State v. Knight

1

State of Kansas, Appellee, v. Kristina Lee Knight, Appellant.

No. 124,198

Court of Appeals of Kansas

June 23, 2023

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; STEPHEN J. TERNES, judge.

Jennifer C. Roth, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.

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

Before CLINE, P.J., MALONE and ATCHESON, JJ.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM:

A jury sitting in Sedgwick County District Court found Defendant Kristina Lee Knight guilty of three counts of forgery for delivering checks to her landlord for delinquent rent that had been drawn without permission on an account of the business where she worked as a bookkeeper. The trial evidence, including Knight's own testimony that she had nothing to do with checks, left her credibility in tatters and amply supported the verdicts. Contrary to Knight's arguments on appeal, we find no basis to set aside the convictions for insufficient evidence, prosecutorial error or the district court's decision during trial to allow an amendment of the complaint expanding the time frame of the crimes. We, therefore, affirm the guilty verdicts and the resulting sentences.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

For about three and a half months in the summer of 2017, Knight worked as a bookkeeper for Arbor Springs, Inc., a business owned and run by David and Mary Wurth, a husband-and-wife team. The company operated several nursing homes and had recently taken over McCall Manor, a financially ailing facility in Salina. As part of her job, Knight prepared checks to pay Arbor Springs' business expenses. The checks typically were computer generated and bore the stamped signature of David Wurth.

During the trial in November 2019, Mary Wurth testified that when she was reviewing paid checks, she discovered checks issued on the account for McCall Manor to Craig Harms. Ms. Wurth said she did not recognize Harms as a vendor Arbor Springs did business with. The checks were also handwritten rather than printed. Ms. Wurth told the jurors she confronted Knight about the checks to Harms. According to Ms. Wurth, Knight said she had been pressured by a loan shark to whom she owed money to write the checks, and she offered to repay the money in hopes of keeping her job. Ms. Wurth fired Knight.

Ms. Wurth told the jurors she spoke with Harms who informed her he was Knight's landlord and Knight had fallen behind on her rent. According to Ms. Wurth, Harms said Knight explained Mr. Wurth had given her the business checks to cover part of her compensation because he and Ms. Wurth were feuding over the operation of Arbor Springs. In his trial testimony, Harms confirmed what he had said to Ms. Wurth. He could not recall whether Knight had personally delivered the checks to him or left them at his residence. Either way, however, Harms testified he would have received them in Sedgwick County. Mr. Wurth testified that he had not authorized Knight to prepare or deliver the three checks to Harms. Knight testified in her own defense. She told the jurors she knew nothing about the three checks and neither prepared them nor gave them to Harms.

The Sedgwick County District Attorney's office had charged Knight with two counts of forgery for each check. One count alleged the "making" of the check "without the authority" of Mr. Wurth, a felony violation of K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5823(a)(1); the other count alleged the "issuing or distributing" of the check knowing it to have been unauthorized, a felony violation of K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5823(a)(2). Before submitting the case to the jury, the district court dismissed the three counts charging the making of the forged checks because the prosecution had not presented any evidence to show Knight prepared the checks in Sedgwick County rather than in Saline County, where the McCall Manor nursing home was located.

The jury convicted Knight of the remaining three counts for presenting the forged checks to Harms. The district court later imposed a combination of concurrent and consecutive sentences with a controlling term of imprisonment of 16 months followed by postrelease supervision for 12 months and placed Knight on probation for 18 months, consistent with the sentencing guidelines. Under the special sentencing conditions in K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5823(b) for convicted forgers, the district court required Knight to serve 45 days in jail and fined her $2,995. The district court also ordered Knight to pay restitution. On appeal, Knight has not directly challenged her punishment or the restitution order.

ANALYSIS

As we indicated, Knight raises three issues on appeal: sufficiency of the evidence, prosecutorial error in closing argument, and improper amendment of the complaint. We address the arguments in that order, adding facts as necessary for each of them.

Sufficiency of the Evidence

In reviewing a sufficiency challenge, an appellate court construes the evidence in a light most favorable to the party prevailing in the district court, here the State, and in support of the jury's verdict. The court will neither reweigh the evidence generally nor make credibility determinations specifically. State v. Aguirre, 313 Kan. 189, 209, 485 P.3d 576 (2021); State v. Butler 307 Kan. 831, 844-45, 416 P.3d 116 (2018). The issue for review is simply whether rational jurors could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Butler 307 Kan. at 844-45; State v. McBroom, 299 Kan. 731, 754, 325 P.3d 1174 (2014).

To commit forgery, Knight had to present the checks payable to Harms "with intent to defraud." K.S.A. 2022 Supp. 21-5823(a). The State, therefore, bore the burden of proving that mental element of the crime and could rely exclusively on circumstantial evidence to do so. Aguirre, 313 Kan. at 209; State v. Lopez-Sanchez, No. 120,900, 2020 WL 4555816, at *2 (Kan. App. 2020) (unpublished opinion). Because "criminals tend not to declare their malevolent state of mind," jurors commonly "must infer bad intent from circumstantial evidence." Lopez-Sanchez, 2020 WL 4555816, at *2; see State v. Dixon, 289 Kan. 46, 65, 209 P.3d 675 (2009). Knight contends the State's proof of intent fell short.

Intent to defraud is a defined term in the Kansas Criminal Code that means "an intention to deceive another person, and to induce such other person, in reliance upon such deception, to assume, create, transfer, alter or terminate a right, obligation or power with reference to property." K.S.A. 2022 Supp. 21-5111(o). Viewed in the State's favor, the evidence shows Knight presented the checks to Harms knowing Mr. Wurth did not write or approve them. In turn, Harms accepted them as payments for the residence he rented to Knight, a transaction that transferred a leasehold interest in the property to her. The jury had ample circumstantial evidence Knight knew her conduct was wrongful.

First, of course, Mr. Wurth testified Knight did not have permission to prepare or deliver the checks to pay her personal expenses rather than obligations of Arbor Springs- testimony we necessarily credit in considering this issue.

Second, Knight offered a string of sometimes conflicting deceptions about the checks. She told Ms. Wurth that she prepared the checks after a loan shark pressured her. She told Harms the Wurths were embroiled in a disagreement with each other, so Mr. Wurth gave her the checks as partial compensation for her work. That explanation makes little sense on even cursory reflection: If Mr. Wurth could write a check to Harms notwithstanding the dispute with Ms. Wurth, why couldn't he simply write a check to Knight for her pay? Finally, Knight told the jurors she had nothing to do with the checks. So someone else must have conveniently prepared them and gotten them to Harms when she happened to be delinquent on her rent-all without her knowledge. Hmm. The explanations Knight offered cannot all be true; and their serial presentation strongly suggests none of them may be. Jurors may properly consider a defendant's resort to false explanations to be evidence of a guilty mind. See State v. Donahue, 218 Kan. 351, 354, 543 P.2d 962 (1975); see also United States v. Stoney End of Horn, 829 F.3d 681, 687 (8th Cir. 2016) (defendant's inconsistent explanations for otherwise inculpatory circumstances are themselves indicative of guilt); United States v. Holbert, 578 F.2d 128, 129 (5th Cir. 1978) ("long line of authority . . . recognizes that false exculpatory statements may be used not only to impeach, but also as substantive evidence tending to prove guilt"); State v. Richard, No. 121,450, 2021 WL 4127200, at *6 (Kan. App. 2021) (unpublished opinion).

Likewise, the jurors obviously found Knight's testimony unworthy, since they would have found her not guilty if they entertained so much as a reasonable doubt that her categorical denial might have been true. The jurors could fairly treat Knight's mendacity on the witness stand as circumstantial evidence indicative, though not conclusive, of guilt. See United States v. Wilson, 788 F.3d 1298, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 2015); Daughtie v. State, 297 Ga. 261, 263-64 &n.2, 773 S.E.2d 263 (2015); State v. Mayeux, 347 So.3d 623, 625 (La.), judgment vacated on other grounds by Mayeux v. Louisiana, U.S., 141 S.Ct. 225, 208 L.Ed.2d 1 (2020); Sumpter v. State, No. 117,732, 2019 WL 257974, at *9 (Kan. App. 2019) (unpublished opinion).

Without belaboring this issue, the jury heard sufficient evidence to support a conclusion Knight lacked the authority to draft or present the checks and thus acted with an intent to defraud. To come to any other conclusion now, we would have to reweigh the evidence contrary to our limited scope...