NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
No. 126,682
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
STATE OF KANSAS,
Appellee,
v.
DAVID T. BENNETT,
Appellant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; DAVID KAUFMAN, judge. Oral argument held August 18, 2026. Opinion filed September 18, 2026. Affirmed.
Sean P. Randall, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.
Matt J. Maloney, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee.
Before MALONE, P.J., GARDNER and PICKERING, JJ.
PER CURIAM: A jury found David T. Bennett guilty of two counts of rape, and one count each of aggravated criminal sodomy, kidnapping, criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and theft. For these crimes, the district court sentenced Bennett to 1,025 months' imprisonment. Bennett raises only one issue on appeal. Bennett claims the district court lacked jurisdiction because the State failed to bring him to trial within 180 days under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (Agreement), K.S.A. 22-4401 et seq., and this court should thus vacate his convictions and sentence. We hold that because Bennett's counsel initially agreed to a trial date outside the Agreement's 180-day time
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period, Bennett is barred from seeking dismissal on the ground that the trial did not occur within that period. We thus affirm the district court's judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On July 6, 2021, the State charged Bennett with rape, aggravated criminal sodomy, kidnapping, criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and theft. At the time the charges were filed in Sedgwick County, Bennett was an inmate in federal custody in Arkansas. On August 29, 2022, the State received Bennett's notice of place of imprisonment and request for disposition of indictments, informations, or complaints. The following week, on motion by the State, the district court issued an order for writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendam to bring Bennett to Sedgwick County in response to his request for disposition of detainers.
Bennett's first appearance was held on September 23, 2022. At a hearing held on October 3, 2022, Bennett told the district court that he intended to hire his own counsel. To accommodate this request, the district court scheduled Bennett's preliminary hearing for October 11, 2022. On that date, Bennett again appeared pro se and reiterated his desire to hire his own attorney. The district court found that good cause existed to continue the matter and rescheduled the preliminary hearing for October 24, 2022, to give Bennett time to retain counsel. When Bennett appeared on that date, again without hired counsel, the district court advised him to fill out a financial affidavit for the appointment of counsel, and the matter was continued until November 7, 2022. The district court notified appointed counsel to represent Bennett on October 26, 2022. On November 7, 2022, Bennett appeared with his appointed counsel and indicated that he would not waive his preliminary hearing, so the district court scheduled it for December 7, 2022. At the preliminary hearing, after hearing the evidence, the district court found probable cause and bound Bennett over for trial on the original charges plus an additional count of rape.
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On January 30, 2023, Bennett appeared for arraignment, entered a plea of not guilty, and requested a jury trial. As for the trial date, the district judge addressed defense counsel and stated, "I'll defer to you, just because I know what your trial schedule is roughly now through March and carry over into April, I can go May 8 or May 22nd, if you like. Do you have a preference?" Bennett's counsel responded, "Probably the 22nd would be better." The district court scheduled the trial for May 22, 2023. There was no discussion whether the trial date was within the deadline under the Agreement.
At a status conference on March 3, 2023, the State brought up the timeline for bringing Bennett to trial under the Agreement and asked the district court to find that the time between January 30, 2023, and May 22, 2023, amounted to a continuance for good cause due to the schedules of the district court and both parties. The district court asked Bennett's counsel if he had any concerns about the State's request. In response, counsel noted that Bennett had told him that he had filed a motion to proceed pro se. After Bennett confirmed that he wanted to proceed pro se, the district court clarified that the motion to proceed pro se was not before the court that day and would be addressed the following week. The district court did not rule on the State's request to find that the case had been continued for good cause from January 30, 2023, to May 22, 2023.
On March 13, 2023, Bennett's motion to proceed pro se was officially filed. At a hearing that same day, the district court granted Bennett's motion. The State again asked the district court to find that the continuances in the case had been granted for good cause for purposes of the Agreement. The district court stated that it wanted to review the case and address the issue later.
On March 21, 2023, the parties convened for a status conference and to determine the trial deadline based on the deadline under the Agreement. The district court at first found that the continuances from October 3, 2022, (when the court initially continued the preliminary hearing) through December 7, 2022, (the date of the preliminary hearing)
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were caused by Bennett and would extend the 180-day limit of K.S.A. 22-4401. But the district court reconsidered and found that only the continuances from October 3, 2022, through November 7, 2022, were caused by Bennett. With those 35 days attributable to Bennett, the district court determined that only 11 days were left after March 21, 2023, before the deadline under the Agreement expired. The district court stated that it was impossible to schedule the trial to start within that timeframe, explaining that April 10, 2023, was the earliest date it could schedule the trial. The district judge explained that it was forced to make this continuance due to its own docket constraints:
"I'm making a finding that the trial set for April 10th is a necessary continuance by the court, because my docket doesn't allow for it, to get you into court any time soon, so I can get you in within 21 days for trial. So, I'm making a finding the trial is continued for that reason, that's the earliest I can get you in."
On March 23, 2023, the district court held another hearing to ensure that Bennett still desired to proceed pro se. After doing so, the district court addressed a motion to dismiss that Bennett had filed on March 16, 2023, for failure to bring him to trial within the deadline. The district court assured Bennett it would address the motion before trial. The district judge stated it was unaware of the motion at the prior hearing:
"The purpose of [of the prior hearing] was to determine how many of the days from August 29th to the day in question, which I believe was Tuesday March 21st, how many of those days go towards the 180 days, and if I recall, my ruling was 169 days, something like that, as of March 21st, and then for good cause shown, because of my trial schedule the earliest I can get you into court is April 10, so the statute allows for a postponement, so it will be 189 days, which is beyond 180, but I'm allowed under the statute to continue for good cause. And that's what I did. That was the purpose of that hearing."
On April 10, 2023, before the trial, the district court addressed Bennett's motion to dismiss under the Agreement. Bennett renewed his arguments and the district court
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denied his motion and proceeded with the trial. The jury found Bennett guilty of all charges—the facts of the case and evidence supporting the convictions are not relevant to the sole issue raised in this appeal. The district court sentenced Bennett to 1,025 months' imprisonment. Bennett timely appealed the district court's judgment.
ANALYSIS
Bennett claims the district court committed reversible error when it denied his motion to dismiss based on the alleged violation of the Agreement. He argues that his convictions should be vacated because the district court lacked jurisdiction to convict him when the State failed to bring him to trial within 180 days of his request for disposition of his pending detainer. The State argues that Bennett's appointed counsel's agreement to an initial trial date outside the 180-day timeline bars Bennett from the relief he seeks. In other words, the State's position is that Bennett waived his speedy trial rights under the Agreement when his counsel agreed to a trial date outside the 180-day time limit.
Whether a defendant's statutory right to a speedy trial was violated is a question of law subject to de novo review. State v. Burnett, 297 Kan. 447, 451, 301 P.3d 698 (2013). Resolution of Bennett's claim requires statutory interpretation and a determination of jurisdiction, questions of law subject to unlimited review. 297 Kan. at 451.
The Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact that governs situations where a prisoner is held in one state while criminal charges are pending in another jurisdiction. New York v. Hill, 528 U.S. 110, 111, 120 S. Ct. 659, 145 L. Ed. 2d 560 (2000). In Hill, the Court stated: "As 'a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact' within the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3, the [Agreement] is a federal law subject to federal construction." 528 U.S. at 111. Article III(a) of the Agreement provides, in part:
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"Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party state any untried indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred and eighty (180) days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information or complaint: Provided, That for good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or his counsel being present, the court having jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance." K.S.A. 22-4401, Art. III(a).
In short, the Agreement requires that, on proper request, an inmate serving a sentence in one state must be brought to trial within 180 days on a detainer for charges that have been filed in another state. K.S.A. 22-4401, Art. III(a). To start this 180-day timeline, the inmate must make a written request conforming to the requirements of the Agreement. The authorities in the jurisdiction holding the inmate—here, the Federal Bureau of Prisons—must forward the appropriate documents to authorities in the state where the charges are filed, here Kansas. Bennett followed these requirements.
The consequences for not bringing the defendant to trial before the 180-day period are harsh and unyielding: The charges identified in the detainer must be dismissed with prejudice. K.S.A. 22-4401, Art. III(e). But the court is permitted to grant continuances that will not count toward the 180-day time limit. The Agreement specifies that "for good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or his counsel being present, the court having jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance." K.S.A. 22- 4401, Art. III(a). Continuances properly granted for good cause under the Agreement requested by either the State or by the defendant do not count toward the 180-day time limit. State v. Waldrup, 46 Kan. App. 2d 656, 672, 263 P.3d 867 (2011).
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Here, the parties agree the 180-day clock started on August 29, 2022, when the State received Bennett's request for disposition. Barring necessary or reasonable continuances, Bennett's trial needed to begin by February 25, 2023. Bennett agrees the district court granted continuances for good cause from October 3, 2022, to November 7, 2022, which totals 35 days. These continuances properly extended the trial deadline to April 1, 2023. Because April 1, 2023 was a Saturday, the State would have been allowed to commence the trial the following Monday. See State v. White, 234 Kan. 340, 345, 673 P.2d 1106 (1983). But Bennett argues that any continuance beyond that date was not made for cause and the district court lost jurisdiction over his case.
Rather than dispute the number of days the district court may or may not have continued the case for good cause, the State counters that Bennett's trial counsel's agreement to a trial date outside the Agreement's 180-day time period bars Bennett from the relief he seeks. In support of its position, the State points to Hill, 528 U.S. at 115, in which the United States Supreme Court held that a defense attorney's agreement to a trial date outside the 180-day time limitation barred the defendant from subsequently seeking to dismiss the case for a speedy trial violation under the Agreement.
In response, Bennett claims that his appointed counsel's acquiescence to a trial date in May (well beyond the 180-day timeline) did not constitute a continuance for good cause under the Agreement. Bennett argues that this court should ignore interpretations of the Agreement from other jurisdictions because it is "the Kansas Supreme Court, not the United States Supreme Court, that is the final arbiter of Kansas law."
Contrary to Bennett's position, because the Agreement is an interstate compact, other jurisdictions' interpretations of its provisions have long proved instructive to Kansas courts. See State v. Hargrove, 273 Kan. 314, 319-25, 45 P.3d 376 (2002) (discussing cases from many other jurisdictions in interpreting the Agreement); State v. Rodriguez, 254 Kan. 768, 869 P.2d 631 (1994) (same); State v. Julian, 244 Kan. 101, 765 P.2d 1104
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(1988) (same); In re Habeas Corpus Application of Sweat, 235 Kan. 570, 684 P.2d 347 (1984) (same). The Hill Court made clear that the Agreement "is a federal law subject to federal construction." 528 U.S. at 111. An opinion from the United States Supreme Court interpreting the Agreement, if directly on point, is instructive if not controlling on the outcome of Bennett's appeal.
In Hill, New York filed murder and robbery charges and lodged a detainer against Hill, who was a prisoner in Ohio. Hill requested disposition of the detainer under the Agreement and was returned to New York. In early January 1995, the parties appeared in court to set a trial date. The prosecutor suggested a May 1 trial date and the county court inquired, "'How is that with defense counsel?'" who responded, "'That will be fine, Your Honor.'" 528 U.S. at 113. The county court scheduled the trial to begin on May 1. There was no discussion whether the trial date was within the deadline under the Agreement.
About two weeks before the scheduled trial, Hill moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that the Agreement's time limit had expired. At a hearing, the county court found that when the trial was scheduled in early January, 167 nonexcludable days had elapsed, so the 180-day deadline had indeed expired. But the county court found that defense counsel's explicit agreement to a trial date outside the 180-day statutory period constituted a waiver of Hill's rights under the Agreement. 528 U.S. at 113. The county court denied the motion to dismiss, and Hill was found guilty at trial. The New York Court of Appeals reversed and ordered the charges dismissed, finding that counsel's agreement to a trial date outside the 180-day deadline did not waive Hill's speedy trial rights. 528 U.S. at 113.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and unanimously reversed the New York Court of Appeals, holding that defense counsel's agreement to a trial date outside the deadline under the Agreement bars the defendant from seeking dismissal on the ground that the trial did not occur within that period. 528 U.S. at 110, 118. The Hill
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Court noted that lower courts had agreed that defendants may waive their right to object to a delay under the Agreement, but there was no consensus on what was necessary to effect such a waiver. 528 U.S. at 114. The Court then found:
"What suffices for waiver depends on the nature of the right at issue. . . . For certain fundamental rights, the defendant must personally make an informed waiver. For other rights, however, waiver may be effected by action of counsel. 'Although there are basic rights that the attorney cannot waive without the fully informed and publicly acknowledged consent of the client, the lawyer has—and must have—full authority to manage the conduct of the trial.' As to many decisions pertaining to the conduct of the trial, the defendant is 'deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent and is considered to have "notice of all facts, notice of which can be charged upon the attorney."' Thus, decisions by counsel are generally given effect as to what arguments to pursue . . . , what evidentiary objections to raise, and what agreements to conclude regarding the admission of evidence. Absent a demonstration of ineffectiveness, counsel's word on such matters is the last.
". . . . When [scheduling matters are] under consideration, only counsel is in a position to assess the benefit or detriment of the delay to the defendant's case. Likewise, only counsel is in a position to assess whether the defense would even be prepared to proceed any earlier. Requiring express assent from the defendant himself for such routine and often repetitive scheduling determinations would consume time to no apparent purpose. The text of the [Agreement on Detainers], moreover, confirms what the reason of the matter suggests: In allowing the court to grant 'good-cause continuances' when either 'prisoner or his counsel' is present, it contemplates that scheduling questions may be left to counsel. Art. III(a). [Citations omitted.]" 528 U.S. at 114-15.
The Court also found that societal benefits from time limits provided under the Agreement did not preclude a waiver by counsel of the time limits. 528 U.S. at 117. Finally, the Court also found that a defendant need not make an "affirmative request" for an extension of time to waive time limits under the Agreement. 528 U.S. at 118. Thus, counsel's mere assent to delay is sufficient to constitute a waiver, with the Court
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observing that nothing in the Agreement "requires or even suggests a distinction between waiver proposed and waiver agreed to." 528 U.S. at 118.
Applying the waiver rule from Hill leads to a clear result: Bennett's counsel's agreement to a trial date beyond the 180-day time limit under the Agreement precludes Bennett from subsequently seeking to dismiss the case on the grounds that his statutory speedy trial rights were violated. Bennett is "'deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer- agent'" in the decision to select a trial date. Hill, 528 U.S. at 115. And it does not matter under Hill that Bennett's counsel did not make an affirmative request for the trial date and may have merely acquiesced to a trial date offered by the district court. 528 U.S. at 118.
As noted above, Bennett contends that this court should decline to apply the waiver rule announced in Hill. To support his position, Bennett first contends that Kansas law demands more to find a waiver of a speedy trial right. But the case he cites—State v. Queen, 313 Kan. 12, 25, 482 P.3d 1117 (2021)—was interpreting and applying K.S.A. 22-3402, the speedy trial statute, not the Agreement, the congressionally sanctioned interstate compact subject to federal construction that governs situations where a prisoner is held in one state while criminal charges are pending in another jurisdiction. Thus, his argument that this court should decline to follow the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the Agreement because Kansas law affords more robust protections under our state's speedy trial statute is unpersuasive and inapplicable.
Bennett also tries to distinguish Hill based on the facts of his case. This argument is equally unconvincing because it is difficult to distinguish Bennett's case from the facts in Hill in any meaningful way. In selecting a trial date at Bennett's arraignment, the district court stated it would "defer" to defense counsel's busy schedule and offered trial dates of either May 8, 2023, or May 22, 2023. Defense counsel agreed to May 22, 2023. Granted, defense counsel merely assented to a date offered by the district court—a date already beyond the 180-day deadline—and defense counsel did not affirmatively request
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the trial date. There was no discussion whether the chosen trial date was within the deadline under the Agreement. But these are exactly the facts in Hill.
Finally, Bennett argues that his appointed counsel's actions should be ignored because "the date ultimately acquiesced to by [his] attorney is largely irrelevant in this case because it is not even the date [he] went to trial." But this argument also misses the mark. Bennett's appointed counsel agreed to go to trial on May 22, 2023. Although the district court later moved the trial date forward, ostensibly to try to fit it in within the 180-day time limit provided by the Agreement, the court did not need to make such an accommodation. Bennett had already agreed to a date outside the Agreement's timeline. Bennett would have this court hold that a defendant can agree to be tried outside the Agreement's time limit and then change their mind and try to have the case dismissed. But as the Hill Court cautioned that "such an approach would enable defendants to escape justice by willingly accepting treatment inconsistent with the [Agreement's] time limits, and then recanting later on. . . . In light of its potential for abuse—and given the harsh remedy of dismissal with prejudice—we decline to adopt it." 528 U.S. at 118.
In sum, Bennett offers no reason for this court to decline to follow the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court in Hill. The district court did not lose jurisdiction over the State's case against Bennett because Bennett's counsel agreed to a trial date outside the Agreement's 180-day limit. This action bars Bennett from seeking dismissal on the ground that the trial did not begin within that period. There is no need to decide whether the district court granted any continuances or whether those continuances were granted for good cause. The district court did not err in denying Bennett's motion to dismiss for failure to be brought to trial within the deadline under the Agreement, although it relied on a different analysis for denying the motion. See State v. Overman, 301 Kan. 704, 712, 348 P.3d 516 (2015) (affirming district court's judgment if correct for any reason).
Affirmed.