TOPEKA—District Judge Constance Alvey of the 29th Judicial District has been appointed to sit with the Kansas Supreme Court to deliberate one case on the court's September 12 summary calendar. Alvey will join Supreme Court justices in their decision drafting.
“I am pleased that District Judge Alvey is taking time from her duties in the 29th Judicial District to sit with the Supreme Court,” said Chief Justice Lawton Nuss. “It's a great help to our court, and we look forward to her contributions in deliberating and eventually deciding this case.”
Alvey was elected a judge in 2008 in the 29th Judicial District, which is composed of Wyandotte County.
“I am honored to be asked to sit with the Supreme Court," Alvey said. "I am looking forward to seeing how another level of the law is conducted, since I have been working in some aspect of the law since I was 15 years old and have never tired of my love for the law and learning more.”
Alvey was in high school when she started working as a filing clerk in a law office. She became a district court file clerk and legal secretary, then studied to become a court reporter. She was a certified court reporter for Wyandotte County District Court.
Alvey said she then decided to return to college. She received a bachelor's degree in accounting from Rockhurst University and a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law while working as a freelance court reporter. She then worked as a lawyer in the 29th Judicial District's court trustee’s office and later as a prosecutor in Kansas and Missouri.
"My path to becoming a judge was because of my love for the law," Alvey said.
When a case does not present a new question of law, and oral argument is deemed neither helpful to the court nor essential to a fair hearing of the appeal, it is placed on the summary calendar. These cases are deemed submitted without oral argument.
The case Alvey will deliberate is:
Appeal No. 115,817: State of Kansas v. Aaron Robert Brown
Cowley County: (Petition for Review) At Brown's criminal trial, according to the verdict form, jurors convicted Brown of attempted involuntary manslaughter even though they had not been instructed on such a crime. The district court presumed to correct the verdict to attempted voluntary manslaughter and sentenced Brown for that crime. Brown appealed his conviction. The Court of Appeals found the district court's revision to be reversible error and remanded for a new trial on attempted voluntary manslaughter. The Court of Appeals affirmed Brown's convictions for criminal possession of a firearm and aggravated assault. The State filed a petition for review on the Court of Appeals' finding on revising the verdict. Brown is now appearing pro se. Issue on review is whether the district court properly entered a conviction against Brown for attempted voluntary manslaughter.