City of Wichita v. Mesler

666 P.2d 1209, 8 Kan. App. 2d 710, 1983 Kan. App. LEXIS 176
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kansas
DecidedJuly 28, 1983
DocketNo. 55,115
StatusPublished

This text of 666 P.2d 1209 (City of Wichita v. Mesler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Wichita v. Mesler, 666 P.2d 1209, 8 Kan. App. 2d 710, 1983 Kan. App. LEXIS 176 (kanctapp 1983).

Opinion

Meyer, J.:

Defendant-appellant Philip J. Mesler (defendant) brings this appeal from an order of the District Court of Sedgwick County, Kansas, dismissing his appeal to that court from the Municipal Court of the City of Wichita, Kansas.

[711]*711On July 24, 1981, defendant was convicted in the Municipal Court of the City of Wichita, Kansas, of the offense of driving under the influence of liquor, contrary to Section 11.38.150(a) of the Wichita City Code.

On August 28, 1981, he was sentenced to a term of 30 days in jail, fined $150.00, and taxed $10.50 as costs. The judge thereupon paroled defendant from the imprisonment and from $50.00 of the fine, and imposed restrictions on his driver’s license for sixty days.

Defendant filed with the municipal court his notice of appeal from this conviction and sentence on September 9, 1981. It showed plainly on its face that it was out of time, pursuant to the ten-day rule of K.S.A. 22-3609(2). For this reason, it was not accepted by the clerk. It is not with this rejection of his appeal to the district court that defendant takes issue.

At some later time, exactly when is unclear, defendant verbally requested the municipal court to make a modification in his sentence. This motion was heard on March 2, 1982, before a different municipal judge than had presided at defendant’s trial. The municipal court on that date “modified” defendant’s sentence by reducing the fine $10.00 and by extending the date on which the fine was due. The court specifically denied defendant’s request for “resentencing.”

Defendant filed with the municipal court a notice of appeal from the March 2 order on that same day. The City responded with a motion to dismiss, directed to the district court, alleging that the appeal was out of time. On August 16, 1982, that motion came on for hearing in the district court. On that date, the district court sustained the City’s motion, and dismissed defendant’s appeal as untimely. It is with this dismissal by the district court of his appeal from his sentence in the municipal court, that defendant takes exception.

The single issue on this appeal is whether the municipal court’s order of March 2, 1982, which modified defendant’s original sentence by reducing it, renewed defendant’s right to appeal from his original conviction. It is conceded that defendant’s first attempt at appeal was properly dismissed.

Relevant case law makes it apparent that if defendant is to have a right to appeal, that right must be granted by some statute.

[712]*712“The right of appeal is entirely a statutory right; no appellate review is required by the federal constitution, Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 100 L.Ed. 891, 76 S.Ct. 585, or the Kansas Constitution. (State v. Hanes, 187 Kan. 382, 357 P.2d 819; Nall v. State, 204 Kan. 636, 465 P.2d 957.)” State v. Smith, 223 Kan. 47, 48, 574 P.2d 161 (1977).

The statute authorizing appeals from the municipal courts to the district courts is K.S.A. 22-3609 (since amended), which, at the time of defendant’s motion, provided as follows, in pertinent part:

“(1) The defendant shall have the right to appeal to the district court of the county from any judgment of a municipal court which adjudges the defendant guilty of a violation of the ordinances of any municipality of Kansas or which imposes a sentence of fine or confinement or both. Such appeal shall be assigned by the administrative judge to a district judge or associate district judge. The appeal shall stay all further proceedings upon the judgment appealed from.
“(2) An appeal to the district court shall be taken by filing a notice of appeal in the court where the judgment appealed from was rendered. No appeal shall be taken more than 10 days after the date of the judgment appealed from.”

The cases interpreting the above statute consistently hold that the requirement of subsection (2), that a notice of appeal must be filed in the municipal court within 10 days of the date of the judgment appealed from, is jurisdictional in nature. The failure to properly and timely file a notice of appeal is thus a jurisdictional defect, which cannot be waived by the courts. City of Bonner Springs v. Clark, 3 Kan. App. 2d 8, 10, 588 P.2d 477 (1978), and City of Overland Park v. Nikias, 209 Kan. 643, 648, 498 P.2d 56 (1972).

Subsection (1) of K.S.A. 22-3609 defines those judgments of the municipal court which may be appealed to the district court. To be appealable, a judgment must meet one of two criteria: It must be one which either “adjudges the defendant guilty of a violation of the ordinances of any municipality of Kansas” or “imposes a sentence of fine or confinement or both.” Thus, to be appealable, the municipal court’s order of March 2, 1982, must meet one of these criteria. The March 2 order does not adjudge defendant guilty of any crime; that action occurred on July 24, 1981. The question remaining is whether the March 2 order “imposes a sentence of fine or confinement or both.”

Defendant contends that the March 2 order imposed a new sentence on him, thus eradicating his original sentence. Under defendant’s construction, that order would be appealable pursu[713]*713ant to K.S.A. 22-3609. The City contends that the March 2 order merely modified defendant’s sentence of August 28, and was not a new sentence in and of itself. Under this construction, the March 2 order did not impose anything, as sentence had been imposed earlier, and thus that order could not be appealed under K.S.A. 22-3609.

The issue here is one of statutory construction and semantics: Did the March 2 order “impose” a newly created sentence or did it merely “modify” an existing one?

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1976) defines “impose” as follows: “to make, frame, or apply (as a charge, tax, obligation, rule, penalty) as compulsory, obligatory or enforcible . . . .” (p. 1136). That same source authority defines “modify” as: “to make more temperate or less extreme: lessen the severity of ... to make minor changes in the form or structure of: alter without transforming . . . .” (p. 1452). And “modification” is defined as: “the act or action of changing something without fundamentally altering it . . . .” (p. 1452).

Utilizing these definitions, it is our opinion that the March 2 order was not an appealable judgment. That order imposed no new penalties, but merely altered the penalties previously imposed.

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Related

Griffin v. Illinois
351 U.S. 12 (Supreme Court, 1956)
State v. Hanes
357 P.2d 819 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1960)
Nall v. State
465 P.2d 957 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1970)
City of Overland Park v. Nikias
498 P.2d 56 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1972)
City of Bonner Springs v. Clark
588 P.2d 477 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 1978)
State v. Smith
574 P.2d 161 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1977)

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Bluebook (online)
666 P.2d 1209, 8 Kan. App. 2d 710, 1983 Kan. App. LEXIS 176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-wichita-v-mesler-kanctapp-1983.