Title: ERIC JEROME WHITE V. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY

State: kentucky

Issuer: Kentucky Supreme Court

Document:

IMPORTANT NOTICE NOT TO BE PUBLISHED OPINION THIS OPINION IS DESIGNATED "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED." PURSUANT TO THE RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE PROMULGATED BY THE SUPREME COURT, CR 76.28(4)(C), THIS OPINION IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AND SHALL NOT BE CITED OR USED AS BINDING PRECEDENT IN ANY OTHER CASE IN ANY COURT OF THIS STATE ; HOWEVER, UNPUBLISHED KENTUCKY APPELLATE DECISIONS, RENDERED AFTER JANUARY 1, 2003, MAY BE CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT IF THERE IS NO PUBLISHED OPINION THAT WOULD ADEQUATELY ADDRESS THE ISSUE BEFORE THE COURT . OPINIONS CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT SHALL BE SET OUT AS AN UNPUBLISHED DECISION IN THE FILED DOCUMENT AND A COPY OF THE ENTIRE DECISION SHALL BE TENDERED ALONG WITH THE DOCUMENT TO THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES TO THE ACTION. ~ixyrQZ~cQ C~~u~ of 41 2008-SC-000192-MR -off-oq ERIC JEROME WHITE APPELLAN ON APPEAL FROM McCRACKEN CIRCUIT COURT V. HONORABLE CRAIG Z. CLYMER, JUDGE NO . 07-CR-00356 COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT AFFIRMING RENDERED : OCTOBER 1, 2009 VIF, 0 LY Eric White appeals as a matter of right from a February 15, 2008 Judgment of the McCracken Circuit Court, which, in accord with jury findings, convicted him of fourth-degree assault, a class A misdemeanor (KRS 508.030) ; resisting arrest, a class A misdemeanor (KRS 520.090) ; and third-degree assault, a class D felony (KRS 508.025) . The jury also found that White is a first-degree persistent felony offender (PFO) (KRS 532.080), and in accord with that finding and the jury's recommendation, the trial court sentenced White to an enhanced term of twenty years in prison. White was accused of assaulting his girlfriend, of assaulting a police officer who intervened, and of resisting the subsequent arrest. On appeal, White contends that the trial court erred (1) by allowing the admission into evidence of a video recording of White in the back seat of a police cruiser immediately following his arrest .; (2) by permitting the Commonwealth to amend the indictment to name the girlfriend as the victim of the fourth-degree assault; and (3) by giving an ambiguous third-degree assault instruction, which, White maintains, impermissibly exposes him to a risk of double jeopardy . We reject each of these contentions, and so affirm the trial court's judgment . RELEVANT FACTS On behalf of the Commonwealth, Wanda Alvarez testified that in 2007 she and White were romantically involved and that during the early evening of April 27 of that year, White had entered her residence on Madison Street in Paducah and, angry with her, had beaten her. He had struck her in the face and on other parts of her body, had knocked her face against a doorjamb or a wall, had scratched or bitten one of her ears, had thrown her to the floor, an had dragged her across the floor by her hair . Photographs taken of Alvarez shortly after the incident showed cuts on and behind her ear and on her upper lip, and bruises and abrasions on her arms, her neck, and her torso . Alvarez testified that during the attack she pleaded with White to desist and screamed for help . In response to her screams, apparently, a neighbor called 911 . Soon thereafter several Paducah police officers arrived at the scene. Two officers testified that they positioned themselves at the residence's side door, through which, a short time later, Alvarez exited, screaming that White was trying to kill her. The officers entered the residence and encountered White, who fled from them out the front door. There he encountered two other officers, Sergeant . Laird and Officer Orazine . Those officers testified that when they attempted to apprehend White, he punched at their faces, struck them with his elbows, and kicked them in the legs . Sergeant Laird then ordered that White be subdued with a stun gun. Promptly, one of the assisting officers shot White with a Taser, a device designed temporarily to immobilize a victim by delivering a brief, high voltage electric shock. According to the officers, White was stunned for about forty seconds, permitting them to handcuff him, but when the effects of the Taser wore off he again became combative, cursing at them and struggling to get away . He was detained in the back of a police cruiser and was filmed on the cruiser's video monitor. The video apparently depicts White vehemently cursing and issuing verbal threats for the next twenty minutes, for the entire time it took to transport him to the police station. The grand jury issued its indictment on June 15, 2007 . In addition to charging White's status as a PFO, the grand jury charged that White committed third-degree assault "when he intentionally caused and/or attempted to cause physical injury to a city police officer" ; that he committed fourth-degree assault "when he unlawfully and intentionally caused physical injury a peace officer" [sic] ; and that he committed the offense of resisting arrest "when he unlawfully and intentionally prevented or attempted to prevent a peace officer from effecting his arrest by using or threatening to use physical force against the peace officer." Trial was scheduled for January 7, 2008 . Some three-and-a-half weeks before that, on December 13, 2007, the Commonwealth moved to amend the indictment's fourth-degree assault count to charge that White "intentionally caused and/or attempted to cause physical injury to Wanda Alvarez." Over White's objection the trial court permitted the amendment. It noted that the bill of particulars filed in July 2007 had referred to Alvarez as the victim of the fourth-degree assault and that much of the Commonwealth's tendered discovery concerned Alvarez's post-incident medical records, which documented her alleged injuries . Despite the indictment's reference to a peace officer, these facts, the court believed, provided White with adequate notice that he was in fact charged with assaulting Alvarez in the fourth degree, not a peace officer. The court also noted that Alvarez had testified before the grand jury and that her testimony provided the only evidence before the grandjury of an injury-a necessary element of fourth- degree assault. It appeared to the court, therefore, that the grand jury had intended to base its fourth-degree assault charge on White's intentional injury of Alvarez, and that the indictment's failure to say so was a mere scrivener's error, a formal defect which could be corrected without altering the substance of the grand jury's charge . In due course, as noted above, White was tried before a jury and found guilty of all three offenses . His first contention on appeal is that the trial court erred when it permitted the Commonwealth to play for the jury an approximately two-and-a-half minute portion of the post-arrest video, a portion that showed White being detained in the police cruiser outside Alvarez's residence . At trial, White objected to that evidence on the grounds that the scenes of him cursing and verbally threatening the police officers and at another point a scene of him angrily berating Alvarez amounted to improper evidence of bad character and that in any event the after-the-crime evidence had little if any relevance, or, if relevant, that its probative value was substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect . White renews that objection here, but we are not persuaded that the trial court erred . ANALYSIS I. The Trial Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion By Admitting A Brief Portion Of White's Arrest Video . As White correctly notes, to be admissible, evidence must be relevant, that is it must have some "tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence ." KRE 401 . "Relevancy is established by any showing of probativeness, however slight." Springer v. Commonwealth , 998 S.W.2d 439, 449 (Ky. 1999) . In general, of course, relevant evidence is admissible, KRE 402, but, again as White notes, even relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value "is substantially outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence." KRE 403 . In particular, evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or bad acts is not admissible "to prove the character of a person in order to sliow action in conformity therewith." KRE 404(b) . Other "bad act" evidence may be admissible, however, if offered not to attack a person's character, but for "some other purpose, such as proof motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident." KRE 404(b)(1) . Application of these rules is entrusted to the sound discretion of the trial court, Commonwealth v . English, 993 S.W .2d 941 (Ky. 1999), and in assessing whether the trial court abused that discretion when it admitted evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to its proponent. Morgan v. Commonwealth , 189 S.W.3d 99 (Ky. 2006) overruled on other grounds in Shane v. Commonwealth, 243 S.W .3d 336, 341 (Ky . 2007) . Both before and during trial, White moved to exclude the video recording of him in the back seat of the police cruiser on the grounds that it was not relevant to any of the crimes with which he was charged; that it was being offered as impermissible character evidence merely to show that he was "a bad guy" ; and that, even if relevant for a valid purpose under KRE 404(b)(1), the depiction of him handcuffed and confined in the police car was so inherently prejudicial as to outweigh whatever probative value it may have had . As noted above, the trial court rejected these arguments and permitted the Commonwealth to introduce the first couple of minutes of the recording, which showed White immediately after his arrest angrily cursing and threatening the arresting officers . The court ruled that White's demeanor in the immediate aftermath of the alleged crimes was relevant evidence tending to prove Whig's state of mind at the time of the offenses, and that the depiction of him in custody was not unduly prejudicial . The trial court did not abuse its discretion by so ruling. In the first place, we have not been provided with the complete record germane to this issue . Although the record before us includes the video recording of White's trial, that recording did not capture the video portion of White's arrest recording when it was played for the jury, and we have not been provided with the arrest recording itself . We must presume, therefore, that the video portion of the arrest recording supports the trial court's ruling . Porter v. Harper, 477 S.W.2d 778 (Ky. 1972) . The audio portion of the arrest recording was captured on the trial recording, and the steady stream of White's curses and threats bears out the trial court's ruling that the arrest recording provides probative evidence of White's furious demeanor and state of mind immediately after the alleged crimes. That evidence was clearly relevant inasmuch as it lent credence to the testimonies of Alvarez, Sergeant Laird and Officer Orazine to the effect that White was angry when he encountered each of them, which in turn tends to show that White intended to cause each of them injury . That intent, of course, was an element, in this case, of both third- and fourth-degree assault, an thus was of crucial consequence to both of those charges . Proof of intent, moreover, is one of the purposes KRE 404(b)(1) expressly recognizes as justifying the admission of "other bad act" evidence . The trial court did not abuse its discretion, therefore, by refusing to exclude the arrest recording under KRE 404 . 1 Nor, finally, did the trial court abuse its discretion under KRE 403 by rejecting White's contention that the depiction of him in custody was so inherently prejudicial as to substantially outweigh the arrest recording's probative value . KRE 403, of course, is not concerned with prejudice per se . All the evidence which the Commonwealth introduces is meant to be prejudicial to the defendant . The rule is concerned only with evidence that is "unduly" prejudicial, i.e., that is unreasonable, unnecessary, or otherwise unfair. Johnson v. Commonwealth, 105 S.W.3d 430 (Ky. 2003) . We have previously observed that while a certain prejudice arises from the mere fact that the defendant has been arrested, indicted, and put on trial, that prejudice is not unreasonable because it is an inevitable part of the judicial process . Romans v. Commonwealth, 547 S.W .2d 128 (Ky. 1977) . We have also held that where the circumstances surrounding a defendant's arrest provide probative evidence of the alleged crime, the admission of a video recording of the arrest and its circumstances is not unreasonable notwithstanding the prejudice that may be inherent in depictions of the defendant in custody. Johnson, supra; Edmonds v. Commonwealth, 906 S.W.2d 343 (Ky . 1995) . Here, as noted, the arrest recording provided evidence substantially probative of White's intent at the time of the alleged offenses . The probative value of the recording was not outweighed by the marginal prejudice White may have suffered by being shown in custody, and thus admission of the recording cannot be characterized as unreasonable or unnecessary. The trial court did not abuse its discretion, therefore, by admitting a brief portion of the arrest recording . II. The Trial Court Did Not Err When It Permitted The Commonwealth To Amend The Indictment's Fourth-Degree Assault Count. White next contends that the trial court erred when, some three weeks before trial, it permitted the Commonwealth to amend the fourth-degree assault count of the indictment . He correctly notes that under RCr 6.16 the court may permit amendment only "if no additional or different offense is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced," and he insists that the amendment in this case failed to satisfy either of the rule's conditions . We disagree. As noted above, the indictment originally charged that White committed fourth-degree assault "when he unlawfully and intentionally caused physical injury a peace officer [sic] ." The Commonwealth was permitted to amend this charge to allege that White "intentionally caused and/or attempted to cause physical injury to Wanda Alvarez." This amendment, of course, not only changes the victim from "a peace officer" to "Wanda Alvarez," but also substitutes elements of third-degree assault-"intentionally causes or attempts to cause physical injury," KRS 508.025-for elements of fourth-degree assault-"intentionally or wantonly causes physical injury to another person," KRS 508.030 . The amended count thus named the right victim but charged the wrong crime. White has not objected to the amendment on the wrong- crime ground, however, and because the jury instructions correctly stated the elements of fourth-degree assault we shall address that aspect of the indictment no further than to note and question the Commonwealth's obvious carelessness. White objected to the amendment because it changed the alleged victim . He contends that, in violation of RCr 6.16, that change in effect charged him with a different crime, a crime not alleged by the grand jury, and prejudiced his substantial rights by confronting him with the need to radically alter his defense. We reject both contentions . Although White is correct that an injury to a particular victim is an element of fourth-degree assault and that injuries to multiple victims would constitute multiple offenses, Smith v. Commonwealth, 734 S.W.2d 437 (Ky. 1987), in Watkins v. Commonwealth, 565 S.W .2d 630 (Ky. 1978), we held that for the purposes of RCr 6.16 the amendment of a robbery indictment at the close of evidence to change the named victim did not amount to charging the defendant with a different offense . The offense remained robbery, as the indictment initially charged, and because otherwise the amendment had no bearing on the defendant's defense-which was a denial of having been at the scene of the crime-we held that the amendment did not run afoul of the rule . Similarly, in Veach v . Commonwealth, 572 S.W .2d 417 (Ky. 1978), we held that the trial court did not violate RCr 6.16 by permitting, on the morning trial was to begin, a robbery indictment to be amended so as to name a wife instead of her husband as the robbery victim . We characterized the amendment as a "correction of the name" and -held that such a correction was a matter of form, not of substance . Id. at 419. In this case, too, the trial court ruled that the substitution of Wanda Alvarez for "a peace officer" as the victim of White's fourth-degree assault, amounted to a formal correction of the indictment to make it conform to the grand jury's intention rather than a substantive change outside the grand jury's findings . At the hearing on the matter, the parties referred to the grand jury proceedings, White's counsel having secured a transcript of them . The Commonwealth represented to the court, without contradiction by White, that Alvarez had testified at length before the grand jury about the attack and her injuries . The court concluded that the grand jury had in fact charged White with the fourth-degree assault of Alvarez, not a peace officer, and that RCr 6.16 allowed the Commonwealth to correct the indictment to reflect that charge . We agree . Once again, the record before us is incomplete . It does not include the grand jury transcript upon which the parties and the court based their discussion of this issue . We must presume, therefore, that the transcript supports the trial court's decision . Assuming then that it is reasonably clear from the transcript that Alvarez was presented to the grand jury as the victim of White's fourth-degree assault, we agree with the trial court. that the indictment could be amended to reflect that fact . As in Veach, supra, such an amendment is appropriately characterized as a matter of form and does not contravene RCr 6.16's requirement that the amendment not charge a new or different offense. Nor did the amendment prejudice White's right to prepare a . defense . One of the purposes of an indictment, of course, is to give the defendant notice of the crime for which he is being prosecuted, and under RCr 6.10(2) an indictment is sufficient for that purpose "if it fairly informs the accused of the nature of the charged crime . . . if it informs the accused of the specific offense with which he is charged and does not mislead him ." Thomas v. Commonwealth , 931 S.W.2d 446, 449 (Ky . 1 996) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) . If it satisfies this standard, an indictment need not be as factually detailed as was required prior to the adoption of the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Under the Rules, "if the defense needs details to adequately prepare, the defense `should be supplied them through a requested bill of particulars.' Id. at 450 (quoting from Finch v . Commonwealth, 419 S.W .2d 146 (Ky . 1967)) . The bill of particulars has thus become an important vehicle for putting the defendant on notice, and it along with the indictment may be considered when lack of notice is alleged . Thomas , supra (robbery indictment that failed to name victim not invalid, in part because victim was named in bill of particulars) ; Johnson v. Commonwealth, 864 S.W.2d 266 (Ky. 1993) (indictment charging rape by forcible compulsion not invalid although proof showed rape by incapacity to consent, in part because bill of particulars gave clear notice that the Commonwealth would proceed under the second theory). Here, although the original indictment's misidentification of the victim is arguably misleading, the Commonwealth's bill of particulars, which was filed more than five months prior to trial, clearly identified "physical injury to Wanda Alvarez" as the basis for the fourth-degree assault charge . As the trial court observed, this notice was underscored by the inclusion in the discovery file of Alvarez's medical records documenting her injuries . When, three weeks before trial, the Commonwealth moved to amend the fourth-degree assault count of the indictment by substituting Alvarez for "a peace officer," White should not have been surprised. If he were, his remedy under RCr 6.16 would have been to request a continuance . His failure to do so not only constitutes a waiver of that relief, Commonwealth v . McKenzie, 214 S .W.3d 306 (Ky. 2007), but demonstrates that in fact he was not surprised, but was fully on notice that Alvarez, not a peace officer, was the alleged victim of his fourth-degree assault . The trial court did not err, therefore, when it ruled that the amendment did not prejudice White's right to prepare a defense . III. An Ambiguity In The Indictment's Third-Degree Assault Count Has Not Left White Exposed To Double Jeopardy . Finally, White contends that an ambiguity in the third-degree assault charge and in the corresponding jury instructions has left him exposed to double jeopardy, in violation of the federal Due Process Clause. This issue was not properly preserved, but White correctly asserts that double jeopardy claims may be reviewed without preservation . Cardine v. Commonwealth, 283 S.W.3d 641 (Ky. 2009) . Upon review, however, this claim does not entitle White to relief. As noted above, the grand jury charged that White committed third- degree assault "when he intentionally caused and/or attempted to cause physical injury to a city police officer." The Commonwealth's proof tended to show, however, that White attempted to injure two officers, Sergeant Laird and Officer Orazine, the officers who attempted to apprehend White as he exited Alvarez's residence. The indictment's failure to specify one officer or the other renders the third-degree assault count ambiguous . The ambiguity persisted in the jury instructions, which in pertinent part directed the jury to find White guilty of third-degree assault if "he intentionally attempted to cause physical injury to an officer of the Paducah Police Department," again without specifying which officer . White contends that the ambiguity leaves him subject to another third-degree assault prosecution, with the risk that he will be tried and punished for the same assault the jury found in this case . We disagree . As White correctly notes, in Schrimsher v. Commonwealth, 190 S.W.3d 318 (Ky. 2006), we explained that [u]nder the Due Process Clause, the sufficiency of an indictment is measured by two criteria : first, that an indictment sufficiently apprise a defendant of the criminal conduct for which he is called to answer ; and second, that the indictment and instructions together provide adequate specificity that he may plead acquittal or conviction as a defense against any future indictment for the same conduct and that he not be punished multiple times in this action for the same offense . Id . at 325 (citing Russell v . United States, 369 U.S . 749 (1962) and Valentine v. Konteh , 395 F.3d 626 (6th Cir. 2005)) . White correctly complains that the third-degree assault count and the corresponding instructions in this case were insufficiently specific . In effect, the third-degree assault count charged White with two offenses in the alternative, either the assault of Sergeant Laird or the assault of Officer Orazine . RCr 6.18, of course, requires that indictments include "a. separate count for each offense ." A single count. that charges more than one offense is referred to as duplicitous, and the dangers of duplicity include uncertainty as to whether a general verdict of guilty conceals a finding of guilty as to one crime and a finding of not guilty as to another, the risk that the jury may not have been unanimous as to any one of the crimes charged, inadequate notice to the defendant, and exposure of the defendant to double jeopardy in subsequent prosecutions . United States v. Sturdivant, 244 F.3d 71 (2nd Cir . 2001) . White argues that as he has been convicted of only one third-degree assault, he remains subject to prosecution for the other, but that as there is no way to know which assault the jury chose to punish in this case, there would likewise be no way to know that a subsequent jury was not punishing him for the same offense. Confronted by a similar double jeopardy claim in Sturdivant , the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that double jeopardy was not possible because in the circumstances the government would be estopped from pursuing a second prosecution . As the Court explained, the government would be estopped from asserting, for double jeopardy purposes, that the jury's general verdict was not a final resolution of both crimes charged in Count II [the duplicitous count] . Principles of equity prohibit the government from benefitting from the prejudicial ambiguity that the government alone was responsible for creating . It was the government which submitted the duplicitous indictment to the jury, and which decided not to seek a special verdict. By these actions, the government has effectively conceded that the indictment is not impermissibly duplicitous, i.e., that the defendant will not be prejudiced by the harms caused by duplicity, including the harm arising from a jury verdict that does not definitively communicate the jury's findings with respect to the two crimes charged in Count II . For double jeopardy purposes, therefore, defendant is not prejudiced by the duplicitous indictment because the government is estopped from acting on any interpretation of the jury's verdict that would prejudice defendant's double jeopardy rights . 244 F.3d at 77-78 . Likewise here, the Commonwealth alone is responsible for the duplicitous third-degree assault count, and we agree with the Second Circuit that the prosecutor is thereby estopped from any subsequent prosecution that would implicate White's double jeopardy rights. Because the present conviction, therefore, does not and will not subject White to double jeopardy, he is not entitled to relief on that ground. White's reliance upon Valentine v. Konteh, supra, to avoid this result is misplaced. It is true, as White notes, that in Valentine the Court stated that protection against future double jeopardy was not adequate, but in that case the faulty indictment created the possibility that the defendant had already been subjected to double jeopardy at his trial. Prospective protection under those circumstances was inadequate. White's trial, on the other hand, posed no immediate risk of double jeopardy, and thus here prospective protection is enough . CONCLUSION In sum, White has not identified any ground requiring relief. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted into evidence a brief portion of White's arrest video. The angry behavior captured on the video was highly probative of White's intent at the time of the offenses, and the depiction of him in custody was not unduly prejudicial. Nor did the court err by permitting the Commonwealth to correct the fourth-degree assault count of the indictment, inasmuch as the record plainly indicates that that count was meant to charge White with the assault of Wanda Alvarez, not of a peace officer. Finally, White is not entitled to relief because the third-degree assault charge was ambiguous . The Commonwealth is estopped from using that ambiguity tQ White's disadvantage, and thus White has not been impermissibly exposed to the risk of double jeopardy. Accordingly, we affirm the February 15, 2008 Judgment of the McCracken Circuit Court. All concur . Venters, J., not sitting. COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT: Joseph Brandon Pigg Assistant Public Advocate Department of Public Advocacy, 100 Fair Oaks Lane, Suite 302 Frankfort, KY 40601 COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE : Jack Conway Attorney General Susan Roncarti Lenz Assistant Attorney General Office of Attorney General Criminal Appellate Division 1024 Capital Center Drive Frankfort, KY 40601-8204