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Christopher M. HARRIS, Appellant.

No. 116,515

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Opinion filed July 17, 2020

Kasper C. Schirer, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause, and Kimberly Streit Vogelsberg and Clayton J. Perkins, of the same office, were on the briefs for appellant.

Matt J. Maloney, assistant district attorney, argued the cause, and Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with him on the briefs for appellee.

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

In Kansas, it is a crime for a convicted felon to possess a knife. At first blush, the statute appears straightforward. But the statute defines a knife as "a dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, straight-edged razor or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character." K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304. And figuring out when an object is a "knife" because it is a "dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character" is not as easy as one might suppose. See, e.g., Crocodile Dundee (Rimfire Films 1986) ("That's not a knife ... That's a knife."). Indeed, no one has argued the statute makes it illegal for convicted felons to possess the utensil commonly used in kitchens to butter bread or slice vegetables. But does it? After all, it is a cutting instrument, is universally referred to as a knife, and it could conceivably be dangerous. Today we are tasked with deciding whether the uncertainty in the residual phrase in K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 is so great that the law is impermissibly and unconstitutionally vague. We conclude it is.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Christopher M. Harris is a convicted felon. When he and another man got into an altercation on a Wichita street, Harris pulled out a pocketknife. A police cruiser was in the area and the officer turned his spotlight onto the men. The officer observed Harris dropping an object which turned out to be the pocketknife.

The State charged Harris with aggravated assault, criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and criminal use of a weapon. At his jury trial, Harris testified he felt in fear of his life and opened the knife only for protection. The pocketknife had a 3 and 1/2-inch blade with serrations. A jury convicted Harris of criminal possession of a weapon and acquitted him of the other two charges.

Before trial, however, Harris had vigorously defended against the possession charge by claiming first that the law was unconstitutionally vague and second that he was entitled to a mistake of law defense. See K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-5207(b)(4) ("A person's reasonable belief that such person's conduct does not constitute a crime is a defense if ... such person acts in reliance upon an official interpretation of the statute, regulation or order defining the crime made by a public officer or agency legally authorized to interpret such statute.").

Harris first moved to dismiss the possession charge on constitutional grounds. He argued the statutory definition of a knife was unconstitutionally vague both in general and when applied to his case because it did not include a pocketknife as a prohibited weapon. The district court denied the motion, ruling Harris lacked standing because the knife at issue clearly fell within the residual clause of the statute prohibiting the possession of "any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character." See State v. Brown , 305 Kan. 674, 698, 387 P.3d 835 (2017) (noting a defendant lacks standing to challenge a statute as unconstitutionally vague when the defendant's act clearly falls within the statute).

Next, Harris sought approval to introduce evidence that the State of Kansas—through Harris' parole officer Alexis Olave—had told him that the pocketknife was not a prohibited knife. Harris proffered evidence that before the incident, Olave had advised Harris that he could carry the precise knife at issue, and he relied on that advice. Harris also provided a letter he had received from Olave after the incident in which she told him, "[Y]ou are allowed to have a pocket knife less than 4 inches in length while on post release. However, if the pocket knife is used in a threatening manner, then it can be viewed as a violation or as a crime."

The State filed a motion in limine to exclude this evidence. Ultimately, the State relied on the purely legal argument that parole officers are not legally authorized to interpret any statutes and so anything Olave may have said was legally irrelevant to a potential mistake of law defense under K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-5207(b)(4). Adopting the State's position, the district court granted the motion and excluded Olave's statements because they were not "an official interpretation of the statute."

Harris moved to reconsider. Along with the evidence already proffered, he submitted the Kansas Department of Corrections Division of Community and Field Services Supervision Handbook. The handbook stated: "An ordinary pocket knife with a blade no longer than 4 inches is not considered by law to be a dangerous knife, or a dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument." At a hearing on his motion to reconsider, Harris personally testified, "I went to [s]tate orientation just a couple of months before this, the whole place told me, everybody at that place told me and they give me that [handbook] stating and they told me I could own that knife." The district court ruled again that Olave's advice—or implicitly, the advice of anyone at the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC)—on what "counted" as a knife under the relevant statute was not an official opinion upon which Harris could rely. The district court denied the motion to reconsider. During trial, after the same evidence was proffered by Harris, the district court sustained its pretrial order excluding all evidence in support of Harris' mistake of law defense. Harris was then convicted of violating K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304.

On appeal, Harris claimed the district court erred by rejecting his vagueness challenge to the statute and by excluding all evidence supporting his mistake of fact defense. The Court of Appeals quickly dispatched with the constitutional challenge. The panel held the language of the statute would be "easily understood by a person of ordinary intelligence" because it employed "words commonly used." State v. Harris , No. 116,515, 2018 WL 473605, at *4 (Kan. App. 2018) (unpublished opinion). Moreover, "the statute lists several examples of objects that qualify as a knife" and a "person of ordinary intelligence would understand that all of the specifically enumerated items are objects that have a sharp blade or edge." 2018 WL 473605, at *4. The Court of Appeals concluded that the gravamen of the statute was plainly and obviously "not the length or width of an object" but "whether, like the listed items, the object is a dangerous or deadly cutting instrument." 2018 WL 473605, at *4. Based on this statutory interpretation, the panel held that Harris failed to show the language of the statute was "so vague that it fails to give warning to people of ordinary intelligence of the prohibited conduct or that the statute is susceptible to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement ." (Emphasis added.) 2018 WL 473605, at *4.

Next, the panel considered the district court's evidentiary ruling vis-à-vis Harris' mistake of law defense. First, the lower court determined a parole officer is a public officer under K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 21-5111(aa)(5) (public officer includes law enforcement officer) and K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 21-5111(p)(2) (law enforcement officer includes any KDOC officer and employee). Then, it found that the KDOC is an administrative agency. 2018 WL 473605, at *6.

Finally, to decide whether Olave and the KDOC could legally interpret the words "weapon" and "knife" in the statute, the panel conducted a lengthy review of the relevant law and ultimately concluded that "the Secretary of Corrections, through the Department of Corrections, and Harris' parole officer, who is a public officer, were authorized to interpret the statute. The Handbook and the information provided to Harris by his parole officer constituted official interpretations of the statute." 2018 WL 473605, at *8. After conducting a harmless error analysis, the panel found "there is at least a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the court allowed Harris to introduce the parole officer's testimony and the Handbook to the jury." 2018 WL 473605, at *8. Thus, the lower court reversed his conviction and remanded Harris' case for a new trial. 2018 WL 473605, at *7-8.

Each party petitioned this court for review of the portion of the Court of Appeals' decision that went against them, and we granted both petitions.

DISCUSSION

Because we resolve this case in Harris' favor on constitutional grounds, we need not reach the evidentiary issue raised by the State's petition for review. At the outset, it is also important to note that while the State raised numerous jurisdictional and preservation claims in response to Harris' vagueness challenge in the proceedings below, the State did not advance those claims in its petition for review. As a result, Harris' vagueness challenge to K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 is squarely before us on the merits.

Before discussing the merits, however, we pause to acknowledge that the parties devote considerable space in their briefs to arguing about whether this is an as-applied or facial challenge. The State insists it is an as-applied challenge because the district court ruled on those grounds. Harris, meanwhile, points out that the traditional differences between an as-applied and a facial challenge fade considerably in the context of an overbroad law that invites arbitrary enforcement. See Johnson v. United States , 576 U.S. 591, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 192 L. Ed. 2d 569 (2015). In Johnson , the Court found the residual clause "[any felony that] involves conduct...