KANSAS COURT OF APPEALS

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KANSAS SUPREME COURT

STATE V. COLEMAN, NO. 115293: WETRICH APPLIES TO PRE-KSGA CONVICTIONS.

Held: We hold the Wetrich test should also be used for Kansas crimes committed before the sentencing guidelines used the person or nonperson designations. State v. Wetrich, 307 Kan. 552, Syl. ¶ 3, 412 P.3d 984 (2018) (statute under which a prior out-of-state conviction was obtained must be identical to or narrower than the crime to which it is compared for the two to be comparable).  

Syllabus:

1. When calculating a person's criminal history, the revised Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act, K.S.A. 2018 Supp. 21-6801 et seq., provides that convictions for crimes committed before Kansas designated crimes as person or nonperson offenses are to be classified as a person or nonperson offense by referring to comparable offenses in effect on the date the defendant committed the current crime of conviction.

2. For a Kansas crime committed before Kansas designated crimes as person or nonperson offenses to be deemed comparable to a current offense under the Kansas criminal code, within the meaning of K.S.A. 2018 Supp. 21-6810, the earlier crime's elements cannot be broader than the current crime's elements. In other words, the earlier crime's elements must be identical to, or narrower than, the elements of the crime to which it is being referenced.