State of Kansas, Appellee v. Marcus G. Butler, Appellant.

Summary

The court affirmed Butler’s convictions for felony murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, and attempted aggravated robbery. It held that the conspiracy statute and the instruction presented a single sequence of overt acts rather than alternative means, and that knowingly was the legally appropriate culpable mental state for conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. The court also rejected Butler’s ineffective-assistance, prosecutorial-error, and cumulative-error claims, although it found that the trial court should have given a limiting instruction concerning prior marijuana purchases. The court vacated the lifetime postrelease-supervision portion of the sentence and remanded for imposition of lifetime parole.