Ryan J. Eddinger won in State v. Lehman, No. 112,500 (Kan. September 28, 2018), vacating a modified sentence in a Sedgwick County aggravated sexual battery prosecution. Mr. Lehman had pleaded guilty to the offense and the district court originally imposed a 31-month prison sentence with 24 months postrelease. About three years later, KDOC notified the prosecutor that it believed Mr. Lehman's sentence was illegal because K.S.A. 22-3737(d)(1)(G) requires a person convicted of this offense to have lifetime postrelease. A year later, the state filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence.
While the motion was pending, KDOC discharged Mr. Lehman from postrelease. At the motion hearing, the district court held that, despite the discharge order, it had jurisdiction and modified the sentence to reflect lifetime postrelease.
The KSC first rejected the defense assertion that the state invited the error by requesting 24-months postrelease as part of the plea bargain at the original sentencing, reiterating that parties cannot agree to or stipulate to an illegal sentence. But, after reviewing decisions from other jurisdiction on the question of whether a defendant has a legitimate expectation of finality in a completed sentence, the KSC held that the modification in this case was precluded by the Fifth Amendment and Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights:
But more importantly, neither the State nor the panel explain the status of a person who has completed the original sentence imposed by the sentencing judge without any other judge entering any other order purporting to correct, modify, stay, or suspend that original sentence. To be clear, we are not faced with a circumstance in which a district court purported to stay or suspend Lehman's discharge from custody. Therefore, the only legal status that comports with our statutes and caselaw is that the original sentence had expired and Lehman had been discharged from custody, as a matter of law, the day after he completed his court-ordered judgment of sentence.
Otherwise, if Lehman is deemed to have remained on postrelease supervision after his sentence expired but before any other court order, "he [would] still be under a sentence." That would mean that the prosecutor in this case, by simply filing a motion to correct an illegal sentence, effectively modified the district court's original sentencing judgment to impose a harsher sentence. Although the law invests prosecutors with a great deal of authority and discretion, it does not authorize a member of the executive branch to change a judge's order. See State v. Simmons, 307 Kan. 38, 42, 405 P.3d 1190 (2017) (executive branch cannot modify a sentence; executive branch is not a court of criminal jurisdiction).
Consequently, when Lehman completed his original sentence—even if illegal— without a court order that superseded the judgment of the sentencing judge, he was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system. Any additional sentence imposed on him for the same offense after completing the original sentence constitutes a multiple punishment proscribed by the double jeopardy provisions of our federal and state constitutions.
Moreover, the argument that the notice of the filing of the motion to correct an illegal sentence negated any expectation of finality Lehman may have had upon completing his original sentence is similarly unavailing. A person who has appeared before a judge and received a sentence in open court can legitimately expect that court order to remain in effect until told otherwise by a district court judge. See K.S.A. 21- 4704(e)(2) ("In presumptive imprisonment cases, the sentencing court shall pronounce the complete sentence which shall include . . . the period of postrelease supervision."). Here, Lehman's original sentence, including postrelease supervision period, was not countermanded by a court of law before it was completely served and terminated; Lehman is entitled to be discharged from custody.
As a result, the KSC ordered Mr. Lehman discharged from further liability in the case.
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