Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Couple of Gant GVRs (sort of)

Similar to the practice in the SCOTUS, the KSC granted a couple of petitions for review last week on Gant issues and summarily remanded to the district court for proceedings consistent with Arizona v. Gant. In both cases, the COA had held that the amended K.S.A. 22-2501 authorized broad searches outside the scope of the arrest. After Gant (blogged about here) and Henning (blogged about here), that no longer is good law.

Here is the order in State v. Jones, No. 99,216 (Kan. 2009) and State v. Craig, No. 99,527 (Kan. 2009).

BTW, for those who are really interested in the minutae of appellate procedure (that's you Paige), I thought this was an interesting disposition. Remanded to the district court. Rule 8.03(h)(2), cited in the Craig order provides authority to "remand the appeal to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of authority identified in the Supreme Court's order." It doesn't say anything about the district court. And, as a result, there really isn't an appellate disposition (i.e. affirmed, reversed, vacated, etc.). I wonder how the district court does anything in the case if the lower court judgment wasn't vacated. (I think that's how SCOTUS orders are usually worded right? Granted, vacated, and remanded?)

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