KS: After suppression and affirmance on appeal, law of the case bars state from relitigating search after recharging

After the state lost a motion to suppress and an interlocutory appeal, it admittedly manipulated a recharging to get a second suppression hearing. The first was law of the case. “The doctrine of law of the case prevents a party from serially litigating an issue already presented and decided on appeal in the same proceeding. The doctrine promotes judicial efficiency while allowing litigants a full and fair opportunity to present their arguments on a point—the first bite of the proverbial apple. We apply law of the case to affirm the Clay County District Court’s ruling suppressing evidence the State intended to use to prosecute Defendant Dominic Parry for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. The State lost an earlier motion to suppress in the district court, and another panel of this court affirmed that ruling on the State’s interlocutory appeal. In response, the State manipulated the prosecution of Parry, as it forthrightly admits, by dismissing and refiling the charges to take what we find to be an impermissible second bite at the apple to again argue the constitutionality of the search.” State v. Parry, 2015 Kan. App. LEXIS 62 (September 18, 2015).