State v. Robinson
| Citation | 434 P.3d 232,56 Kan.App.2d 567 |
| Decision Date | 14 December 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 117,957,117,957 |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Allen Deandre ROBINSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Kansas |
Ashlyn Buck Lewis, of Topeka, for appellant.
Shawn E. Minihan, assistant district attorney, Stephen M. Howe, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.
Before Mcanany, P.J., Pierron and Leben, JJ.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights both guarantee the right to a speedy and public jury trial in all criminal prosecutions. A decade ago, in In re L.M. , 286 Kan. 460, Syl. ¶ 1, 186 P.3d 164 (2008), the Kansas Supreme Court held that juveniles had a right to a jury trial under these provisions because juvenile-offender proceedings had "become more akin to an adult criminal prosecution" than to the benevolent rehabilitative system that had once existed.
Allen Robinson appeals his convictions for aggravated robbery and kidnapping on the basis that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated. But his case was initially filed as a juvenile-offender proceeding, and the State argues that no speedy-trial right exists there. We disagree: if the jury-trial provisions in the Kansas and United States Constitution apply, so do the speedy-trial provisions. Because the district court in Robinson's case did not decide his speedy-trial claim on the merits—and several factors that must be considered need to be factually developed—we return the case to the district court to consider the speedy-trial claim.
Robinson also argues that the State couldn't add charges once the case moved from juvenile to adult court and that the State's service of the arrest warrant was so late that the statute of limitations had expired. But a past decision of our court and our analysis of the applicable statutory provisions supports the conclusion that the State can amend the charges once the case is in an adult proceeding just as it can in other cases. And Robinson didn't raise a statute-of-limitations defense in the district court; failing to do so waived that potential defense.
On a Sunday night in September 2012, Robinson and three others entered a home in Olathe and held the four men who resided there at gunpoint. Robinson and his accomplices moved the men into a bathroom, used profane language deriding the residents' sexual identity, and ordered them to strip and touch each other's genitals. Robinson then stole property from the home and drove away.
Because the issues on appeal involve speedy-trial rights and the movement of charges from juvenile to adult proceedings, we will focus on the timing of the proceedings in both juvenile and adult proceedings. Less than two weeks after the events occurred, the State brought four charges of aggravated robbery against Robinson, then 17, in juvenile proceedings in the Johnson County District Court. Along with those charges, the State moved for court authorization to prosecute Robinson as an adult. A warrant for Robinson's arrest was issued September 27, the same day the charges were filed.
About six weeks later, the court held a status conference in the case. Robinson wasn't there, but an appointed attorney was. There's no indication in our record that Robinson knew about the charges or the hearing.
About two days after that hearing, Robinson was arrested on unrelated charges in another county. There's no indication that the prosecutor in Johnson County, where the aggravated-robbery charges were pending, knew about the arrest.
More than two years later, on November 21, 2014, the court in Johnson County issued an order to transport Robinson there to answer the pending charges. That happened after the charges in the other county had been resolved; Robinson had been convicted in an adult proceeding there and sentenced to prison. The order to bring Robinson to Johnson County and the original Johnson County arrest warrant were executed (or served) on Robinson, who was in the custody of the Department of Corrections, on December 11, 2014.
About two months later, the court held a hearing on the State's request to transfer Robinson's case to adult proceedings (called a waiver). Robinson objected to the waiver, but the court granted the State's request. Two days later, the State charged Robinson in an adult proceeding with the same four counts of aggravated robbery. A month later, the State amended the complaint to include four counts of kidnapping. The court held a preliminary hearing in May 2015 and bound Robinson over for trial on two counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnapping.
One of the issues we'll discuss later in the opinion involves the timing of Robinson's motion in the district court to dismiss the case on speedy-trial grounds. His attorney first told the court of his intention to file the motion at a hearing held June 4. At that point, trial was set for June 22 with a pretrial conference on June 17.
When told that Robinson would be moving to dismiss, the judge responded, "If it's going to take me sitting down with my pencil and my calculator ... trying to figure out if [the] speedy trial [deadline has] passed, then I'd like it as soon as possible." The prosecutor then asked for some clarity about when the motion would be taken up by the court: "Judge, we'll just take that up apparently [then] at pretrial conference?" The judge replie d that there was no time available before that.
Robinson's attorney filed the motion to dismiss on June 15, and the State filed a formal response the next day. The court considered the motion at the June 17 pretrial conference and denied it. At no point in that hearing did the State object that Robinson's motion to dismiss was untimely.
When the parties reconvened on June 22 for the jury trial, Robinson's attorney renewed the motion to dismiss on speedy-trial grounds to preserve that issue for appeal. At that time, the State told the court that in addition to the arguments it had made previously, the court should deny the motion because it wasn't made within 21 days of arraignment as required by K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 22-3208(4). The court affirmed its earlier ruling and also found that Robinson's motion was untimely.
Robinson was convicted in a jury trial of two counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnapping. He has appealed to our court, raising three claims: (1) that the State violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial; (2) that the State shouldn't have been allowed to amend the charges in adult court to add kidnapping counts; and (3) that the district court should have dismissed the charges because the State didn't serve the warrant on him for more than two years.
We begin with Robinson's first claim—that the claims against him should be dismissed because the State violated his constitutional speedy-trial rights.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ...." That amendment applies not only in federal prosecutions but also in prosecutions by a state. State v. Henderson , 284 Kan. 267, 276, 160 P.3d 776 (2007). In addition, Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights provides similar protections: "In all prosecutions, the accused shall be allowed ... a speedy public trial by an impartial jury ...."
The State argues that these constitutional speedy-trial rights do not apply to juvenile proceedings, citing State v. Breedlove , 295 Kan. 481, 487, 286 P.3d 1123 (2012). But the juvenile proceedings in Breedlove's case (for crimes committed in 1995) took place before our Supreme Court's June 20, 2008 decision in L.M. Thus, the court's comment in Breedlove that juveniles had no constitutional speedy-trial right "in matters conducted under the Juvenile Justice Code," 295 Kan. at 487, 286 P.3d 1123, should not be read to apply to matters conducted under the Revised Juvenile Justice Code. See L.M. , 286 Kan. at 465-66, 186 P.3d 164. It's that Revised Juvenile Justice Code that was at issue in L.M. and is applied here.
The L.M. case carefully considered whether a juvenile had the right to a jury trial in a juvenile-offender proceeding. As in our case, the right would be analyzed under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights. The L.M. court held that because juvenile proceedings had "become more akin to an adult criminal prosecution" than the rehabilitative process previously in place, the jury-trial right now applied under these constitutional provisions. 286 Kan. 460, Syl. ¶¶ 1, 2, 186 P.3d 164.
We see no reason the speedy-trial rights under the same constitutional provisions would be any less applicable. Nor has the State provided any reasoned argument for that result. We therefore conclude that the same constitutional speedy-trial rights apply in both juvenile and adult proceedings.
The State next argues that even if speedy-trial rights apply, Robinson waited too long to raise the issue. Robinson raised the issue in a motion to dismiss, and K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 22-3208(4) provides that a motion to dismiss must be made "within 21 days after the plea is entered." Robinson was arraigned and pleaded not guilty on May 15, 2015, so the 21-day deadline was June 5. The motion wasn't filed until June 15.
But Robinson's attorney told the court on June 4 that he planned to file a written motion to dismiss. The gist of the parties' discussion with the court was that the motion couldn't be taken up until the June 17 pretrial conference—and the State didn't object to consideration of the motion based on its timeliness when it was heard at that pretrial...
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State v. Owens
...briefing, the State argued the delay was only 13 months. It softened its view at oral argument in light of State v. Robinson , 56 Kan. App. 2d 567, 434 P.3d 232 (2018). Robinson , filed after the parties had submitted their brief to this court, held a juvenile offender has the same constitu......
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...679, 263 P.3d 867 (2011). Here, the time is measured from Sola-Morales' arrest to his trial—just about a year. State v. Robinson , 56 Kan. App. 2d 567, 573, 434 P.3d 232 (2018). We assume without deciding the delay may be considered presumptively prejudicial. By the same token, however, bri......
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...92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), to determine if a juvenile's constitutional right to a speedy trial has been violated. Robinson, 56 Kan.App.2d at 572-73. These factors are the following: (1) the length of the (2) the reason for the delay, (3) the defendant's assertion of the right to ......
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In re A.D.
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