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Oct. 10, 2025 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

State v. Hekekia-Dixon

Court of Appeals of Kansas

• Citations: None known
• Docket Number: 127216

• Precedential Status: Unknown Status

• Opinion

• Authorities (3)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (7.3K)

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Combined Opinion

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 127,216

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

STATE OF KANSAS,
Appellee,

v.

LEILANI HEKEKIA-DIXON,
Appellant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Geary District Court; RYAN W. ROSAUER, judge. Submitted without oral argument.
Opinion filed October 10, 2025. Affirmed.

Korey A. Kaul, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant.

Steven J. Obermeier, assistant solicitor general, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for
appellee.

Before WARNER, C.J., MALONE and CLINE, JJ.

PER CURIAM: This is another jail credit case resulting from the fallout in State v.
Ervin, 320 Kan. 287, 566 P.3d 481 (2025). Leilani Hekekia-Dixon was convicted in
Geary District Court of possession of fentanyl and received a sentence of 37 months'
imprisonment. Hekekia-Dixon was an absconder for much of the time that her case was
pending in district court. Her only claim on appeal is that she is entitled to receive jail
credit for time she was held in the Sedgwick County jail in an unrelated case pending the
disposition of her Geary County case. For the reasons explained below, we find that the

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holding in Ervin does not apply to the facts here, and we affirm the district court's
judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On January 4, 2022, Hekekia-Dixon was completing mandatory registered
offender paperwork at the Geary County Sheriff's Department when she was arrested on
an outstanding warrant and an officer found drugs in her possession. The State later
charged her with one count of possession of fentanyl. The district court held a first
appearance on January 5, 2022, and Hekekia-Dixon posted a $2,500 surety bond after
spending one day in jail. The district court held nine arraignment hearings, and Hekekia-
Dixon ultimately pled guilty to the charge on October 27, 2022.

Over the next 10 months, Hekekia-Dixon repeatedly failed to appear for her
sentencing. On August 31, 2023, after her failure to appear at the eighth scheduled
sentencing hearing, the district judge commented that he had "reached the limit of [his]
patience" but decided not to issue a warrant because Hekekia-Dixon's absence was
attributed to a death in the family. The district court ordered Hekekia-Dixon to appear in
person at the rescheduled hearing the next week. When Hekekia-Dixon failed to appear at
that hearing, the district court forfeited her bond and issued a bench warrant on
September 7, 2023. The record reflects that the bench warrant was never executed and
was later recalled.

Hekekia-Dixon's sentencing was finally held on December 14, 2023. Hekekia-
Dixon appeared via Zoom while in custody at the Sedgwick County jail, where she was
awaiting her sentence in another case for a violation of the Kansas Offender Registration
Act (KORA). After hearing arguments, the district court sentenced Hekekia-Dixon to 37
months' imprisonment followed by 12 months' postrelease supervision. The parties
discussed jail credit and whether Hekekia-Dixon was entitled to credit for any of the time

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she was being held in the Sedgwick County jail. The district judge observed, "I don't even
know what the dates are to consider. I mean, I don't know how long she's been held down
there." The district court stated that it was "more appropriate to credit her in the
Sedgwick County case for the time that she's spending in Sedgwick County on the new
case for which she didn't post bond." Ultimately, the district court awarded Hekekia-
Dixon one day of jail credit for the one day she was in custody in Geary County before
posting bond in January 2022. Hekekia-Dixon timely appealed her sentence.

ANALYSIS

In her initial brief, Hekekia-Dixon argued the district court erred by denying her
request for jail credit for the time she spent in custody in the Sedgwick County jail during
the pendency of this case and that she did not receive credit for in another case. The State
countered that the district court "did not err in declining to award jail credit for the
unknown amount of time in her Sedgwick County case because that was not time she had
spent incarcerated pending disposition of her Geary County case."

The parties submitted their appellate briefs before the Kansas Supreme Court
issued its decision in Ervin, and this court issued a show-cause order for the parties to
address that decision. Hekekia-Dixon simply responded that this court should remand
with directions to award additional jail credit consistent with Ervin and State v. Hopkins,
317 Kan. 652, 537 P.3d 845 (2023). The State responded and asserted that "[t]his Court
should not read Ervin as awarding jail credit for all time spent incarcerated pending any
disposition of any of the defendant's cases."

The right to jail time credit in Kansas is statutory, governed in this case by K.S.A.
2021 Supp. 21-6615(a), which states that when a defendant is convicted and sentenced to
confinement, that sentence should be computed to "reflect . . . an allowance for the time
which the defendant has spent incarcerated pending the disposition of the defendant's

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case." Statutory interpretation presents a question of law over which an appellate court
has unlimited review. State v. Davis, 312 Kan. 259, 267, 474 P.3d 722 (2020).

In Ervin, the Kansas Supreme Court clarified that K.S.A. 21-6615(a) allows a jail
time credit for all time a defendant is incarcerated pending the disposition of a case,
regardless of whether the defendant receives a credit for some or all of that time against a
sentence in another case. 320 Kan. at 311-12. The court based its analysis on the "plain
language" of K.S.A. 21-6615(a), finding that the statute "is clear." 320 Kan. at 310. The
facts in Ervin were straightforward. The defendant was held in the Sedgwick County jail
on consecutive sentences in case No. 20CR2496 and in case No. 21CR1350 (the case on
appeal). The Supreme Court ultimately awarded the defendant 346 days of jail credit in
case No. 21CR1350 even though he also received credit for the same days in case No.
20CR2496, saying it did not matter under the statute that the defendant was receiving
duplicate credit. 320 Kan. at 311-12. But the defendant was clearly being held in jail in
both cases. 320 Kan. at 305.

Hekekia-Dixon's case is significantly different. Hekekia-Dixon was released on
bond in her Geary County case after spending one day in jail, and she was never held in
custody again in Geary County. She failed to appear for sentencing in Geary County and
a bench warrant was issued for her arrest but was never executed and was later recalled.
Meanwhile, she was arrested on a Sedgwick County warrant for a case in that county
charging her with a KORA violation, and she was held in the Sedgwick County jail only
on that case. She was later sentenced in the Geary County case in a Zoom hearing.

Under these facts, we find that Hekekia-Dixon does not receive jail credit in the
Geary County case for the time she was incarcerated in the Sedgwick County case.
Hekekia-Dixon would receive credit in her Geary County case for the time she was in the
Sedgwick County jail if she was held in jail for both cases. Under those circumstances,
she would get credit in both cases—that is what Ervin holds. But the record shows she

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was held in the Sedgwick County jail only in the Sedgwick County case, not the Geary
County case. These facts are distinguishable from the facts in Ervin.

For legal authority for our ruling, we cite Ervin, 320 Kan. 287, Syl. ¶ 12:

"K.S.A. 21-6615(a) allows a jail time credit for all time a defendant is
incarcerated pending the disposition of the defendant's case. A sentencing judge should
thus allow credit for all days incarcerated on a case, regardless of whether the defendant
received a credit for some or all that time against a sentence in another case." (Emphasis
added.)

And in construing the statute and applying the holding in Ervin, our court recently held:
"In order to receive jail time credit under K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 21-6615(a), the
incarceration must be tied to the case in which the defendant is seeking to receive credit."
(Emphasis added.) State v. Hill, 66 Kan. App. 2d ___, Syl. ¶ 4, 2025 WL 2737255
(2025).

Despite what our Supreme Court said in Ervin about the clarity of K.S.A. 21-
6615(a), the fact of the matter is that the statute does not address multiple case situations.
But it should be axiomatic that a defendant only receives jail credit in a case for days the
defendant is incarcerated in that case, and the defendant does not receive credit in one
case for days the defendant is incarcerated solely in an unrelated case. We conclude the
district court did not err in awarding Hekekia-Dixon one day of jail credit for the one day
she was incarcerated in the Geary County case pending disposition of this case.

Affirmed.

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