from Appellateblog, An interesting ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit:

Sharply divided en banc Tenth Circuit, by vote of 6-4, rules that a Kansas appellate court could hold defendants guilty of crime for which they were not charged, tried, or convicted.

In these consolidated appeals, one habeas corpus petitioner had been convicted of indecent liberties with a child, while the other habeas petitioner had been convicted of rape. Under Kansas law, because the victims of both crimes were close relations of the offenders, the proper criminal charge that should have been brought against both offenders was the charge of aggravated incest. On appeal in the Kansas state court system, appellate courts corrected the error themselves, changing the defendants' convictions in both instances to convictions for aggravated incest.

The majority opinion began by noting that "Petitioners-appellants Steven D. Beem and Donald H. Henson, Jr. sought habeas corpus relief in federal district court, 28 U.S.C. sec. 2254, arguing that the Kansas state courts violated their federal constitutional rights by sentencing them for aggravated incest -- a crime for which they had never been charged, tried, or convicted." By a vote of 6-4, the en banc court affirmed the federal district court's denials of these petitioners' habeas petitions.

Now, most of my legal training came from watching Perry Mason and The Practice, so reading the actual ruling is something of a headache for me to try to comprehend. I rely on the Appellateblog summarization, but, by what's provided, I agree with the lead dissenting opinion on this:

In the present case, the majority has ignored the Supreme Court's mandate in Cole. Mr. Henson was charged, tried, and convicted of rape, and Mr. Beem was charged, tried, and convicted of indecent liberties with a minor. As the Kansas Court of Appeals in these cases held (based on Carmichael), under Kansas law, both should have been charged, tried, and convicted of aggravated incest. Vacating Mr. Henson's and Mr. Beem's sentences and then sentencing them instead for aggravated incest (because their conduct also violates that statute) clearly violates Petitioners' due process rights because they were never charged, tried, nor convicted of aggravated incest. As this court previously stated, "[w]hat . . . is before us now is the fundamental due process question of whether one can be sentenced for a crime not charged and to which no plea of guilty has been entered. The answer is an unequivocal no." Von Atkinson v. Smith, 575 F.2d 819, 821 (10th Cir. 1978) (applying Cole)

I haven't been able to find anything else on this (mainly, I think, because they aren't conveniently named things like Godzilla v. Mothra. Or they may be and I missed it). I'm waiting to see if anyone picks this up and breaks it down for the Judiacially Challenged such as myself.