State v. Bennett

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NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 115,570

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

STATE OF KANSAS,
Appellee,

v.

LORANZY BENNETT,
Appellant.


MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; TERRY L. PULLMAN, judge. Opinion filed July 28, 2017.
Affirmed.

Carl F.A. Maughan, of Maughan Law Group LC, of Wichita, for appellant.

Lesley A. Isherwood, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Derek
Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.

Before POWELL, P.J., ATCHESON, J., and FAIRCHILD, S.J.

Per Curiam: In 1998, Defendant Loranzy Bennett, who was then 15 years old,
and two other young men forced their way into a Wichita home and terrorized the woman
and two small children who lived there. He was referred from juvenile court for
prosecution as an adult. Bennett eventually entered pleas to multiple felony charges, and
the Sedgwick County District Court sentenced him to serve 416 months in prison. During
his incarceration, Bennett has regularly challenged the criminal proceedings with habeas
corpus motions and motions to correct illegal sentences. This case reflects his latest
effort. The district court summarily denied this motion to correct an illegal sentence in
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which Bennett claimed he was not mentally competent to acquiesce in his referral from
juvenile court for adult prosecution. On appeal, we find no error in the district court's
ruling and affirm.

We need not recount the gruesome facts of the criminal episode or the repeated
efforts Bennett has made to attack his convictions and sentence.

A criminal defendant may challenge a sentence as being illegal at any time, as
provided in K.S.A. 22-3504(1). Although K.S.A. 22-3504 does not define an illegal
sentence, the Kansas Supreme Court has held that a motion may be brought under the
statute only when the sentencing court lacks jurisdiction, a sentence fails to conform to
the law either in character or term of punishment, or the sentence is in some material way
ambiguous as to how it must be satisfied. State v. Sims, 294 Kan. 821, Syl. ¶ 3, 280 P.3d
780 (2012).

A district court may deny a motion to correct an illegal sentence without
appointing a lawyer for the defendant or holding a hearing if the stated grounds are
obviously without merit. Makthepharak v. State, 298 Kan. 573, 576, 314 P.3d 876
(2013). The district court did so here after reviewing the motion and the underlying case
files. We, therefore, review the ruling without any deference, since the district court
relied only on documents we can assess equally well.

Essentially, Bennett argues he was not mentally competent to participate in the
waiver proceeding that brought him from juvenile court for prosecution in the district
court as an adult. He doesn't argue or offer any evidence he then suffered from some form
of mental illness that diminished his capacity to understand or participate in the
proceeding. Rather, he submits that a typical 15-year-old lacks the insight and maturity to
fully appreciate the nature of the judicial process, especially when it involves multiple—
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and very serious—criminal charges. Under the circumstances, the juvenile court did not
conduct a competency hearing or deny a request for such a hearing.

Bennett's motion fails for at least two compelling reasons. First, as he
acknowledges on appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court has held that a defendant may not
raise a claim of incompetence (or more particularly the failure of a trial court to make a
competency determination) through a motion to correct an illegal sentence. State v. Ford,
302 Kan. 455, 458, 353 P.3d 1143 (2015). The rule in Ford governs here and undercuts
Bennett's claim.

Second, the Kansas Supreme Court has more broadly held that a defendant may
not use a motion to correct an illegal sentence to attack the legal efficacy of the
conviction leading to the sentence. Sims, 294 Kan. at 825 (motion to correct illegal
sentence may not be used as a "means to reverse a conviction"). That is, the motion will
not lie as a means of contesting predicate steps in the criminal justice process culminating
in a sentence. Accordingly, Bennett cannot use K.S.A. 22-3504(1) as a procedural vehicle
to dispute his referral from juvenile court for prosecution in district court.

The district court, then, correctly denied Bennett's motion, since the motion did
not attempt to challenge any purported irregularity in the sentence itself.

Affirmed.