Criminal history case

Michael Holland and Michael Holland II won in State v. Ruiz-Reyes, No. 95,056 (Kan. App. Jan. 12, 2007), reversing a Reno County enhanced repeat-offender sentence. The COA held that the plain language of the statute makes it clear that before the state can use a prior conviction to enhance severity level, the prior conviction must have occurred before commission of the instant offense. (This same argument has been rejected in re criminal history because the guidelines explicitly say you should use prior conviction regardless of the time of the commission of the prior conviction. Same in DUI cases, I think).

There may be other repeat-offender statutes to which this argument would apply.

[Update: the state filed a PR on February 9, 2007]

[Further update: the KSC granted the state's PR on May 8, 2007. The case will likely be argued in September or October].

[Further update: on February 1, 2008, the KSC agreed with the COA. Here is my blog entry on the KSC case.]