Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

In 1992, Defendant was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to death. In 1996, Defendant was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment, with that sentence being served concurrently with 1992 sentence. The judgment in the 1996 case failed to award Defendant substantial jail-time credit to which he was entitled. Had Defendant been granted the credit, he would have served out the 1996 sentence in 2009. Nevertheless, the Department of Corrections treated that sentence as though it had been served out at that time. In 2012, Defendant filed in federal district court a petition for habeas corpus challenging his 1996 conviction. Unable to determine whether Defendant was “in custody” under the challenged conviction, the district court certified two questions to the Supreme Court to resolve the question. The Supreme Court answered (1) the Department of Corrections may award an inmate jail-time credit that was mistakenly left of the judgment of conviction and sentence; and (2) whether Corrections properly did so in this case, and thus did not have Defendant in custody on that charge at the time he filed his habeas petition, requires additional fact-finding. View "Bowling v. White" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of two counts of murder for intentionally killing his parents and one count of tampering with physical evidence. Defendant was sentenced to a total of forty-five years’ imprisonment. At issue on appeal was whether the trial court erred in failing to suppress Defendant’s confession made during protracted interrogation by sheriff’s detectives. The Supreme Court reversed Defendant’s convictions, holding (1) Defendant’s confession was involuntarily extracted through interrogation techniques employed by law enforcement that were constitutionally unjustifiable; and (2) the trial court improperly excluded Defendant’s alternate perpetrator evidence at trial. View "Gray v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with murder. A jury acquitted Appellant on the murder charge but convicted him of first-degree manslaughter. Appellant was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it rejected Appellant’s requested for a “no duty to retreat” jury instruction because Appellant was not entitled to such an instruction; (2) no palpable error occurred in the admission into evidence of Appellant’s prior juvenile adjudication in the penalty phase of trial; and (3) the comity previously accorded by the Supreme Court to Ky. Rev. Stat. 532.055(2)(a)(6) remains unchanged. View "Jackson v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of two counts of rape of a minor. The rape resulted in the birth of a child, and a DNA paternity test was used as evidence against Appellant. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not err in allowing the Commonwealth’s DNA expert to testify regarding a fifty percent prior probability of paternity in calculating the final probability of paternity, especially since the expert also testified about lesser prior probabilities; and (2) the expert did not invade the province of the jury by giving testimony that would assist the jury “to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” View "Ivey v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of four crimes, including two counts of first-degree robbery. Defendant was sentenced as a second-degree persistent felony offender to a total sentence of twenty-five years. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant’s belated motion for a continuance; (2) even if the prosecutor violated Moss v. Commonwealth, the violation did not amount to a palpable error; and (3) the penalty phase of trial was not tainted by evidence improperly detailing Defendant’s prior offenses. View "Parker v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Allen Lehmann, a former ordained pastor in the Assembly of God church, was indicted for multiple counts of first-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse. Approximately one month after the indictment issued, the alleged victims filed a civil action against Lehmann and various Assembly of God entities based on essentially the same allegations covered by the indictment. The Commonwealth moved to intervene in the civil action and stay discovery. The trial court granted the Commonwealth’s motion, determining that a stay of civil discovery until the completion of Lehmann’s criminal trial would promote justice and fairness. Lehmann sought a writ of mandamus seeking to have the trial court’s order vacated the civil discovery resumed. The court of appeals declined to issue a writ, concluding that Lehmann failed to prove he was without an adequate appellate remedy and that there was no genuine exigency meriting use of the court’s writ authority. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a writ in this instance was unnecessary, and therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in staying civil discovery pending the completion of Lehmann’s criminal trial. View "Lehmann v. Hon. Susan Gibson" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of second degree manslaughter, tampering with physical evidence, and of being a first-degree persistent felony offender. The Supreme Court reversed Appellant’s convictions, holding that the trial court erred by adding a “no duty to retreat” jury instruction to a general self-protection instruction and by inadequately instructing the jury on the justifiable use of force to protect against unwanted sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat and that the instructional errors were prejudicial. The Court addressed Appellant’s other claims of error only to the extent they were likely to recur on retrial or would bar his retrial. View "Ragland v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Defendant was tried and convicted on the handgun charge. After his trial on this charge, Defendant filed a motion to suppress, his second such motion. The trial court denied the motion, and Defendant was subsequently tried on the trafficking charge. During trial, the Commonwealth elicited testimony from a police officer about Defendant’s testimony at the second suppression hearing. Defendant did not object to this testimony but elected not to testify in his own defense. Defendant was subsequently convicted on the trafficking charge. The court of appeals reversed the trafficking conviction, concluding that the use of Defendant’s suppression-hearing testimony violated his right not to incriminate himself and that the error was palpable. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the requirement of an objection is a substantive aspect of the constitutional rule that bars palpable error review, and therefore, the court of appeals erred in resorting to that review. View "Commonwealth v. Taylor" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of second-degree manslaughter. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the language of the provocation qualification in the jury instructions was patently erroneous. On remand, a circuit court jury again convicted Defendant of second-degree manslaughter. Defendant appealed, and the Commonwealth cross-appealed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court erred by giving the provocation qualification to self-protection instruction because it was not supported by the evidence, and the error was not harmless; and (2) the trial court deviated from the guidelines found in the Court’s criminal rules in seating the jury, but the deviation was not substantial. View "Barker v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Defendants Michael and Janie Young placed their unborn child up for adoption. Defendants received payments totaling $4,000 from Act of Love Adoptions of Boston, Massachusetts and $6,000 from Jeff and Tracey Scholen. When Defendants informed the Scholens that they did not want to proceed with the adoption, Defendants were charged with theft by deception over $10,000. Defendants were later indicted by a grand jury. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, which the trial court denied. Defendant subsequently entered into conditional pleas of guilty to theft by deception over $10,000, reserving the right to appeal the denial of their motion to dismiss. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the charges should have been dismissed because no crime occurred. The Supreme Court (1) reversed the court of appeals and the decision of the circuit court denying the motion to dismiss, as the Commonwealth stated enough in the indictment to proceed to trial; and (2) affirmed the court of appeals to the extent that it set aside Defendants’ conviction on the grounds of palpable error creating a manifest injustice, as it was improper to add the funds paid by Act of Love to reach the $10,000 amount where thefts from different victims give rise to separate offenses and cannot be aggregated. View "Commonwealth v. Young" on Justia Law