Opinion
No. 107,241.
2013-12-27
STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Jerome Viney WILLIAMS, Sr., Appellant.
Appeal from Shawnee District Court; Richard D. Anderson, Judge. Joanna Labastida, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant. Jodi Litfin, assistant district attorney, Chadwick J. Taylor, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.
Appeal from Shawnee District Court; Richard D. Anderson, Judge.
Joanna Labastida, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant. Jodi Litfin, assistant district attorney, Chadwick J. Taylor, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.
Before HILL, P.J., ATCHESON and ARNOLD–BURGER, JJ.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM.
Defendant Jerome Williams appeals his conviction for felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer on the sole ground that the complaint failed to confer jurisdiction on the Shawnee County District Court, a defect he says requires the jury verdict be vacated. Controlling Kansas Supreme Court authority holds otherwise. We, therefore, affirm the conviction.
Because the only issue on appeal deals with the legal sufficiency of the charging document, the facts underlying the prosecution of Williams are irrelevant. We dispense with the recitation of irrelevancies in the name of efficiency and cogency. The Shawnee County District Attorney charged Williams with three offenses arising from an incident on September 22, 2010: felony obstruction, in violation of K.S.A. 21–3808(a); misdemeanor battery against a law enforcement officer, in violation of K.S.A. 21–3413(a)(1); and misdemeanor criminal damage to property, in violation of K.S.A. 21–3720. The jury convicted Williams of the obstruction charge and could not reach a verdict on the battery charge. The district court dismissed the criminal damage to property charge before submitting the case to the jury. Williams was later sentenced to 6 months in prison and placed on probation for 12 months, consistent with the presumptive disposition under the sentencing guidelines. As a condition of probation, the district court ordered that Williams serve 60 days in the county jail.
Williams did not file a motion in the district court to arrest the judgment of conviction against him, as permitted in K.S.A. 22–3502. Under K.S.A. 22–3502, a defendant may move to have a judgment set aside because the charging instrument, here the complaint, “does not charge a crime or if the court was without jurisdiction of the crime charged.” The motion must be made no later than 10 days after the jury verdict or a judicial finding of guilt.
Williams has timely appealed.
There are no disputed facts pertinent to Williams' challenge to the jurisdictional sufficiency of the complaint. The issue presents a question of law over which we exercise unlimited review. See Deeds v. Waddell & Reed Invst. Mgmt. Co., 47 Kan.App.2d 499, 502, 280 P.3d 786 (2012) (questions of law subject to unlimited review on appeal).
The complaint stated the obstruction charge against Williams this way:
“On or about the 22nd day of September, 2010 in the State of Kansas and County of Shawnee, JEROME VINEY WILLIAMS SR, did, then and there, unlawfully, feloniously, and intentionally, obstruct, resist and/or oppose a person, to-wit: Kevin M. Schultz and/or Randall G. Batman, who are authorized by law to serve legal process, or while in the discharge of an official duty, to-wit: to detain and/or arrest, contrary to the form of the statutes in such case made and provided and against the peace and dignity of the State of Kansas.”
The complaint also identified the obstruction charge as a severity level 9 nonperson felony.
Williams contends the complaint is jurisdictionally defective because it fails to state specifically the underlying criminal offense the officers were investigating at the time he was alleged to have interfered with their performance of that official duty. If the underlying offense being investigated were a felony, a defendant would be guilty of a felony for obstructing the investigation. If the underlying crime were a misdemeanor, the unlawful obstruction would also be a misdemeanor. See K.S.A. 21–3808(b).
Because Williams did not file a motion to arrest judgment, the Kansas Supreme Court's decision in State v. Hall, 246 Kan. 728, 765, 793 P.2d 737 (1990), overruled in part on other grounds by Ferguson v. State, 276 Kan. 428, 78 P.3d 40 (2003), governs his challenge to the jurisdictional sufficiency of the complaint. The Hall court held that a jurisdictional attack on a complaint made on appeal in the absence of a motion to arrest or similar challenge at the trial level would lie only if: “[T]he claimed defect in the information has: (a) prejudiced the defendant in the preparation of his or her defense; (b) impaired in any way defendant's ability to plead the conviction in any subsequent prosecution; or (c) limited in any way defendant's substantial rights to a fair trial under the guarantees of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights, § 10.” 246 Kan. at 765. The charging instrument should be liberally construed in favor of validity in the absence of any challenge to it in the district court. 246 Kan. at 764.
Here, the complaint alleged information sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the Shawnee County District Court insofar as it correctly stated the offense occurred there and correctly outlined the charge in the language of the obstruction statute. The complaint also correctly informed Williams that he had been charged with a felony. We assume for purposes of review that the failure to include the underlying crime the officers were investigating amounts to a defect in the complaint. Under the Hall standards, however, Williams has failed to show grounds for relief.
The circumstances of the obstruction charge are sufficiently stated that a conviction in this case could be asserted as a double jeopardy bar to a later prosecution, thereby eliminating the second Hall basis. Williams doesn't argue otherwise.
We do not see how Williams' defense was prejudiced. To the extent Williams needed to know the underlying offense upon which the felony obstruction charge was based, he could have requested a bill of particulars. K.S.A. 22–3201(f) (“When a complaint ... charges a crime but fails to specify the particulars of the crime sufficiently to enable the defendant to prepare a defense the court may, on written motion of the defendant, require the prosecuting attorney to furnish the defendant with a bill of particulars.”). He did not.
In a legally analogous situation, the Kansas Supreme Court found that any defect in the charging instrument had been defused by the evidence the State presented at the defendant's preliminary hearing. State v. Maxwell, 234 Kan. 393, 397–98, 672 P.2d 590 (1983). In that case, Maxwell had been charged with burglary but the amended information did not specify the crime he intended to commit when entering the victim's home. The court held Maxwell was not materially prejudiced because the evidence at his preliminary hearing established the underlying offense well before he went to trial. 234 Kan. at 398; see Hall, 246 Kan. at 760 (citing rule in Maxwell with favor); State v. Lora, 213 Kan. 184, 187–89, 515 P.2d 1086 (1973) (complaint charging burglary and failing to identify underlying offense is defective, but defect does not create reversible error when evidence at preliminary hearing informs defendant of that offense). Here, Williams had a preliminary hearing, and the testimony made clear the crime the officers were investigating at the time he allegedly interfered with their endeavor. In his brief on appeal, Williams states: “Until the preliminary hearing, Mr. Williams was unaware if and what felony he had allegedly obstructed.” The record brings Williams within the rule of Maxwell, thus negating the first basis for relief outlined in Hall.
Williams doesn't fashion an independent argument that he was deprived of a fair trial, the final basis for relief in Hall. It is difficult to see how he could. As we have indicated, by the time Williams went to trial, he had been informed of the underlying offense the officers were investigating, so any defect in the complaint itself could not have rendered his trial unfair for lack of notice or some related reason.
But Williams does suggest Hall should be overruled and the Kansas courts should return to the much stricter pre- Hall standards for evaluating the sufficiency of charging documents in criminal cases. (Those standards still apply when a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the charging instrument in the district court. Hall, 246 Kan. at 764.) Williams points to comments critical of Hall the Kansas Supreme Court recently voiced in State v. Portillo, 294 Kan. 242, 253–57, 274 P.3d 640 (2012), as supportive of his suggestion. The issue the court addressed in Portillo was somewhat different—it dealt with off-grid sentences for Jessica's Law offenses. The court specifically noted it had not been asked to reconsider Hall and had no need to do so in resolving that issue. 294 Kan. at 255. We are simply a way station for Williams' pitch to jettison Hall. Unless the Kansas Supreme Court overrules Hall, something it hasn't done, we are obligated to follow that decision. See State v. Dawson, 43 Kan.App.2d 800, 803, 231 P.3d 582,rev. denied 290 Kan. 1097 (2010).
Affirmed.