State v. Palmer: The PIK 52.140 Foreseeability Paragraph Is Legal Error in Attempted-Aggravated-Robbery Prosecutions, But Not Clear Error Where the Jury Also Finds Principal Liability and Specific Intent; Fatal Resistance to Armed Home Intrusions Is Foreseeable

Introduction

In State v. Palmer, No. 127,505 (Kan. Oct. 24, 2025), the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed a felony-murder conviction arising from a botched, armed intrusion into an occupied Wichita apartment. The case presented two principal issues. First, whether sufficient evidence supported the felony-murder conviction predicated on a killing “in the attempt to commit” aggravated robbery. Second, whether a jury instruction on “responsibility for crimes of another” (based on PIK Crim. 4th 52.140) was legally inappropriate under State v. Mora, 315 Kan. 537, 509 P.3d 1201 (2022), and, if so, whether the error warranted reversal.

The Court’s opinion, authored by Justice Biles, is notable for three clarifications:

• Reaffirming that it is reasonably foreseeable that an armed, forced entry into an occupied residence will provoke resistance, and that such resistance may culminate in death.
• Reiterating Mora’s specific-intent requirement in prosecutions for attempted crimes when the underlying statute does not itself include “attempt” language, and that an aider and abettor must share the principal’s specific intent.
• Cabining the reach of Mora’s instructional holding by concluding that while the PIK 52.140 foreseeability paragraph is legally inappropriate in attempt cases, its inclusion is not clear error when the jury also finds the defendant liable as a principal and separately instructed elements require—and the evidence supports—specific intent to commit the attempted offense.

The parties were the State of Kansas (appellee) and Jaron Chance Palmer (appellant). The district court (Sedgwick County, Judge Eric Williams) convicted Palmer of felony murder, attempted aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and battery offenses. A majority of the Supreme Court affirmed; Justice Wall, joined by Justice Stegall, concurred in the result on sufficiency; Justice Wilson did not participate.

Summary of the Opinion

The Kansas Supreme Court upheld Palmer’s felony-murder conviction under K.S.A. 21-5402(a)(2) (killing committed in the attempt to commit an inherently dangerous felony, here aggravated robbery as defined by K.S.A. 21-5420[b][1]). Applying the familiar sufficiency standard (viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State), the Court concluded a rational jury could find:

• The attempted aggravated robbery was ongoing when the fatal shot was fired; and
• No extraordinary intervening event severed the causal chain—armed home invasions foreseeably provoke defensive violence.

On the instructional issue, the Court agreed that the middle paragraph of PIK Crim. 4th 52.140 (imposing liability for other reasonably foreseeable crimes in carrying out the intended crime) is legally inappropriate in attempt prosecutions after Mora because it can dilute the State’s burden to prove the attempt-specific specific intent required by K.S.A. 21-5301(a). But because Palmer did not properly preserve a legal objection, review proceeded under the clear error standard (K.S.A. 22-3414[3]). The Court held the error did not firmly convince it that the jury would have reached a different verdict, distinguishing Mora on critical facts: Palmer was charged and convicted as a principal on the attempt, the jury received a separate instruction (Instruction No. 15) squarely requiring specific intent for attempted aggravated robbery, and the evidence strongly supported that finding. The conviction was therefore affirmed.

Analysis

Factual context

Three masked intruders forced their way into a Wichita apartment from which marijuana and THC products were sold. They demanded “money, drugs, and guns.” Two occupants barricaded in a bedroom armed themselves; one fired a warning shot through the door when an intruder attempted to breach it. As the intruders retreated from the hallway, gunfire erupted. A “tall” intruder fired multiple rounds; Eric Stokes was killed. Surveillance footage, ballistics, and co-actor statements tied Palmer to the firearm that killed Stokes. The jury convicted Palmer of felony murder predicated on attempted aggravated robbery, among other offenses.

Precedents cited and how they shaped the decision

• State v. Barnes, 320 Kan. 147, 563 P.3d 1255 (2025) — Reaffirmed the sufficiency standard: all evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the State to determine if a rational juror could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This framed the Court’s deference to the jury’s findings.
• State v. Carter, 316 Kan. 427, 516 P.3d 608 (2022) — Clarified felony-murder’s dual causation requirements:
  • Res gestae: the death must occur in acts so closely connected to the principal occurrence as to form part of it.
  • Direct causation: absent an extraordinary intervening event becoming the sole legal cause of death.
  Palmer’s sufficiency analysis is organized around Carter’s framework.
• State v. Wilson, 308 Kan. 516, 421 P.3d 742 (2018) — Defined “extraordinary” intervening events as “unforeseeable,” and underscored that “violence begets violence.” Armed robberies foresee defensive responses; gunfire by a victim is not an extraordinary intervening cause. This precedent undercut Palmer’s causation argument.
• State v. Pearce, 314 Kan. 475, 500 P.3d 528 (2021) — Recognized that introducing or threatening with guns in drug-related contexts heightens the foreseeability of violence. The Court used Pearce to support foreseeability here, given the apartment’s drug trade context and the intruders’ use of a gun.
• State v. Phillips, 295 Kan. 929, 287 P.3d 245 (2012) and State v. Brown, 300 Kan. 542, 331 P.3d 781 (2014) — The Court rejected Palmer’s invitation to draw a bright line ending the “attempt” once the intruders briefly retreated after a warning shot. Brown cautions against bright-line conversions between attempted and completed robbery; Phillips’ “completion” note could not be repurposed to end an attempt mid-episode as a matter of law.
• State v. Zimmerman, 251 Kan. 54, 833 P.2d 925 (1992) — Defined “overt act” in attempts: a step beyond mere preparation where an appreciable fragment of the crime is committed. The Court used this to clarify that “res gestae” refers to the intended crime as the principal occurrence, not the attempt itself.
• State v. Mora, 315 Kan. 537, 509 P.3d 1201 (2022) — The cornerstone for the instructional issue. Mora held:
  • When the underlying statute does not include “attempt,” the default rule in K.S.A. 21-5301(a) requires proof of specific intent to commit the intended crime in attempt prosecutions—even if the completed crime does not require specific intent.
  • Under aiding and abetting, the defendant must share the principal’s specific intent for specific-intent crimes (including attempts).
  • The middle paragraph of PIK Crim. 4th 52.140 (foreseeability of “other crimes” as natural and probable consequences) is legally inappropriate in attempt prosecutions because it risks relieving the State of proving the attempt-specific specific intent.
  Palmer adopts Mora’s legal premise but limits its remedial consequence under clear-error review when principal liability and separate, correct attempt instructions exist.
• State v. Overstreet, 288 Kan. 1, 200 P.3d 427 (2009) — Aiding and abetting for specific-intent crimes requires the aider share the same specific intent as the principal; cited within Mora and reaffirmed.
• State v. Holder, 314 Kan. 799, 502 P.3d 1039 (2022) — Jury instructions must accurately state the law; misstatements are legally infirm. Palmer recognizes Instruction 18’s middle paragraph as legally erroneous under this principle.
• State v. Plummer, 295 Kan. 156, 283 P.3d 202 (2012) — Preservation affects the standard of review. The Court treated Palmer’s challenge as unpreserved and proceeded under clear error (K.S.A. 22-3414[3]).
• State v. Meggerson, 312 Kan. 238, 474 P.3d 761 (2020) and State v. Holley, 315 Kan. 512, 509 P.3d 542 (2022) — Points not adequately briefed are abandoned; and self-defense is not a defense to felony murder, except insofar as it negates an element of the underlying felony. These dispose of Palmer’s self-defense framing.

Legal reasoning

1) Sufficiency of the evidence for felony murder (attempted aggravated robbery)

Applying Barnes and Carter, the Court first assessed whether the killing occurred “in the attempt to commit” aggravated robbery. The record showed:

• Three masked intruders forced entry, demanded drugs, money, and guns; Palmer was the only one with a gun.
• When a barricaded occupant fired a warning shot through a door, the intruders started to retreat; Palma’s brother exited but Palmer lingered in the doorway and then fired multiple rounds, one killing Stokes.
• Ballistics tied the fatal bullet to the gun Palmer discarded in a trash can; surveillance corroborated the sequence.

From this, a rational jury could find the attempt was still underway when the shots were fired; the “precise moment” an intruder abandons a plan does not break, as a matter of law, the continuity between the attempt and the homicide. The Court emphasized it was not reweighing evidence but crediting the jury’s reasonable inferences.

On “direct causation,” Palmer argued that the occupant’s warning shot was an extraordinary intervening cause. Relying on Wilson and Pearce, the Court rejected this as a matter of law: a violent, armed intrusion into an occupied dwelling foreseeably provokes defensive violence. As Wilson explained, the “impulse” to resist is a “basic human instinct”; robbery with a gun renders the robber a “potential assassin.” That resistance—including return gunfire—is not an extraordinary, superseding cause. Palmer’s self-defense framing was deemed abandoned and, in any event, cannot defeat felony murder except insofar as it negates an element of the underlying felony (Holley).

The Court also clarified a conceptual point about res gestae: in the felony-murder context, the “principal occurrence” is the intended underlying crime (here, aggravated robbery), not merely the attempt itself. This matters because acts before the “overt act” of attempt may still be part of the res gestae of the intended crime, although they would not independently establish criminal attempt liability (Zimmerman).

2) Instructional error: PIK 52.140’s middle paragraph post-Mora

Instruction No. 18 told jurors, among other things, that a person is “also responsible for any other crime” committed in carrying out or attempting to carry out the intended crime if the person could reasonably foresee the other crime as a probable consequence (PIK Crim. 4th 52.140, middle paragraph). After Mora, this language is legally inappropriate in attempt prosecutions because the default rule in K.S.A. 21-5301(a) requires proof of specific intent to commit the intended crime, and the foreseeability paragraph risks relieving the State of that burden—especially where liability rests on aiding and abetting.

Preservation proved pivotal. Palmer did not lodge a legal objection to Instruction 18; at most, he made a factual sufficiency objection. The Court therefore applied clear error review (K.S.A. 22-3414[3]). Under that standard, a conviction stands unless the defendant firmly convinces the Court the jury would have reached a different verdict absent the error.

Distinguishing Mora, the Court emphasized three features of this record:

• Principal liability on the attempt. Unlike Mora—where liability arose solely under an aiding-and-abetting theory—Palmer was charged and convicted as a principal on the attempted aggravated robbery. The jury therefore had to find he personally committed the overt act with the intent to commit aggravated robbery.
• Separate, correct attempt instruction. Instruction No. 15 explicitly required the jury to find that Palmer acted “with the intent to commit aggravated robbery.” This preserved the State’s burden to prove specific intent under K.S.A. 21-5301(a).
• Strength of the evidence. Witness testimony, ballistics, and video evidence established Palmer’s role as the armed intruder and shooter, supporting the finding of specific intent and principal liability.

The jury’s sole question during deliberations asked about the “mere association or presence” clause (the last sentence of Instruction 18), not the foreseeability paragraph that Mora condemns. Against this backdrop, the Court concluded Palmer failed to meet the exacting clear-error standard; the legally erroneous middle paragraph did not infect the verdict given the jury’s findings under other, correct instructions and the evidence.

Impact and significance

Palmer’s dual holdings have immediate and practical consequences for Kansas criminal practice:

• Mora error refined. The decision preserves Mora’s doctrinal core—attempt prosecutions require proof of specific intent; foreseeable-consequence aiding instructions are legally inappropriate in that setting—while clarifying remedy. Inclusion of the PIK foreseeability paragraph does not automatically require reversal. Where the defendant is charged and proved as a principal on the attempt, and the jury is separately and correctly instructed on the attempt’s specific-intent element, the error may be harmless under clear-error review.
• Instruction drafting. Trial courts should omit PIK Crim. 4th 52.140’s foreseeability paragraph in prosecutions where the “intended crime” is an attempt and the underlying statute contains no “attempt” language. If the State proceeds on alternative theories (principal and aider/abettor), instructions must scrupulously preserve the specific-intent requirement for attempt and avoid conflating aider liability via natural-and-probable-consequences with the mental state required by K.S.A. 21-5301(a).
• Appellate preservation matters. Palmer illustrates the high hurdle on unpreserved instructional claims. A contemporaneous, legal objection to the foreseeability paragraph is the surest path to preserved error and harmless-error review. Absent that, defendants face the demanding “firmly convince” standard of clear error.
• Felony-murder causation remains robust in violent invasions. The Court’s reaffirmation that “violence begets violence” in armed intrusions fortifies felony-murder prosecutions arising from home invasions and similar high-risk crimes. Defensive return fire by occupants is neither extraordinary nor unforeseeable; it does not break the causal chain.
• Res gestae clarified. By anchoring res gestae in the intended underlying felony (not the attempt itself), Palmer underscores that acts surrounding the episode can satisfy the felony-murder temporal/transactional nexus even if they precede the attempt’s “overt act,” while still acknowledging that criminal attempt liability requires an overt act.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Felony murder (K.S.A. 21-5402[a][2]). If someone is killed during the commission, attempt, or flight from certain dangerous felonies (e.g., aggravated robbery), participants can be guilty of first-degree murder without proof of premeditation.
• Attempt’s “default” specific intent (K.S.A. 21-5301[a]). For crimes where the statute does not itself define an “attempt” mode of commission, the State must prove the defendant specifically intended to commit the intended offense and took an overt act toward it. This is true even if the completed offense is not a specific-intent crime.
• Aiding and abetting (K.S.A. 21-5210). One who intentionally aids another in committing a crime is liable for that crime. Under Kansas law, for specific-intent crimes—including attempts—the aider must share the principal’s specific intent.
• Natural and probable consequences doctrine (PIK 52.140 middle paragraph). Typically, an aider can be liable for other crimes that are reasonably foreseeable consequences of the intended crime. After Mora, this foreseeability expansion cannot be used to dilute the specific-intent requirement in attempt prosecutions.
• Res gestae. The death must occur within acts that are so closely connected to the underlying felony (the “principal occurrence”) as to form part of it—before, during, or after. It is a transactional, not strictly temporal, concept.
• Extraordinary intervening cause. An unforeseen event that supersedes the defendant’s conduct and becomes the sole legal cause of death. Defensive return fire in the face of an armed home invasion is foreseeable, not extraordinary.
• Clear error review (K.S.A. 22-3414[3]). For unpreserved instruction claims, reversal requires the reviewing court be firmly convinced the jury would have reached a different verdict absent the error.

Conclusion

State v. Palmer refines two important strands of Kansas criminal law. On felony-murder causation, it reaffirms that armed home invasions predictably trigger defensive violence and that such resistance does not sever causation. On jury instructions, it reinforces Mora’s holding that PIK 52.140’s foreseeability paragraph is legally inappropriate when the “intended crime” is an attempt requiring specific intent under K.S.A. 21-5301(a). Yet Palmer also limits Mora’s remedial reach: when the defendant is charged and proven as a principal on the attempt, the jury is separately and correctly instructed on specific intent, and the evidence is strong, the inclusion of the foreseeability paragraph—though erroneous—will not amount to clear error.

The upshot for future cases is clear. Prosecutors and trial courts must tailor aiding-and-abetting instructions to avoid diluting the specific-intent element in attempt prosecutions. Defense counsel should preserve legal objections to secure favorable standards of review. And in violent, armed-intrusion scenarios, felony-murder liability will remain robust where the evidence shows the attempt was ongoing and defensive return fire was a foreseeable reaction rather than an extraordinary intervening cause.