State v. Cheeks, 482 P.3d 1129

Background

Jerome Cheeks was convicted in 1993 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life; he filed for postconviction DNA testing under K.S.A. 21-2512 in 2009.
The district court initially denied the petition because the statute on its face applied only to first-degree murder and rape.
Kansas Supreme Court in State v. Cheeks (Cheeks I) (2013) held Cheeks similarly situated to first-degree murder defendants based on his sentence and extended K.S.A. 21-2512 under the Equal Protection Clause; remanded for further proceedings.
On remand Cheeks was released but Cheeks II (2015) held he was "in state custody" at the time he filed in 2009 and remanded for merits proceedings.
While the district court was proceeding, the Kansas Supreme Court decided State v. LaPointe (2019), overruling Cheeks I’s punishment-based equal protection approach in favor of an elements-based approach (Denney), and rejecting expansion of the statute.
The district court denied Cheeks’ petition again relying on LaPointe; the Supreme Court affirmed, holding law-of-the-case exceptions and futility principles mean reversal would be pointless because LaPointe controls (though a dissent argued Cheeks I’s narrow holding survives).

Issues

Issue	Cheeks' Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether the law-of-the-case doctrine required the district court to apply Cheeks I and grant DNA testing	Cheeks: law-of-the-case and prior mandates bind the district court to grant testing	State: LaPointe is controlling intervening precedent that overrules Cheeks I	Court: Doctrinal exceptions apply—LaPointe is controlling and Cheeks I is effectively overruled, so law of the case does not compel relief
Whether the mandate rule barred the district court from applying LaPointe	Cheeks: district court must follow appellate mandate regardless of intervening decisions	State: LaPointe is binding precedent and applies because Cheeks' petition was pending when LaPointe issued	Court: Even if the district court technically violated the mandate, reversal would be futile because LaPointe would control on remand; affirm denial
Proper standard for "similarly situated" under K.S.A. 21-2512 (elements vs. punishment approach)	Cheeks: punishment/sentence equivalence makes him similarly situated to first-degree murderers	State: elements-based approach (Denney/Salas) controls; Cheeks' offense is distinguishable	Court: Adopted LaPointe’s elements approach; Cheeks is not similarly situated and is ineligible under statute and Equal Protection
Preservation of the mandate/law-of-the-case claim	Cheeks: preserved argument by urging the court to follow prior Supreme Court ruling and the mandate	State: claimed lack of preservation	Court: preserved—Cheeks' arguments sufficiently described mandate/law-of-the-case issue

Key Cases Cited

State v. Cheeks, 298 Kan. 1 (2013) (Cheeks I) (extended postconviction DNA statute under Equal Protection based on punishment/sentence equivalence)
State v. Cheeks, 302 Kan. 259 (2015) (Cheeks II) (held petitioner was in state custody when petition filed; remanded for merits)
State v. LaPointe, 309 Kan. 299 (2019) (overruled Cheeks I’s punishment-based comparability and adopted an elements-based Denney approach)
State v. Denney, 278 Kan. 643 (2004) (articulated elements-based "arguably indistinguishable" test for similar-situation analysis)
State v. Kleypas, 305 Kan. 224 (2016) (discussed law-of-the-case exceptions and mandate rule; addressed futility doctrine)
State v. Collier, 263 Kan. 629 (1998) (explained law-of-the-case doctrine in Kansas)
Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U.S. 163 (2006) (U.S. Supreme Court intervening precedent used in analysis of futility in Kleypas II)