State v. Exon

Summary

The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Jeffrey James Exon's convictions arising from the starvation death of his two-year-old daughter. The court held that the trial court properly excluded expert testimony concerning alleged medical-provider malpractice because it was not relevant to whether Exon's criminal neglect caused the death. The court vacated the sentence in part and remanded for correction of a clerical error in the sentencing journal entry.

Holdings

1. A defendant's constitutional right to present a defense does not require admission of expert evidence that is irrelevant to the defendant's criminal culpability. The exclusion of testimony concerning alleged malpractice by medical providers did not violate Exon's right to present a complete defense because it did not establish a defense to his own criminal neglect.
2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the expert's opinions that medical providers were medically negligent, that more assertive care probably would have saved A.E.'s life, and that a home-and-family assessment should have been conducted, because the opinions were not relevant to whether Exon criminally neglected A.E. to the extent that his neglect caused her death.
3. The oral pronouncement of sentence controls over a conflicting written journal entry. The 683-month term in the journal entry was a clerical error, and the sentence must be corrected through a nunc pro tunc order to reflect the sentence pronounced from the bench.

Questions Presented

1. Whether exclusion of the defense expert's opinions that A.E.'s medical providers were negligent and that more aggressive medical intervention could have saved her life violated Exon's constitutional right to present a defense.
2. Whether the trial court properly performed its evidentiary gatekeeping function under K.S.A. 60-456(b) by excluding the proffered expert testimony as irrelevant.
3. Whether the conflicting 683-month term stated in the sentencing journal entry, instead of the 653-month term orally pronounced from the bench, required correction.

Disposition

remanded