State v. Dixon

1

State of Kansas, Appellee, v. De'Andrew V. Dixon, Appellant.

No. 125,752

Court of Appeals of Kansas

April 5, 2024

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

Submitted without oral argument.

Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; KEVIN J. O'CONNOR, judge.

Sam S Kepfield, of Hutchinson, for appellant.

Lance J. Gillett, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett district attorney, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee.

Before GREEN, P.J., HILL and CLINE, JJ.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM:

At De'Andrew V. Dixon's June 2022 resentencing hearing the district court would not consider Dixon's new durational departure motion. The district court ruled that this court's mandate in Dixon's direct appeal-State v. Dixon, 60 Kan.App.2d 100, 492 P.3d 455 (2021)-gave it only limited jurisdiction to sentence Dixon to 1,306 months' imprisonment.

Dixon does not appeal his convictions. Indeed, at the outset of his appellant's brief, Dixon stresses that the underlying facts of his crimes are irrelevant because his argument on appeal involves the district court's procedure at his resentencing hearing on remand. Dixon specifically challenges the district court's legal reasoning when it imposed his new 1,306-month prison sentence. Dixon contends that the resentencing district court erred as a matter of law when it ruled that the Dixon mandate narrowed its jurisdiction on the district court to impose only a 1,306-month prison sentence on him. He asserts that because his original sentences were vacated by the Dixon court, the court granted him an entirely new sentencing hearing where he could move for a durational departure.

As determined later in this opinion, we conclude that Dixon's argument is persuasive. Because the law controlling appellate mandates-as applied to the Dixon mandate and its opinion-shows that the district court had jurisdiction to consider Dixon's durational departure motion at his resentencing hearing, the district court erred when it ruled otherwise. Thus, we reverse the district court's lack of jurisdiction ruling, vacate Dixon's total controlling 1,306-month prison sentence, and remand Dixon's case to the district court with directions as follows: (1) that the district court must resentence Dixon on all of his convictions and (2) that Dixon may move for a departure at his resentencing hearing.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The district court's interpretation of the Dixon mandate and opinion at Dixon's resentencing hearing

A jury convicted Dixon of two counts of aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and one count each of rape, kidnapping, and battery. It is undisputed that Dixon committed these crimes against three different women in the fall of 2016 and 2017. It is also undisputed that the State brought its charges against Dixon in two complaints. Dixon, 60 Kan.App.2d at 112.

Before his jury trial, the district court granted the State's motion to consolidate Dixon's two pending criminal cases for trial. 60 Kan.App.2d at 112. Yet, the State never filed an amended complaint joining Dixon's two criminal complaints into a single complaint. 60 Kan.App.2d at 137. Then, at his sentencing hearing, the district court sentenced Dixon separately on each complaint. Ultimately, the district court ordered Dixon to serve his sentences for each crime consecutively, and it ordered Dixon to serve his sentences for his two criminal cases consecutively. Thus, the district court sentenced Dixon to a total controlling sentence of 2,045 months' imprisonment for his criminal cases. 60 Kan.App.2d at 138-39.

Dixon timely appealed his convictions and sentences to this court. On appeal, Dixon argued that under the correct application K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-6819(b)(4)-also known as the "'double rule'"-his total controlling sentence for his crimes would "be limited to 1,306 months." 60 Kan.App.2d at 132. Highly summarized although this court rejected Dixon's arguments to reverse his convictions, it accepted Dixon's argument that the district court violated the double rule when it sentenced him to 2,045 months' imprisonment. 60 Kan.App.2d at 140-41. The Dixon court held that the district court's application of the double rule violated Dixon's Equal Protection Rights of the Fourteenth Amendment because the only reason he was not receiving the benefit of the double rule was the State's arbitrary decision to file its charges against Dixon in two separate criminal complaints. 60 Kan.App.2d at 137.

To prove this point, the Dixon court explained how the State's arbitrary decision to charge Dixon in two criminal complaints allowed the district court to impose a much longer prison sentence on Dixon:

"Dixon points out that if the charges were all brought in one charging document, the maximum sentence would be 1,306 months (twice the base sentence of 653 months). But here, the application of the double rule led to a total sentence of 2,045 months between the two cases because Dixon had a base sentence for each case. This difference of more than 700 months, or about 61 years, is the result solely of the number of case numbers attached to the charges at Dixon's consolidated trial. As Dixon argues, this disparity seems to defeat the [Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act's] purpose of uniformity in sentencing." 60 Kan.App.2d at 139.

And ultimately, the Dixon court stated in its syllabus the following:

"For K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-6819(b)(4) to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, when two or more cases are consolidated for trial because all the charges could have been brought in one charging document, and the defendant is convicted of multiple charges at trial, the defendant shall receive the benefit of the statutory double rule at sentencing regardless of whether the convictions arise from multiple counts within a single information, complaint, or indictment." 60 Kan.App.2d 100, ¶ 12.

As for the Dixon court's mandate, immediately after this court made the preceding holding, it relied on this holding to "vacate Dixon's sentences and remand for resentencing consistent with this opinion." 60 Kan.App.2d at 141. And the court's closing remand directions stated: "Convictions affirmed, sentences vacated, and case remanded with directions." 60 Kan.App.2d at 141. Afterwards, the Clerk of Appellate Courts filed the mandate and opinion with the district court. This mandate stated Dixon's "convictions are affirmed, sentences vacated, and case remanded with directions."

At the start of Dixon's resentencing hearing on remand, the district court explained its understanding of the mandate. In doing so, the district court cited the two sentences from the Dixon opinion stating that the maximum total controlling sentence that it could impose on Dixon without violating the double rule at resentencing would be a sentence of 1,306 months' imprisonment. Then, it relied on those two sentences to make the following ruling: "[T]he direction of the Kansas Court of Appeals is to resentence consistent with this opinion. And the sentence consistent with this opinion is that [the district court] should sentence Mr. Dixon to 1,306 months." During Dixon's resentencing hearing, the district court also repeatedly stated that the opinion "spelled out" that it must sentence Dixon to 1,306 months' imprisonment on remand, which in turn, limited its jurisdiction at Dixon's resentencing hearing to imposing a total controlling sentence of 1,306 months' imprisonment on him.

The State seemingly agreed with the district court's interpretation of the Dixon opinion. After the district court outlined its interpretation of the mandate, the prosecutor said, "I would agree with that." Also, the prosecutor told the district court that the "[d]ouble rule only counts for one primary count, and it's going to be the 1,306."

But Dixon, who moved for a durational departure at his original sentencing and resentencing hearing, disagreed with the district court's interpretation of the mandate. When the district court asked Dixon his position, he argued that the Dixon court had not limited the district court's jurisdiction at his resentencing hearing to sentencing him to 1,306 months' imprisonment. Dixon stressed that no language in the mandate or opinion stated that the district court must sentence him to a total controlling sentence of 1,306 months' imprisonment. Then, citing the lack of such limiting language, Dixon argued that when the Dixon court vacated all of his sentences and remanded his case for resentencing, it granted him an entirely new sentencing hearing at which the district court had jurisdiction to consider his new motion for a durational departure.

Nevertheless Dixon's arguments about how to interpret the mandate and opinion did not sway the district court. The district court refused to consider Dixon's durational departure motion based on its ruling that the mandate and opinion limited its jurisdiction to imposing a total controlling sentence of 1,306 months' imprisonment on Dixon at his resentencing hearing and nothing else. In denying Dixon's durational departure motion at his resentencing hearing, the district court stressed that the original sentencing court had also denied his departure motion. It explained that because the Dixon court had not expressly reversed the original sentencing court's rulings on Dixon's original durational departure motion, it had no "authority" to reconsider the original sentencing court's ruling. Similarly, in Dixon's journal entry of judgment for his resentencing hearing, although the district court checked the box that it denied his new durational departure motion, its comment why it denied Dixon's motion...