State v. Pearce

Leben, J.:

Under the Kansas sentencing guidelines, the more serious a defendant’s past offenses are, the greater tire presumptive sentence if the defendant commits a new felony offense. After Michael Pearce, Jr., was convicted of his fifth burglary, however, the district court did not include Pearce’s past residential burglary—a person felony—when calculating his criminal-history score because *117the court had used that conviction to apply a statute that makes prison the default sentence for recidivist burglars.

The State has appealed, contending that the district court erred by excluding the…