Kansas Supreme Court says $400 fee applies to each convicted defendant, not each child sex offense

TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court’s review of state law led to a decision requiring defendants convicted of sex crimes involving a minor to pay a singular $400 fee instead of $400 for each offense.

The decision means district court judges no longer are allowed to stack $400 fees on defendants as had been done for more than 20 years.

Justices of the Supreme Court reversed a 2025 decision of the Kansas Court of Appeals that affirmed a Saline County district judge’s ruling that defendant Jack R. Mildfelt should be assessed $2,400 in fees following conviction of six child sex crimes involving minors. In addition to the $400 the lower courts said was owed to the Children’s Advocacy Center on each conviction, Mildfelt was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 100 years.

Attorneys representing Mildfelt challenged findings of the district court and Court of Appeals by asserting state law authorized a $400 fee per defendant.

In the Supreme Court opinion written by Justice K.J. Wall and published last week, the state’s highest court said the law was ambiguous because both sides in the legal dispute presented plausible explanations for the statute’s meaning.

However, the opinion said, the Supreme Court’s application of ordinary rules of grammar “confirms that the Legislature intended K.S.A. 20-370(a) to impose the Children’s Advocacy Center fee on a per-defendant basis.”

Here is the relevant text of state law: “Any defendant convicted of a crime under chapter 21 of the Kansas Statutes Annotated, and amendments thereto, in which a minor is a victim, shall pay an assessment fee in the amount of $400 to the clerk of the district court.”

Sam Schirer, an attorney with the Capital Appeals and Conflicts Defender Office who represented Mildfelt, said the requirement should be a singular $400 fee.

“The plain language of the statute permits ‘a’ fee,” he said. “ ’A’ means one.”

Wall’s opinion for the Supreme Court said the analysis hinged on the phrase “convicted of a crime … in which a minor is a victim” and the section requiring defendants to pay “an assessment fee.”

“So, the statute effectively imposes fees on a per-defendant basis, regardless of the number of convictions,” Wall’s opinion said. “This is a permissible reading of the statutory text.”

The Supreme Court’s opinion said a review of legislative intent regarding the original bill adopted in 2004 didn’t clarify whether the Children’s Advocacy Center fee was designed to be imposed on a per-conviction or per-defendant basis. In 2013, the law was amended to make the fee unwaivable and to increase the amount of the fee from $100 to $400.

In multiple cases, the Court of Appeals concluded the intent of the Kansas Legislature was to assign the $400 fee to each offense involving a child victim that led to a conviction.

Mildfelt, 58, was convicted in 2023 on two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, two counts of aggravated solicitation of a child, aggravated criminal sodomy and rape of a person under age 14. He was listed by the Kansas Department of Corrections as incarcerated at Ellsworth Correctional Facility.