A Kansas Court of Appeals panel has denied a Coffey County man’s appeal of his sentence following a conviction of child sex crimes.
Alvin Houston III pleaded no contest in late 2014 to aggravated criminal sodomy of a child under the age of 14 and was sentenced in January 2015 to life in prison with the prospect of parole after 40 years following an attempted child rape conviction in Franklin County in 2000. Houston did not file a direct appeal, but later filed a motion to have his sentence corrected. That motion was denied, so Houston appealed again to the Kansas Supreme Court, which affirmed the court’s initial decision.
Houston then offered a different appeal, claiming his sentence was illegal for a variety of reasons, but the district court said Houston was unable to show “manifest injustice” and denied the appeal. The Court of Appeals agreed, saying Houston did not raise any claim of innocence when he filed his latest appeal and also filed that appeal after the one-year deadline. The appellate court also said the district court considered an unnecessary factor in its sentencing analysis, but it also considered all the state-mandated factors as well.
