POWELL, J.
William L. Scaife appeals the summary denial of his motion filed pursuant to K.S.A. 60-1507. Scaife argues the district court improperly denied his motion because (1) the court erroneously determined it was untimely and (2) it was manifest injustice for the court to summarily deny his timely motion without an evidentiary hearing. Because we agree with the district court that Scaife's motion was untimely, we affirm.
The relevant facts are not in dispute. Scaife was convicted by a jury of (1) murder in the first degree, (2) attempted murder in the first degree, (3) two counts of aggravated robbery, and (4) felony fleeing to elude police. On direct appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed every conviction and sentence except the court vacated and remanded for retrial the conviction of murder in the first degree. State v. Scaife, 286 Kan. 614, 623, 186 P.3d 755 (2008). The Kansas Supreme Court announced its opinion on July 3, 2008, and issued its mandate on September 24, 2008. Scaife did not petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court.
On December 31, 2008, upon remand to the district court, Scaife entered into a plea agreement in which he pled guilty to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter, agreed to accept a sentence under the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act, and waived his right to appeal. The district court accepted Scaife's plea and sentenced him to a guideline sentence on January 15, 2009. In accordance with his waiver, no direct appeal was filed by Scaife.
On January 6, 2010, Scaife filed his present K.S.A. 60-1507 motion in Wyandotte County District Court, alleging: (1) Scaife's original trial attorney was wrongly disqualified in violation of Scaife's rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, (2) Scaife's replacement counsel was ineffective during Scaife's trial and direct appeal in violation of Scaife's Sixth Amendment rights, and (3) a fatal variance existed between the information and the evidence produced at trial in violation of Scaife's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
On December 12, 2011, after an unexplained delay of nearly 2 years, the district court summarily dismissed Scaife's motion solely because the motion had not been filed prior to the 1-year statutory deadline pursuant to K.S.A. 60-1507(f). Scaife appealed the district court's dismissal, and after a series of procedural delays—the reasons are immaterial—our court reinstated Scaife's appeal on March 13, 2014.
Scaife's sole issue on appeal challenges the district court's finding that his motion filed under K.S.A. 60-1507 was untimely. Significantly, Scaife does not argue that the motion, if untimely, should be reviewed to prevent manifest injustice but argues it was manifest injustice for the district court to deny him an
Because the facts are not in dispute and resolution of this issue involves an interpretation of a statute, which is a question of law, our review is unlimited. State v. Jefferson, 287 Kan. 28, 33, 194 P.3d 557 (2008). The fundamental rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the legislature governs if that intent can be ascertained. Hall v. Dillon Companies, Inc., 286 Kan. 777, 785, 189 P.3d 508 (2008). Our duty is to ascertain that intent through the statutory language used and give ordinary words their ordinary meaning. State v. Gracey, 288 Kan. 252, 257, 200 P.3d 1275 (2009). However, when the meaning of a statute is unclear, "we may consider the provisions of the entire act with a view toward reconciling and bringing them into harmony. [Citation omitted.] [We] always strive[ ] for a reasonable . . . construction that avoids an unreasonable or absurd result. [Citation omitted.]" Baker v. State, 297 Kan. 486, 488, 303 P.3d 675 (2013).
K.S.A. 60-1507(a) gives prisoners the right to collaterally attack their sentences:
However, there is a 1-year time limit for prisoners to bring such an action:
Supreme Court Rule 183 (2014 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 286) governs procedures applicable to K.S.A. 60-1507 motions:
As is clear from the language quoted above, any prisoner in custody under a sentence of a court of general jurisdiction may challenge his confinement and sentence, provided the challenge is brought either (a) within 1 year from the final order of the last appellate court to exercise jurisdiction on a direct appeal or (b) within 1 year from the termination of appellate jurisdiction. However, no challenge may be brought while a direct appeal is pending or during the time within which an appeal may be perfected.
Scaife contends the 1-year statutory time limit within which to bring his K.S.A. 60-1507 motion commenced 14 days after he was sentenced for voluntary manslaughter by the district court on remand. See K.S.A.2014 Supp. 22-3608(c) (14 days to perfect appeal after judgment of the district court). Citing K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(1)(i), Scaife contends that appellate jurisdiction terminated 14 days after the January 15, 2009, sentencing date for his voluntary manslaughter conviction, because he never exercised his right to file a direct appeal of his sentence. Therefore, under Scaife's interpretation of K.S.A. 60-1507(f), he had until January 29, 2010, to file his motion, rendering his K.S.A. 60-1507 motion submitted on January 6, 2010, timely. Unfortunately, Scaife fails to cite caselaw to support his reading of K.S.A. 60-1507(f).
The State counters that the 1-year statutory period commenced 90 days after the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Scaife's convictions and that the vacated first-degree murder conviction is not relevant to the triggering criteria found in K.S.A. 60-1507. The State reasons that once our Supreme Court issued the mandate on September 24, 2008, Scaife's convictions could not be appealed any further after the 90-day period during which Scaife could seek certiorari from the United States Supreme Court had expired. Thus, the State contends K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(1)(ii) controls, and the 1-year statutory period commenced on December 28, 2008-90 days following the Kansas Supreme Court's mandate in Scaife, 286 Kan. 614, 186 P.3d 755. Like Scaife, the State cites no caselaw in making this argument.
Fortunately, our Supreme Court and various panels of this court have considered similar questions which are helpful to our analysis. The most relevant for our purposes is Baker, in which the defendant initially directly appealed his conviction and sentence for first-degree murder. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but vacated the sentence and remanded the entire case for resentencing. After receiving a new sentence on remand, Baker did not file a direct appeal. Within 1 year from when he was resentenced on remand—but more than 1 year after the Supreme Court's opinion affirming his conviction had become final—Baker filed a 60-1507 motion, alleging he received ineffective assistance from his trial counsel. The State filed a response, arguing that Baker's motion was untimely under K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(1). The district court agreed and dismissed the petition.
On appeal, our court reversed, finding that because Baker's motion was filed within 1 year from when appellate jurisdiction over his resentencing had terminated, the motion was timely filed under K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(1). Baker v. State, 42 Kan.App.2d 949, 951-54, 219 P.3d 827 (2009). The State sought review by the Supreme Court, which affirmed our court:
However, our Supreme Court stopped short of holding that Baker was not a prisoner in custody under sentence, relying instead on Supreme Court Rule 183, which prohibits the simultaneous pursuit of a direct appeal and a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507 and prohibits filing such a motion during the time within which an appeal may be perfected.
Also significant was the court's favorable view of now Chief Judge Malone's concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals' decision:
The upshot of the Supreme Court's Baker decision is that because the defendant's sentence for a single conviction had been vacated and remanded for resentencing at the conclusion of the direct appeal, any issues relating to that sentence were still appealable, meaning appellate jurisdiction had not terminated under Supreme Court Rule 183(c) (2014 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 285) thereby barring a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507, until the conclusion of the 14-day period after the defendant's resentencing. Moreover, a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507 would have been premature because the defendant was not yet a prisoner in custody under sentence. Only until he was resentenced did he become a prisoner in custody under sentence.
Although we can apply the principles from Baker to the present case, we observe that Scaife is not similarly situated to Baker in a number of respects. Unlike Baker: (1) Scaife was charged with multiple offenses; (2) all of Scaife's convictions and sentences were affirmed but for the primary count, murder in the first degree; and (3) there was finality with respect to the affirmed convictions to which Scaife's motion pertains. These facts suggest, unlike in Baker, that when the Supreme Court issued its mandate on September 24, 2008, Scaife was free at that time to pursue a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507 to challenge any irregularities relating to his affirmed convictions and sentences.
It is well established that each charge in a case is to be considered its own information, meaning the final result in the affirmed convictions and sentences is unaffected by the reversal of the first-degree murder conviction and vice versa. See State v. Hunt, 8 Kan.App.2d 162, 166, 651 P.2d 967 (1982); PIK Crim. 4th 68.060, Multiple Counts—Verdict Instruction; see also State v. Beach, 275 Kan. 603, 622, 67 P.3d 121 (2003) (inconsistent verdicts on multiple counts permitted). Therefore, Scaife became a prisoner in custody under a sentence at the time the mandate was issued on the affirmed convictions and sentences, notwithstanding the remand on the first-degree murder charge. Also, pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 183(c), appellate jurisdiction terminated upon the issuance of the mandate as to the affirmed convictions and sentences. Therefore, Scaife could have filed his present motion
As an aside, we note this rule may not have applied to sentences in multiple conviction cases until recently. The longstanding rule had been that multiple sentences from multiple counts in a single case were considered a single sentence, State v. Woodbury, 133 Kan. 1, 2, 298 P. 794 (1931), meaning that if one or more sentences in a multiple count case had been vacated, the sentencing court on remand had the power to alter the original sentence even on the unaffected counts. See State v. Snow, 282 Kan. 323, 342, 144 P.3d 729 (2006). This suggests appellate jurisdiction still may have existed over the unaffected counts. However, this rule was subsequently abrogated by our Supreme Court. State v. Guder, 293 Kan. 763, 766-67, 267 P.3d 751 (2012) (disapproving Snow). In Guder, the court held that with the enactment of the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act, sentencing courts were prohibited from modifying legal sentences except in narrow circumstances, one of which was when the defendant's primary conviction had been overturned. 293 Kan. at 766-67, 267 P.3d 751. Another narrow exception occurs when a defendant's probation is revoked. State v. McGill, 271 Kan. 150, 154, 22 P.3d 597 (2001) (upon revocation of probation, court may impose lesser sentence).
However, the retention by the sentencing court of the power to modify a legal sentence in certain instances does not necessarily mean that a defendant is not a prisoner in custody under sentence or that appellate jurisdiction remains. In the context of probation revocations, our court has held the 1-year time limit for a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion challenging the defendant's underlying conviction and sentence began when the mandate on the direct appeal was issued or when appellate jurisdiction terminated upon a defendant's failure to file a direct appeal to his or her underlying conviction and sentence, meaning that a defendant could only challenge aspects of his probation revocation in a subsequent K.S.A. 60-1507 motion. Wilkerson v. State, 38 Kan.App.2d 732, 734, 171 P.3d 671 (2007). In our view, the same principle applies to cases, such as this one, where only the defendant's primary conviction has been vacated.
Therefore, pursuant to Baker and Supreme Court Rule 183(c), Scaife was free to pursue his present motion as of September 24, 2008, because the mandate on his direct appeal had been issued and appellate jurisdiction had terminated as to those affirmed convictions and sentences, the remand on the first-degree murder charge notwithstanding. Moreover, Scaife became a prisoner in custody under a sentence at the same time. See generally Rawlins v. State, 39 Kan.App.2d 666, 669, 182 P.3d 1271 ("in custody under sentence of a court" broadly construed to mean any restraint of liberty imposed by court order), rev. denied 286 Kan. 1179 (2008). Accordingly, the 1-year time limit within which Scaife was free to file his present 60-1507 motion ended on September 24, 2009, months prior to the date he actually filed his motion.
With respect to the remaining conviction of voluntary manslaughter, the result is somewhat different. Our Supreme Court reversed Scaife's original first-degree murder conviction and remanded for a new trial, leading him to enter a plea to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter after remand.
The State argues, and we agree, that when the Kansas Supreme Court reversed Scaife's conviction for murder in the first degree, all previous errors as to that charge were cured, and prosecution on the remanded charge began anew. Because it is fundamental to any claim under K.S.A. 60-1507(b) that prejudice to a defendant must result from the errors alleged, any allegations of error asserted by Scaife that may have impacted his original first-degree murder conviction were cured when the Supreme Court vacated his conviction and remanded for a new trial. See State v. Carr, 300 Kan. 1, 252, 331 P.3d 544 (2014).
Additionally, should error have infected the subsequent proceeding, then a collateral challenge under K.S.A. 60-1507 would not be
Accordingly, we hold that Scaife's K.S.A. 60-1507 motion filed January 6, 2010, was untimely as he had 1 year from the date of the Supreme Court's mandate, or until September 24, 2009, to file his motion.
Affirmed.