State v. Higgenbotham

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Six, J.:

This case concerns the prosecutor’s comments during closing argument, district court rulings during trial, and imposition of the hard 40 sentence.

Defendant Chester L. Higgenbotham, alias MatthewS. Murphy, appeals his convictions and sentence following a jury trial for premeditated first-degree murder, K.S.A. 21-3401, and kidnapping, K.S.A. 21-3420. Higgenbotham received a hard 40 sentence for the murder conviction and 49 months, consecutive to the hard 40, on the kidnapping charge. Our jurisdiction is under K.S.A. 22-3601(b)(1), (premeditated…