State v. Gilbert
Annotate this CaseMore than ten years after Appellant was sentenced for felony murder, he filed a pro se motion to “Correct Illegal Sentence,” making an instructional error claim. The district court construed Appellant’s pleading as a motion to correct an illegal sentence and summarily denied the motion. On appeal, Appellant argued that the motion should have been liberally construed as invoking Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-1507(a), which would have allowed the district court to determine whether resolving Appellant’s motion was necessary to prevent manifest injustice. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court correctly treated the pro se motion as a motion to correct an illegal sentence; and (2) the motion was appropriately denied because Appellant’s jury instruction claim challenged his conviction, not his sentence, and could not be raised in a motion to correct an illegal sentence.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.