State v. Sprague, 303 Kan. 418

Background

Davin Sprague was convicted by a jury of premeditated first-degree murder for the death of his wife, Kandi; her body was later found buried in a shallow grave in a Morton building on the couple’s property.
Sprague initially told police his wife left him; after discovery of the body he gave a recorded statement admitting he struck Kandi with a pipe and then strangled her.
Autopsy showed two skull fractures from blunt force trauma; the medical examiner testified those fractures could have been survivable and that a subsequent strangulation could be a supervening cause of death, but decomposition prevented conclusive findings about asphyxiation.
The district court denied Sprague’s pro se ineffective-assistance motion without an evidentiary hearing, denied a motion to suppress evidence from the Morton building search, admitted crime-scene images (no contemporaneous objection preserved on appeal), and sentenced Sprague under Kansas’s "hard 50" statute.
On appeal Sprague raised multiple claims (unanimity instruction, ineffective assistance, prosecutorial misconduct in closing, corpus delicti, sufficiency/acquittal, gruesome photos, suppression of the Morton building search, cumulative error, and constitutionality of the hard-50 sentencing scheme).

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Sprague)	Held
Whether a unanimity instruction was required because multiple acts (blow to head vs. strangling) could have caused death	No unanimity needed when only one killing is alleged; evidence supports a unitary homicide theory	Two distinct lethal acts presented a multiple-acts case requiring unanimity	No unanimity instruction required; single killing = not a multiple-acts case
Whether the district court erred by summarily denying Sprague's ineffective-assistance motion	Motion was conclusory and unsupported; summary denial appropriate	Counsel failed to investigate/offer daughters’ interviews and otherwise refused defendant’s requests, entitling Sprague to a hearing	Denial proper; claims were conclusory and did not justify an evidentiary hearing
Whether prosecutor’s closing comments (calling defense story "preposterous" and saying witnesses had "no motive") were misconduct and prejudicial	Statements improper but harmless given overwhelming evidence	Comments were improper and prejudicial	Comments were prosecutorial error but harmless; conviction stands
Whether admission of Sprague’s confession violated the corpus delicti rule	State had independent prima facie evidence of homicide (body, injuries) so confession admissible	Confession was uncorroborated and should be excluded	Corpus delicti satisfied by circumstantial evidence; confession admissible
Whether search of Morton building exceeded warrant scope and required suppression	Warrant description of home/curtilage sufficiently included Morton building	Morton building (auto shop) was separate and outside warrant scope	Warrant description reasonably included the outbuilding; suppression denied
Whether the hard-50 sentencing procedure was constitutional	State relied on statutory judge-found aggravators under K.S.A. 21-4635	Defendant argued Alleyne requires jury findings of aggravators beyond reasonable doubt	Hard-50 scheme invalid under Alleyne and Kansas precedent; sentence vacated and remanded for resentencing

Key Cases Cited

State v. King, 299 Kan. 372 (defining multiple-acts/unity analysis for unanimity instructions)
State v. Soto, 299 Kan. 102 (holding single killing cannot be multiple-acts case; also addresses hard-50 Sixth Amendment issue)
Trotter v. State, 288 Kan. 112 (standards for summary denial of postconviction motions and available procedures)
State v. Brinklow, 288 Kan. 39 (prosecutor may not express personal belief in witness credibility)
State v. Marshall, 294 Kan. 850 (prosecutorial misconduct not excused by defense statements; open-the-door principle limits)
State v. Roeder, 300 Kan. 901 (remedy and retroactivity principles after vacating hard-50 sentences)