State v. Reynolds

552 P.3d 1

STATE of Kansas, Appellee,

v.Ryan David REYNOLDS, Appellant.

No. 121,504

Supreme Court of Kansas.

Oral Argument Held March 31, 2023

Supplemental Briefing Completed December 26, 2023

Opinion Filed July 12, 2024

Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion filed June 17, 2022. Appeal from Shawnee District Court; Nancy E. Parrish, judge.

Kai Tate Mann, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellant.

Jodi Litfin, deputy district attorney, argued the cause, and Derek Schmidt, former attorney general, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, were with her on the briefs for appellee.

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

Armed with a handgun, Ryan Reynolds broke into his estranged wife’s house through a downstairs door used for her salon business. He went upstairs to the living area, where he confined his wife, their young daughter, and his wife’s sister-in-law. He threatened to kill everyone inside. The two women eventually escaped with the child, and police apprehended Reynolds as he was leaving. A jury convicted him of multiple crimes arising from this incident, A Court of Appeals panel affirmed his convictions for aggravated burglary and aggravated endangering a child. State v. Reynolds, No. 121,504, 2022 WL 2188164, at *1 (Kan. App. 2022) (unpublished opinion). Both Reynolds and the State challenge that decision. We affirm on the issues subject to review, although our analysis differs from the panel’s.

In particular, we agree with Reynolds that the district court presented the aggravated burglary charge to the jury as an alternative means crime in the instructions by referring to both a building and a dwelling as locations for committing the offense. And we agree with Reynolds that the State’s evidence did not support the building alternative, so we must confront our caselaw requiring his conviction’s automatic reversal. See State v. Wright, 290 Kan. 194, 224 P.3d 1159 (2010), disapproved of on other grounds by State v. Brooks, 298 Kan. 672, 317 P.3d 54 (2014). To that end, we ordered additional briefing and now reject Wright's inflexible rule that requires substantial evidence supporting each means of a criminal element included in an instruction to uphold a conviction. Wright, 290 Kan. 194, Syl. ¶ 2, 224 P.3d 1159.

In Wright's place, we employ our familiar instructional error analysis. And on that basis, we hold the aggravated burglary instruction in Reynolds’ case was factually inappropriate but of no consequence. We have no hesitation concluding the jury understood all occupants were in the upstairs living area during the intrusion and found Reynolds guilty of aggravated burglary of a dwelling. None of the evidence confuses that reality, and the jury can be relied on to do what the district court instructed it to do—apply the law to the only evidence available in arriving at its verdict. See Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 59, 112 S. Ct. 466, 116 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1991) (holding due process does not require setting aside general guilty verdict in a multiple-object conspiracy when evidence supported only one object); State v. De La Torre, 300 Kan. 591, Syl. ¶ 3, 331 P.3d 815 (2014) (holding the clearly erroneous harmless error standard applied in a multiple acts case when unanimity instruction not requested or its absence not objected to).

Factual and Procedural Background

Reynolds’ wife, Kayla, filed for divorce in July 2017. A court awarded her temporary possession of their home with a lower-level salon, where she worked as a cosmetologist. She lived upstairs with the couple’s daughter.

About 6:15 a.m., on November 4, 2017, Kayla heard loud banging on an exterior door to the house. She gathered in a bedroom with her daughter and sister-in-law, Lynzie, who had stayed overnight. Lynzie said Reynolds was outside. He pounded on the windows and told Kayla not to call the police, but she did anyway. While on the phone with a dispatcher, Kayla heard crashing noises downstairs in the salon and sounds of Reynolds coming up the stairs before he kicked in the bedroom door. She testified he was "out of control" and yelling things about "money and saving the world." He kept trying to grab their daughter.

Reynolds pulled out a handgun, screaming that he loved his daughter. He said he would hurt "whoever was there" and was "going to kill everyone." Lynzie testified he kept asking where the other people in the house were. At some point, he told the dispatcher he would kill everybody there.

Kayla and Lynzie said Reynolds positioned himself in front of the room’s only exit and stopped them from leaving. Lynzie persuaded him to search the house to prove no one else was there. As he stepped out, they ran away and went to a neighbor’s home. Reynolds followed, yelling for Kayla to come back. Police officers stopped him as he pulled his car out of the driveway. They took him into custody after a two-hour standoff.

A jury convicted Reynolds of aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated assault, criminal threat, aggravated endangering a child, interference with law enforcement, stalking, and two counts of criminal damage to property. The district court sentenced him to a controlling term of 180 months in prison and 36 months of postrelease supervision.

Reynolds appealed the aggravated burglary, aggravated child endangerment, and criminal threat convictions. A Court of Appeals panel reversed the criminal threat conviction but upheld the others. Reynolds, 2022 WL 2188164, at *1. Reynolds asked for our review of the aggravated burglary and aggravated child endangerment convictions. He also renews a cumulative error claim. The State conditionally cross-petitioned seeking review of the panel’s aggravated burglary conviction analysis. The State did not challenge the criminal threat conviction’s reversal, so that much is settled in Reynolds’ favor. See State v. Moler, 316 Kan. 565, 569, 519 P.3d 794 (2022); Supreme Court Rule 8.03(i)(1) (2024 Kan. S. Ct. R. at 59).

We granted both requests for review. Jurisdiction is proper. See K.S.A. 20-3018(b) (providing for petitions for review of Court of Appeals decisions); K.S.A. 60-2101(b) (Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review Court of Appeals decisions upon petition for review).

Aggravated Burglary Alternative Means (Building or Dwelling)

[1, 2] The State may charge a defendant with a crime that can be committed in more than one way. This is called an alternative means crime. See State v Rucker, 309 Kan. 1090, 1094, 441 P.3d 1053 (2019). A district court presents an alternative means crime to a jury when its instructions on a charged offense incorporate multiple means for a single statutory element. State v. Sasser, 305 Kan. 1231, 1239, 391 P.3d 698 (2017). Reynolds argues the district court presented the aggravated burglary offense to the jury as an alternative means crime by separately identifying both a building and a dwelling as locations for committing the offense. We agree with him.

Additional facts

A grand jury indicted Reynolds with one count of aggravated burglary, charged as a level four, person felony—the severity level specified only for aggravated burglary of a dwelling. K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5807(b) provides:

"(b) Aggravated burglary is, without authority, entering into or remaining within any:

(1) Dwelling in which there is a human being, with intent to commit a felony, theft or sexually motivated crime therein;

(2) building, manufactured home, mobile home, tent or other structure which is not a dwelling in which there is a human being, with intent to commit a felony, theft or sexually motivated crime therein; or

(3) vehicle, aircraft, watercraft, railroad car or other means of conveyance of persons or property in which there is a human being, with intent to commit a felony, theft or sexually motivated crime therein."

The district court drew from this statutory language to craft its aggravated burglary instruction for the jury’s deliberation:

"The defendant is charged in Count 4 with aggravated burglary. The defendant pleads not guilty.

"To establish this charge, each of the following claims must be proved:

"1. The defendant entered into or remained in a building or dwelling.

"2. The defendant did so without authority.

"3. The defendant did so with the intent to commit kidnapping, aggravated assault or criminal threat therein.

"4. At the time there was a human being in the building or dwelling.

"5. This act occurred on or about the 4th day of November, 2017, in Shawnee County, Kansas." (Emphasis added.)

Reynolds highlights the terms, "building or dwelling," as dual means for the crime’s location element. The jury’s general verdict form simply recited: "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of the crime of Aggravated Burglary as charged in Count 4." It did not differentiate between the two terms.

The district court’s instruction set out alternative means

[3] Reynolds argues the instructions set out alternative means for the crime’s location element. He is correct. K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5807(b) identifies building and dwelling in different subsections and each describes materially distinct situations. See State v. Williams, 303 Kan. 750, 757, 368 P.3d 1065 (2016) ("The legislature typically signals its intent to create an alternative means by ‘separating alternatives into distinct subsections of the same statute.’ "); State v. Davis, 312 Kan. 259, 266, 474 P.3d 722 (2020) (looking to whether "there is a material difference between the" alleged alternative means). We hold K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 21-5807(b) describes alternative means for committing aggravated burglary that depends, in part, on where the crime occurs—a dwelling, a nondwelling building, or a means of conveyance.

We also easily agree Reynolds’ case presents what we would consider an alternative means error. The uncontroverted evidence shows he entered the unoccupied lower-level salon, went upstairs, and broke into the...