State v. Raymundo-Lopez

── State v. Raymundo-Lopez ── Court: Court of Appeals of Kansas Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION No. 128,539 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. RICARDO RAYMUNDO-LOPEZ, Appellant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; CHRISTOPHER MAGANA, judge. Submitted without oral argument. Opinion filed June 5, 2026. Reversed and remanded. Andrew J. McGowan, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, for appellant. Julie A. Koon, assistant district attorney, Marc Bennett, district attorney, and Kris W. Kobach, attorney general, for appellee. Before CLINE, P.J., BOLTON FLEMING, J., and JEFFREY GETTLER, District Judge, assigned. PER CURIAM: Ricardo Raymundo-Lopez was convicted of drug crimes and sentenced to 177 months in prison in 2016. But the district court granted a dispositional departure to 36 months' probation. A few weeks later, Raymundo-Lopez' probation officer filed a probation violation warrant stating Raymundo-Lopez failed to report for probation because he was deported. Raymundo-Lopez was arrested in Texas in 2024 and extradited to Kansas based on the 2016 probation violation warrant. The State then filed a second probation violation 1 warrant based on Raymundo-Lopez' failure to comply with other terms of his probation, including adding that he absconded from supervision when he was deported and that he was subject to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer or "hold" for entering the United States illegally. An immigration detainer is a request from ICE that asks a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency (1) to notify ICE as early as possible before the agency releases the individual, or (2) to hold the individual for up to 48 hours beyond the time the agency would ordinarily release the individual so the Department of Homeland Security has time to assume custody in accordance with federal immigration law. www.ice.gov/immigration-detainers. The district court revoked Raymundo-Lopez' probation and imposed a modified prison sentence of 80 months. The stated reasons for bypassing the intermediate sanctions normally required by K.S.A. 22-3716 were that Raymundo-Lopez absconded from probation and, in the alternative, that Raymundo-Lopez' welfare would not be served by continued probation "due to his prior deportation and the current ICE hold that will likely result in a second deportation at some point." On appeal, Raymundo-Lopez contends the district court erred when it revoked his probation because our court has held deportation does not constitute absconding and potential deportation is not a sufficient reason to support the offender welfare exception under K.S.A. 22-3716(c)(7). Raymundo-Lopez is correct. Under Kansas law, deportation does not amount to absconding. See State v. Maturino-Ruiz, No. 118,114, 2019 WL 3978332, at *3 (Kan. App. 2019) (unpublished opinion). We also find the district court failed to state with particularity why the imposition of intermediate sanctions would not serve Raymundo- Lopez' welfare. Simply finding that he may face deportation sometime in the future is not enough to support this determination. We therefore reverse the district court's decision to 2 revoke Raymundo-Lopez' probation and remand with instructions to sentence him to an intermediate sanction and reinstate probation. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Raymundo-Lopez pled guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and possession of proceed