State v. Murray

• Decision Date: 02 March 2012
• Docket Number: No. 103,773.,103,773.
• Citation: 293 Kan. 1051,271 P.3d 739
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Randall A. MURRAY, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

271 P.3d 739

293 Kan. 1051

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Randall A. MURRAY, Appellant.

No. 103,773.

Supreme Court of Kansas.

March 2, 2012.

Syllabus by the Court

The district court's summary denial of the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence was error. The motion challenges, for the first time in state court, jurisdiction to try or sentence the defendant; and he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing in district court to determine whether a competency hearing was held.

Michael J. Bartee, of Michael J. Bartee, P.A., of Olathe, was on the brief for appellant.

Jerome A. Gorman, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, was with him on the brief for appellee.

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

Defendant Randall Murray appeals the denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence for his 28–year–old convictions of aggravated robbery and felony murder. He argues that he did not receive a required competency hearing and thus the district court lacked jurisdiction to try and sentence him. We reverse the district court's decision summarily denying Murray's motion and remand for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Murray did or did not receive the competency hearing.

Factual and Procedural Background

Before Murray's jury trial, defense counsel filed a motion to determine Murray's competency under K.S.A. 22–3302. The pertinent passage in the statute's subsection (1) was exactly the same then as it is today:

“At any time after the defendant has been charged with a crime and before pronouncement of sentence, the defendant, the defendant's counsel or the prosecuting attorney may request a determination of the defendant's competency to stand trial. If, upon the request of either party or upon the judge's own knowledge and observation, the judge before whom the case is pending finds that there is reason to believe that the defendant is incompetent to stand trial the proceedings shall be suspended and a hearing conducted to determine the competency of the defendant.”

The record before us, which has been reconstructed because of the age of this criminal case, reflects that the district court found good cause for Murray to undergo a competency evaluation the same day that his motion for evaluation was filed.

The record is silent, however, as to whether a post-evaluation competency hearing was ever held. The docket sheet does not reflect the occurrence of such a hearing or the filing of any resulting order. The journal entry of judgment mentions several of the steps in Murray's prosecution, but it does not mention others. For example, it references the complaint, the preliminary hearing, Murray's not guilty plea, the jury trial, and the sentencing; it does not reference Murray's pretrial motion to dismiss and motion to sever his trial from that of his codefendant.

The record does show that, between trial and sentencing, Murray's lawyer filed a second motion questioning Murray's mental state, this time under K.S.A. 22–3429, which provides for mental examinations of defendants as part of the presentence investigation report. It appears from other docket entries that this motion was denied. The record also reflects that Murray's counsel filed a motion for new trial and, eventually, a motion for modification of sentence, neither of which challenged the court's failure to hold a competency hearing and neither of which was successful.

We can also determine that, after an unsuccessful direct appeal, see State v. Murray, No. 55,982, ––– Kan. ––––, 679 P.2d 1185, unpublished opinion filed April 27, 1984, Murray filed a series of similarly unsuccessful K.S.A. 60–1507 motions.

Murray's first K.S.A. 60–1507 motion, filed in the mid 1980s, raised an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. It was ultimately rejected by Murray v. State, No. 59,250, unpublished opinion filed September 17, 1987.

Murray's second K.S.A. 60–1507 motion, filed in 2003, challenged Murray's sentences as illegal but only because of his inability to meet with the parole board. His motion was eventually rejected as an improper vehicle for that complaint. Murray v. State, No. 91,724, 2005 WL 283604 (Kan.App.) (unpublished opinion), rev. denied 279 Kan. 1007 (2005).

Murray's third K.S.A. 60–1507 motion, filed in 2005, finally addressed Murray's contention that he had never received a competency hearing before trial, but it did so only as a feature of his renewed ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Murray complained that his trial counsel's failure to pursue the motion to determine competency contributed to constitutionally deficient representation. The Court of Appeals ruled that Murray should have raised this argument in support of ineffective assistance earlier. Murray v. State, No. 96,995, 2007 WL 4577906, at *1 (Kan.App.2007) (unpublished opinion), rev. denied 286 Kan. 1179 (2008).

Murray then filed a federal habeas action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing for the first time that the state district court's failure to provide him a competency hearing deprived it of subject matter jurisdiction. The State responded by arguing that Murray had failed to exhaust his remedies in state court on this issue. The federal district court agreed, denying Murray relief. Murray v. Goddard, No. 08–3202–SAC, 2009 WL 395195, at *4 (D.Kan.2009) (unpublished opinion).

In 2009, Murray filed the motion to correct illegal sentence that underlies this appeal. He claimed that he first discovered his trial counsel's motion to determine his competency after he filed his second K.S.A. 60–1507 motion. He further asserted that the pretrial court order to determine his competency was ignored and that he was therefore convicted and sentenced by a court lacking jurisdiction.

The district court summarily dismissed Murray's motion to correct illegal sentence, believing the issue had been addressed and rejected by the district court and the Court of Appeals in response to Murray's third K.S.A. 60–1507 motion.

Discussion

An illegal sentence includes one imposed by a court without jurisdiction. Whether a sentence is illegal is a question of law over which this court has unlimited review. State v. Davis, 281 Kan. 169, 174, 130 P.3d 69 (2006).

Once an order to determine competency is issued, a criminal prosecution must be suspended until competency is determined. K.S.A. 22–3302(1); Davis, 281 Kan. at 177, 130...