State v. Redick, 414 P.3d 1207

Victim Lena Keithley was found dead in her motel room from asphyxia due to strangulation; her car was later found burned. Andrew Redick was charged with premeditated first-degree murder (off-grid) and arson (severity level 7).
Evidence included motel security video of Redick driving Keithley’s car, DNA linking Redick to cigarette butts and underwear at the motel, pawn tickets in Keithley’s name, witness statements implicating Redick, and coroner testimony about strangulation and methamphetamine presence.
At a pretrial hearing Redick told the court he wished to waive a jury trial and proceed to a bench trial; the judge conducted a brief colloquy and accepted the waiver.
During trial the defense requested and obtained sequestration of witnesses; later the court excluded a defense witness who had been present in the courtroom and had violated the sequestration order; no proffer of that witness’s testimony was made.
Redick was convicted of both counts; the court imposed a hard life sentence for murder and a consecutive 13-month term for arson. Redick appealed, challenging the jury-trial waiver adequacy, exclusion of the sequestrating witness, and the legality of his sentence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Redick)	Held
Adequacy of jury-trial waiver colloquy	Waiver was valid and preserved by the record; no reversible error	Court failed to advise Redick fully of rights (e.g., unanimity) and did not sufficiently probe his concerns about juror bias, so waiver may not have been knowing/voluntary	Court addressed the issue despite it being raised on appeal, found colloquy minimally sufficient and waiver knowing and voluntary; affirmed convictions on this point
Exclusion of witness who violated sequestration order	Judge acted within discretion; omission to proffer is fatal under K.S.A. 60-405 so no reversible error	Exclusion denied right to present integral defense evidence and violated constitutional right to a fair trial	Court held judge erred as a matter of law by treating exclusion as automatic (abuse of discretion), but could not assess harmlessness because no proffer was made; error noted but harmlessness unresolved on record
Legality of sentence (multiple-conviction rules)	Sentencing was lawful as imposed	Judge misidentified off-grid murder as primary offense, misapplied criminal-history score to arson, and violated double-rule cap	Court held judge erred: off-grid murder cannot be primary; arson (on-grid) should have been primary and base sentence set using defendant’s total criminal-history score (C). Vacated sentence and remanded for resentencing; double-rule inapplicable to off-grid sentences

State v. Rizo, 304 Kan. 974 (recognizing appellate discretion to review jury-waiver adequacy raised for first time)
State v. Frye, 294 Kan. 364 (insufficient jury-waiver colloquy; written waiver inadequately verified)
State v. Beaman, 295 Kan. 853 (standards for reviewing jury-waiver voluntariness)
State v. Lewis, 301 Kan. 349 (jury-waiver strict construction; voluntariness test)
State v. Walker, 283 Kan. 587 (off-grid crimes cannot be used as primary offense for base-sentence calculation)
State v. Brown, 303 Kan. 995 (double-rule for on-grid crimes does not limit off-grid life sentences)
State v. Cantrell, 234 Kan. 426 (sequestration violation does not automatically disqualify witness; exclusion within trial court discretion)
State v. Hill, 10 Kan. App. 2d 607 (Court of Appeals: excluding witness for sequestration violation can be reversible when treated as disqualification)