TOPEKA — A Kansas Court of Appeals panel has affirmed a DUI conviction for a Chase County woman.
Ericka Webber appealed her conviction, saying the district court improperly used a prior municipal court conviction from Wichita on a DUI charge as a way to enhance the sentence for her conviction in Chase County.
Webber had been charged with third-offense DUI as well as traffic infractions and misdemeanor circumvention of an ignition interlock device. She pleaded no contest to DUI, so the other charges were dropped. At sentencing, however, the state said Webber fell into the fourth-or-subsequent DUI category and she was sentenced to a year in jail as a result.
Webber’s appeal said the state’s fact-finding process was flawed. The Court of Appeals panel says otherwise, saying Webber’s three prior convictions — including the case from Wichita — should be counted, even though the record does not identify a Wichita ordinance for the conviction, Webber did not say under what ordinance she was convicted and there is no evidence to support Webber’s conclusion because the prior report never made it to the court record. In such a case, the burden of proof is on the claimant — in this case Webber — and without such a record, the claim of error fails.
