A Douglas County judge who’s under fire for granting lightened sentences in a rape case will have an unrelated decision reviewed this month by the Kansas Supreme Court.

The court has agreed to hear prosecutors’ appeal in the case of Jason A. Tremble, who received a sentence of roughly three years for injuring 11 people last October by firing gunshots into a crowd outside a Massachusetts Street bar.

Tremble, 22, Topeka, stood up in court at his preliminary hearing this year and said he would plead guilty to all charges against him — just as prosecutors were getting ready to file more severe charges.

Over prosecutors’ objections, Judge Paula Martin said she was duty-bound to accept Tremble’s plea and couldn’t allow the state to change the charges. Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney’s office alleges the decision was an abuse of discretion.

“What happened did not give the state a fair opportunity to present evidence of the more severe charges,” Kenney said.

The defense attorney handling the appeal, however, said it was the prosecutors’ problem — not the judge’s. He argued the state had plenty of time to change the charges and was not prevented from dismissing the case outright, then refiling it.

“Indecision on the part of the prosecutor is not a basis for criticism of the judge,” Randall Hodgkinson, deputy appellate defender, wrote in a court brief.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are scheduled for Oct. 12.

Tremble was convicted of 11 counts of aggravated battery, a level 8 felony, plus being a felon in possession of a firearm and leaving the scene of an accident. Prosecutors wanted to change some of the aggravated-battery counts to more severe level 5 felonies, which would have required them to show the victims suffered “great bodily harm.”

Tremble’s defense attorney said he was “showing off for his friends and behaving stupidly” when he walked down the street firing bullets into the pavement outside It’s Brothers Bar & Grill, 1105 Mass.

At sentencing, Martin called Tremble’s actions egregious and said she wanted to string all of the counts against him back-to-back. But because of a quirk in state sentencing guidelines, the total sentence couldn’t exceed two times the sentence for the first count — which caused Tremble to receive about 40 months in prison despite having a lengthy criminal background.

Had Tremble been convicted of one of the more severe aggravated-battery charges prosecutors tried to file, he would have been facing about 10 years in prison.

Martin is up for retention in the Nov. 2 election and faces opposition from a group that is angry she departed from guidelines in sentencing three men convicted of raping an intoxicated 13-year-old girl. Martin sentenced the men to probation, 60 days in jail, and community service.

Sex with a child under 14 is classified as rape under Kansas law and carries a presumed penalty of at least 13 years in prison. A judge can grant a lighter sentence if he or she finds there are “substantial and compelling reasons.”