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City of Wichita v. Marlett3/28/2003
ble person would take the view adopted by the trial court." Woods, 250 Kan. 109 at Syl. 5.
Here, the record demonstrates the district court had good reason to refuse to allow the City's amendment. At the hearing on the City's motion, the district court learned why the City had not included the severity level when the case was in municipal court. According to the prosecutor, the City had no system in place to verify that defendants were charged correctly before they entered pleas.
" eople can run in, plead guilty right away on a Complaint that does not allege a second [DUI conviction]. . . . They may know that they have prior . . . DUIs, so they run in, they plead to a first, appeal it, and then it can never . . . be amended at that point . . . , and that defeats the whole argument for enhanced sentencing. The worst of the worst . . . get off, basically get a benefit from this . . .
"Pleas are taken on dockets where prosecutors don't even appear. They can be made at first appearance. . . . ll you have is what's written on the Complaint that's made out by the officer in the case of the traffic ticket. I suppose there could be some sort of requirement that everything has to be filtered through, placed on a docket, no pleas will be taken until everything's had a chance to be investigated . . . ."
In other words, in Wichita, all second-time DUI offenders who simply plead guilty and do not appeal are apt to receive a lesser sentence than that required by statute, while those who have the audacity to contest the charge in municipal court and/or appeal a conviction to district court are subject to the background investigation that should have been done by the City in the first place, as well as the more serious charge and sentence to which such an investigation exposes them. The district court's conclusion that this system requires attention and improvement is reasonable, as was its decision to motivate change by exercising its discretion to deny the amendment.
Because we agree with the district court's holding that the original complaint was not "defective" under the statute as that term is currently understood, and because the district court's exercise of its discretion to deny the amendment was reasonable, we need not reach the second argument on appeal regarding constitutional due process.
Affirmed.
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