Kansas Supreme Court orders second look at appeal in a 1999 rape and robbery case from Lawrence

In this file photo from Dec. 4, 2000, Terry McIntyre listens to opening statements in Douglas County District Court. McIntyre was on trial for the July 1999 robbery of Payless ShoeSource, 3231 Iowa, and the rape of an employee during the robbery.

? A man who was convicted in a 1999 rape and robbery case in Lawrence and sentenced to 54 years in prison may still be entitled to a few more days in court, the Kansas Supreme Court said Friday.

In a four-page unanimous opinion, the justices ordered the Kansas Court of Appeals to take another look at the case of Terry D. McIntyre to determine whether a valid case can be made that he had ineffective counsel in the handling of one of his many appeals.

The issue involves technical details in Kansas statutes that govern issues that can be raised on appeal and whether the lower courts properly applied those statutes.

McIntyre was convicted of robbing a Payless ShoeSource store in Lawrence in 1999 and of raping one store clerk and beating another. The crime gained national attention when it was featured on a popular TV show at the time, “America’s Most Wanted.”

McIntyre fled the scene of the crime and remained at large for two months before he was finally captured following a car chase in the Kansas City area.

He was tried and convicted in Douglas County District Court on multiple charges of robbery, rape, criminal sodomy, aggravated battery and kidnapping. Judge Paula Martin sentenced him to 645 months in prison, or 53 years and nine months.

In this file photo from Dec. 4, 2000, Terry McIntyre listens to opening statements in Douglas County District Court. McIntyre was on trial for the July 1999 robbery of Payless ShoeSource, 3231 Iowa, and the rape of an employee during the robbery.

The Kansas Court of Appeals upheld his conviction in 2002. But in the years since then, McIntyre has filed numerous “collateral” appeals in both state and federal court, including one in which he represented himself alleging he had ineffective assistance of counsel at both the trial and appellate levels.

The Douglas County Court denied that motion. McIntyre then hired an attorney and appealed again to the Kansas Court of Appeals, which rejected his claim as well.

Five years later, in 2012, McIntyre filed yet another appeal, this time claiming that the attorney he hired in the previous appeal, John W. Fay, had been ineffective.

Under Kansas law, defendants are usually allowed only one year in which to file such an appeal unless hearing the appeal is necessary to prevent a potential “manifest injustice.”

In McIntyre’s case, however, state prosecutors did not object to the filing, and the trial court heard the appeal. It then rejected the claim, saying the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to effective assistance of retained counsel in a collateral appeal.

In making that ruling, the Supreme Court said Friday, the trial court did not say why it allowed McIntyre to file such a late appeal, and it noted that state prosecutors did not object to it. Therefore, the court said, it could only be assumed that the trial court allowed it because of a potential “manifest injustice,” even though there was no mention of that in the record.

After that loss at the District Court, McIntyre appealed again to the Court of Appeals, and in an unpublished opinion in 2015 it rejected the appeal, saying it was filed after the one-year deadline. But in that ruling, the appeals court did not address the potential issue of a manifest injustice.

Therefore, the Supreme Court said, the Court of Appeals must review the issue one more time and decide whether his late appeal claiming ineffective counsel in his previous appeals could be justified in order to prevent a manifest injustice.


Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the judge who sentenced Terry McIntyre. District Judge Paula Martin sentenced McIntyre to 645 months in prison.