The Kansas Court of Appeals has affirmed part of a sentence in a nearly 20-year-old Lyon County murder case, but it’s also vacated part of that sentence as well.
Ethan Griffin was convicted in 2002 on two counts of felony murder, five additional counts of aggravated battery and two counts of burglary after the Eastgate apartment explosion in July 2001 that killed two people. He was then sentenced to two consecutive “Hard 20” life sentences, or prison with no chance of parole for 20 years, as well as 72 months in prison for the on-grid battery and burglary convictions. Griffin also got 32 months of postrelease supervision, although the journal entry listed the supervision period as 36 months.
Griffin argued multiplicity because of the sentence on both felony murder and burglary, and when that was denied at the district court level, he appealed, saying the court should have interpreted his filing as a motion to correct an illegal sentence. He also raised a new claim in saying the postrelease supervision period was an improper part of his sentence.
The Court of Appeals said Griffin’s multiplicity argument is not valid for correcting an illegal sentence, but it also said Griffin should have been subject to lifetime parole instead of postrelease supervision.
