State of Kansas, Appellee, v. Casey Cane Jordan Crawford, Appellant. (2026)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In a combined hearing, the Atchison County District Court ordered Defendant Casey Crawford to serve a prison sentence in one case followed by a term of probation in a second case. Crawford contends the district court lacked the statutory authority to structure the sentences that way. Based on the rationale in State v. Oathout, 65 Kan. App. 2d 851, 857-58, 573 P.3d 751 (2025), we agree. We, therefore, vacate the sentence and probation the district court ordered in the second case and remand with directions that the district court impose a statutorily permissible sentence.

The county attorney charged Crawford in case No. 24CR2 (case 1), and while Crawford was on bond in that case, he committed additional felonies the county attorney then charged in case No. 24CR93 (case 2). The underlying circumstances of the crimes are irrelevant to this appeal. In an agreement with the State, Crawford pleaded no contest to one count of felony criminal threat in case 1 and to one count of felony fleeing and attempting to elude a law enforcement officer and one count of misdemeanor domestic battery in case 2.

In a combined hearing, the district court imposed a standard guidelines sentence of 16 months in prison with postrelease supervision for 12 months and granted Crawford a dispositional departure to probation for 12 months in case 1. The district court ordered Crawford to perform the probation after he completed the sentence in case 2. In case 2, the district court ordered Crawford to serve a controlling prison sentence of 16 months with postrelease supervision for 12 months, reflecting a presumptive guidelines punishment. The district court noted that special rule 10 requires consecutive sentences because Crawford committed the crimes in case 2 while he was on bond in case 1. But, as we explain, the ordering of the punishments here does not conform to the special rule. Crawford has appealed.

The appeal poses a single question: Did the district court permissibly defer the probation of Crawford in case 1 until after he served the prison sentence in case 2? The short answer is no. Nothing in K.S.A. 21-6608, governing the imposition of probation, suggests a district court may order probation in one felony case to follow incarceration in another felony case when the cases are handled together in a single sentencing hearing.

In Oathout, we held that a district court could not impose consecutive periods of probation in two felony cases disposed of in a joint hearing. 65 Kan. App. 2d at 858. Although the issue in Oathout was factually distinct, it is a distinction without a legal difference for purposes of resolving Crawford's claim. As we recognized in Oathout, criminal defendants have no constitutional right to probation and courts have no inherent authority to grant probation in a manner different from what the Legislature statutorily permits. 65 Kan. App. 2d at 854. In short, probation is purely a creature of statute. State v. Dubish, 236 Kan. 848, 851, 696 P.2d 969 (1985). Absent legislative authorization, a district court “is without judicial power to ․ place the defendant, who has been convicted, on probation.” 236 Kan. at 851. As we explained in Oathout, “a district court lacks the inherent prerogative to extend probation to a convicted felon or to craft terms of probation the Legislature has not authorized.” 65 Kan. App. 2d at 854.

No statute permits the ordering of imprisonment in one case followed by probation in a second case. So the district court lacked the authority to do what it did here. The district court's order runs contrary to the policy behind probation and would seem to lead to peculiar outcomes. The Legislature has stated the broad public policy foundation for the sentencing guidelines this way:

“K.S.A. 21-6601 through 21-6629, and amendments thereto, shall be liberally construed to the end that persons convicted of crime shall be dealt with in accordance with their individual characteristics, circumstances, needs and potentialities as revealed by case studies; that dangerous offenders shall be correctively treated in custody for long terms as needed; and that other offenders shall be dealt with by probation, suspended sentence, fine or assignment to a community correctional services program whenever such disposition appears practicable and not detrimental to the needs of public safety and the welfare of the offender, or shall be committed for at least a minimum term within the limits provided by law.” K.S.A. 21-6601.

Consistent with that policy, defendants should be placed on probation if they are likely candidates for rehabilitation in the community through close monitoring and adherence to strict conditions aimed at curtailing their antisocial behaviors without resort to imprisonment. Ordering a defendant to complete a term of probation as a consecutive disposition to serving a felony prison sentence lays that objective to waste.

Moreover, a defendant in Crawford's position would be simultaneously on postrelease supervision in one case and on probation in a second. Postrelease supervision is handled administratively through the Kansas Department of Corrections and the Prisoner Review Board, while probation operates within the judicial branch, principally at the district court level. Again, the governing statutes do not permit that sort of duplicative result when a defendant is jointly sentenced in two cases. In a comparatively rare circumstance, a defendant could be on both postrelease supervision and probation if they were already serving a period of postrelease supervision, committed a new crime, and received a dispositional departure to probation from the district court for the new crime. That would be largely a product of happenstance rather than any sort of legislative authority permitting a district court to impose incarceration followed by probation in two cases resolved in a joint hearing.

Along that line, the district court's reliance on special rule 10 is misplaced. The rule is codified in K.S.A. 21-6604(f)(4) and K.S.A. 21-6606(d) and provides that if a defendant commits a felony while on bond or other conditional release for an earlier felony charge or conviction, the district court should impose the sentence for that new crime consecutive to any other sentence. Here, that would have allowed the district court to impose the sentence in case 2 consecutive to the sentence in case 1—the reverse of what it actually did. As importantly, probation is not considered a sentence. See K.S.A. 21-6603(g) (“ ‘probation’ ” defined as “a procedure under which a defendant, convicted of a crime, is released by the court after imposition of sentence, without imprisonment except as provided in felony cases, subject to conditions imposed by the court”). So requiring consecutive sentences in two cases does not authorize incarceration on one and probation on the other. Nothing else in K.S.A. 21-6604 suggests the district court could mix and match probation and incarceration the way it did.

Indeed, if the district court had the authority to order probation to follow incarceration in two cases, we suppose a district court would have the authority to do the reverse. But ordering incarceration to follow a successful probation would run counter to a cornerstone policy of the sentencing guidelines and would at least border on the unreasonable. See State v. James, 301 Kan. 898, 903, 349 P.3d 457 (2015) (court should construe statutes “to avoid unreasonable or absurd results”).

In line with the discussion in Oathout, we find no other statutory source that would permit the district court's disposition here. See 65 Kan. App. 2d at 858-60. We do not prolong this opinion by repeating Oathout’s analysis of K.S.A. 21-6606(a) and K.S.A. 21-6819. We conclude that the district court erroneously ordered Crawford to complete a period of probation in case 1 after serving his prison sentence in case 2.

As a remedy, Crawford suggests that he be permitted to complete his probation while serving his prison sentence. In other words, Crawford says his term of probation in case 1 should be completed concurrently with his time in prison in case 2. We reject the suggestion as incompatible with the purpose and function of probation that, in part, includes a defendant's ability to remain law-abiding while continuing to live in their community outside of a prison setting. Cf. State v. Gaudina, 284 Kan. 354, 362-63, 160 P.3d 854 (2007) (excess time spent in prison serving sentence cannot be credited against postrelease supervision because latter entails release into community under specified conditions for specified period).

The sentence and probation in case No. 24CR2 are vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court with directions to impose a legally authorized punishment.

Sentence vacated and case remanded with directions.

Per Curiam: