Appellate Decisions
| Publication year | 2016 |
| Pages | 36 |
| Citation | Vol. 85 No. 4 Pg. 36 |
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SUPREME COURT
CIVIL
DUE PROCESS; INVOLUNTARY COMMITMENT
IN RE CARE AND TREATMENT OF SYKES
WYANDOTTE DISTRICT COURT — AFFIRMED; COURT
OF APPEALS — AFFIRMED
NO. 108,856 — FEBRUARY 19, 2016
FACTS: Prior to expiration of 1987 sentence for burglary and aggravated sexual battery, State filed petition to have Sykes adjudicated under the Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA). Wyandotte District Court ordered evaluation at Larned State Hospital under K.S.A. 22-3303, which determined Sykes was not competent to stand trial and involuntary civil commitment proceedings should commence. Pawnee District Court dismissed involuntary civil commitment proceedings, holding K.S.A. 22-3301 et seq. applied only to criminal defendants subject to sexually violent predator proceedings, not to respondents in proceedings for civil commitments in other proceedings. Following further competency evaluations, Wyandotte District Court held Sykes not competent to stand trial in a criminal proceeding, but as matter of first impression, held incompetence to answer a civil complaint was legally distinct from competence in criminal context. Matter proceeded to trial, with district court committing Sykes to be committed as a sexually violent predator. Court of appeals affirmed. 49 Kan. App. 2d 859 (2014). Review granted on single issue of whether due process requires that a respondent be competent to understand the nature of a sexually violent predator commitment proceeding and be able to assist counsel in such a proceeding.
ISSUE: Due process and Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act
HELD: Based on challenge in this case, the SVPA complies with constitutional requirements for substantive and procedural due process. A respondent does not have to be mentally competent to assist in his or her own defense in order to be civilly adjudicated a sexually violent predator under SVPA.
CONCURRENCE (Johnson, J.): Compelled by holdings in U.S. and Kansas Supreme Courts to concur with majority's result, but wrote separately to opine that the result reached here was a much closer call than majority suggested, and that this case stretches due process near, if not past, its breaking point. Comparing SVPA and Care and Treatment Act for Mentally Ill Persons (CTA), K.S.A. 29-59-2945 et seq., a sexually violent predator is not automatically a member of a subset of mentally ill persons subject to involuntary commitment, and treatment regimen in SVPA would not provide care and treatment required under CTA. These distinctions could provide basis for treating procedures under each act differently.
STATUTES: K.S.A. 2014 Supp. 22-3208(4), -3302, 59-29a02(a), -29a02(b), -29a07(a), -2946(e), -2946(f) (1), -2946(f)(2); K.S.A. 22-3301 et seq., -3303, 59-29a01 et seq., -29a07(g), -2945 et seq., 60-2102(c)
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW; AGENCY; APPEAL AND ERROR;
JURISDICTION; STATUTES
NORRIS V KANSAS EMPLOYMENT SECURITY BOARD
OF REVIEW
SHAWNEE DISTRICT COURT - JUDGMENT OF THE
COURT OF APPEALS REVERSING THE DISTRICT
COURT IS AFFIRMED; JUDGMENT OF THE DISTRICT
COURT IS REVERSED
NO. 109,428 - FEBRUARY 19, 2016
FACTS: Norris quit her job in August 2011, and a Kansas Department of Labor examiner denied her claim for unemployment benefits. The Kansas Employment Security Board of Review (Board) affirmed that denial and denied Norris' motion for reconsideration. Norris filed a petition for judicial review in district court 36 days after the Board mailed its decision affirming the denial of benefits. The petition for judicial review was filed beyond the 16 days allowed by K.S.A. 44-701 and by the Kansas Judicial Review Act (KJRA). For that reason, the district court dismissed the petition for judicial review. A panel of the Court of Appeals reversed that dismissal, finding that the time for filing a petition for judicial review had been extended by the motion for reconsideration. The Kansas Supreme Court accepted the case on a petition for review in order to clarify the time limits applicable to administrative appeals.
ISSUE: Whether the filing of a motion for reconsideration extends the time in which to file a petition for judicial review of an administrative ruling
HELD: Judicial review of a Board decision is governed by the KJRA. There is nothing in K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 44-709(i) which either authorizes or forbids the filing of a motion for reconsideration. But the KJRA "explicitly contemplates" that a motion for reconsideration may be filed prior to a petition for judicial review. At the time Norris filed her claim the Board's statutes incorporated the KJRA. For that reason, Norris' motion for reconsideration extended the time in which to file a petition for judicial review...
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