State v. Kingsley – Biles – Affirmed

Alan W. Kingsley was convicted in 1991 of first-degree premeditated murder (plus aggravated robbery, aggravated arson, forgery); jury found three aggravators and recommended a "hard 40" life sentence, which the court imposed along with consecutive sentences for other counts.
On direct appeal this Court affirmed the hard 40 sentence but vacated aggravated arson and remanded for resentencing; net result remained hard 40 plus consecutive terms.
Years later Kingsley moved under K.S.A. 22-3504 to correct an illegal sentence, arguing his presentence investigation (PSI) erroneously listed prior Florida convictions (robbery/grand larceny) that never occurred and relied on State v. Murdock for conversion to KSGA grid sentencing.
The district court found the PSI error and ordered the Florida convictions removed from his record but concluded the error would not affect the hard 40 sentence and denied resentencing as no illegal sentence was created.
Kingsley appealed, arguing (1) the sentencing court’s mistaken belief about his criminal history made the sentence illegal and (2) the PSI error violated his due process rights.

Issue	Kingsley’s Argument	State’s Argument	Held
Whether the hard 40 sentence is "illegal" because the sentencing court relied on an incorrect criminal-history record	Kingsley: sentencing court’s mistaken factual/legal view of prior convictions required resentencing; sentence therefore illegal under K.S.A. 22-3504	State: hard 40 was statutorily authorized and mandatory if aggravators supported; criminal history did not control hard 40 determination	Court: Not illegal — hard 40 conformed to controlling statute; K.S.A. 22-3504 is narrowly limited and procedural or factual sentencing errors do not make the sentence "illegal."
Whether a due process claim based on PSI inaccuracies can be raised in a K.S.A. 22-3504 motion	Kingsley: erroneous PSI deprived him of due process at sentencing and warrants correction	State: constitutional/due process challenges are not cognizable in a K.S.A. 22-3504 motion unless they implicate statutory illegality	Court: Due process challenge is not cognizable in a motion to correct an illegal sentence here; motion under K.S.A. 22-3504 cannot be used to relitigate constitutional claims unrelated to statutory illegality.

State v. Murdock, 299 Kan. 312 (classification of out-of-state priors for KSGA criminal-history scoring)
State v. Keel, 302 Kan. 560 (overruling Murdock on person/nonperson classification)
State v. Neal, 292 Kan. 625 (incorrect criminal-history score can render a KSGA sentence illegal)
State v. Peirano, 289 Kan. 805 (procedural errors in hard 40 sentencing do not make the sentence illegal)
State v. Gayden, 281 Kan. 290 (constitutional challenges to a sentence generally not cognizable in a K.S.A. 22-3504 motion)
State v. Hankins, 304 Kan. 226 (K.S.A. 22-3504 has very limited applicability)
State v. Dickey, 305 Kan. 217 (misclassification tied to statutory construction informed by constitutional law can support an illegal-sentence claim)