State v. Ford

CourtCourt of Appeals of Kansas
DecidedMay 6, 2016
Docket112877
StatusUnpublished

This text of State v. Ford (State v. Ford) 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
State v. Ford, (kanctapp 2016).

Opinion

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 112,877

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee,

v.

DAMIEN CORTEZ FORD, Appellant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Shawnee District Court; NANCY E. PARRISH, judge. Opinion filed May 6, 2016. Affirmed.

Heather Cessna, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.

Jodi Litfin, assistant district attorney, Chadwick J. Taylor, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.

Before ARNOLD-BURGER, P.J., GREEN and LEBEN, JJ.

Per Curiam: Damien Ford appeals his jury trial conviction and sentence for one count of fleeing and eluding. Ford raises three issues for our consideration. The first issue is whether the trial court erred in failing to give the proper statutory definition of reckless driving in the instruction on the fleeing and attempting to elude charge. The second issue is whether the trial court erred when it instructed the jury on the burden of proof in this case because the instruction took away the jury's right to jury nullification. The third issue is whether the trial court violated Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 147 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2000), (1) when it sentenced him to an aggravated sentence in

1 the grid box without requiring that the aggravating factors be proved to a jury and (2) when it used his prior convictions to increase his sentence without requiring the prior convictions be proved to a jury. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Shortly before 2 a.m. on February 10, 2013, Trooper Stephen Schneider was notified of an erratic driver on westbound Interstate 70. Trooper Schneider found a car that matched the description, a white Chevy Monte Carlo, at the east Topeka toll plaza. Trooper Schneider saw the driver open the car door to pay the toll because the car was parked too far away from the toll booth to reach the collector through the window.

Trooper Schneider followed the car and saw it "weaving back and forth on top of the white lane marker." Trooper Schneider turned on his lights to pull the car over, but the car failed to pull over. Trooper Schneider then turned on his siren; and after a short time, the vehicle pulled over to the right shoulder. Although the driver pulled over, part of the car was still on the road and part of the car was on the shoulder.

Trooper Schneider walked up to the driver's side of the car and saw two black males. The driver was wearing a white T-shirt with a gray and red baseball cap, and the passenger was wearing blue jeans and a dark polo-style shirt.

Trooper Schneider said, "[H]i, there" to the men, and the driver started yelling that his brother was having a seizure. Trooper Schneider looked at the passenger of the car who was in the front seat hunched over. The passenger then started jumping or throwing himself back in the seat. The driver repeatedly stated, "'[M]y brother is having a seizure, I got to go.'"

Trooper Schneider had witnessed a couple of people having seizures before and did not believe that the passenger's actions were consistent with his previous observations. Nevertheless, Trooper Schneider told the driver that he would get his

2 brother help but that the driver would need to pull his car all the way off the road. At that point, the driver laughed and drove away, spinning his tires as he took off westbound. Trooper Schneider ordered the driver to stop as he sped off, but the driver did not stop.

Trooper Schneider followed the car on I-70, reaching speeds of around 90 mph. The car took the Carnahan exit, went down the ramp and ran through a stop sign, then reentered I-70 continuing westbound. The car then exited at the California exit, failed to stop at the stop sign, turned northbound, then back eastbound without using a signal. The car failed to stop at another stop sign and after rounding a slight curve Trooper Schneider lost sight of the car. Trooper Schneider told headquarters that he had lost sight of the car and drove around the neighborhood for a few minutes looking for the car.

About 6 minutes later, Officer Jason Schumacher with the Topeka Police Department found the car parked at 2715 SE Gilmore Court. Officer Schumacher waited for backup officers to arrive and then approached the car. No one was inside the car, but a black male came walking from the house towards the car talking loudly on the phone. The man identified himself as Ford. Ford told Officer Schumacher that the car was not his but that it could be his girlfriend's. Ford told Officer Schumacher that he did not live in the area and that he did not have an answer for why he was there. Officer Schumacher then placed Ford in handcuffs and waited for Trooper Schneider to come identify him. After Trooper Schneider identified Ford as the driver of the car, Ford was taken into custody.

Based on this incident, Ford was charged with one count of eluding police, one count of driving under the influence, and one count of reckless driving. The first trial on these three charges ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to come to a verdict on any of the counts. At a second trial, the jury convicted Ford of fleeing or attempting to elude police and reckless driving. The jury did not reach a verdict on the driving under the influence charge.

3 At sentencing, the trial court dismissed the reckless driving charge as multiplicitous with the fleeing and eluding charge and also dismissed the driving under the influence charge with the State's agreement not to further pursue that charge. Based on a criminal history score of C, the trial court sentenced Ford to 13 months in prison with 12 months of postrelease supervision, suspended in favor of 12 months' probation. Ford timely appealed.

Did the Trial Court Err in Instructing the Jury on the Fleeing and Attempting to Elude Charge by Failing to Give the Proper Statutory Definition of the Underlying Crime of Reckless Driving?

On appeal, Ford argues that the trial court erred in failing to give the proper statutory definition of reckless driving in the instruction on the fleeing and attempting to elude charge.

As Ford candidly concedes, he did not object to the trial court's PIK Crim. 4th 66.660 instruction on reckless driving in either trial. This failure to object is consequential: A party may not claim error because the trial court gave or failed to give a jury instruction unless (1) the party objects before the jury retires, stating distinctly the matter to which the party objects and the grounds for the objection; or (2) the instruction or the failure to give the instruction is clearly erroneous. See K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 22- 3414(3); State v. Smyser, 297 Kan.199, 204, 299 P.3d 309 (2013). Nevertheless, Ford maintains that the instruction was clearly erroneous and that it constituted reversible error.

A litigant may not invite error and then complain of the error on appeal. State v. Verser, 299 Kan. 776, 784, 326 P.3d 1046 (2014). Under the invited error doctrine, a defendant cannot challenge an instruction on appeal, even as clearly erroneous under K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 22-3414(3), when there has been an on-the-record agreement to the

4 wording of the instruction at trial. State v. Peppers, 294 Kan. 377, 393, 276 P.3d 148 (2012).

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Related

Apprendi v. New Jersey
530 U.S. 466 (Supreme Court, 2000)
State v. McClanahan
510 P.2d 153 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1973)
State v. Smith
652 P.2d 703 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1982)
State v. Schreiner
264 P.3d 1033 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2011)
State v. Ottinger
264 P.3d 1027 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2011)
State v. Naputi
260 P.3d 86 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2011)
State v. Bailey
255 P.3d 19 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2011)
State v. Peppers
276 P.3d 148 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2012)
State v. Ivory
41 P.3d 781 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2002)
State v. Richardson
224 P.3d 553 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2010)
State v. Johnson
190 P.3d 207 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2008)
State v. Horton
331 P.3d 752 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2014)
State v. Belone
343 P.3d 128 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2015)
State v. Barber
353 P.3d 1108 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2015)
State v. Acevedo
315 P.3d 261 (Court of Appeals of Kansas, 2013)
State v. Jones
286 P.3d 562 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2012)
State v. Smyser
299 P.3d 309 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2013)
State v. Dominguez
328 P.3d 1094 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2014)
State v. Verser
326 P.3d 1046 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2014)
State v. Smith-Parker
340 P.3d 485 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 2014)

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State v. Ford, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ford-kanctapp-2016.