RENDERED: OCTOBER 29, 2020

TO BE PUBLISHED

Supreme Court of Kentucky

2019-SC-0066-MR

CHAZERAE ME’LON TAYLOR, SR. APPELLANT

ON APPEAL FROM FAYETTE CIRCUIT COURT

V. HONORABLE ERNESTO SCORSONE, JUDGE 

NO. 16-CR-01162-1

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE

AND

2019-SC-0138-TG

CHAZERAE ME’LON TAYLOR, SR. APPELLANT

ON APPEAL FROM FAYETTE CIRCUIT COURT

V. HONORABLE ERNESTO SCORSONE, JUDGE 

NO. 16-CR-01162-1

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE VANMETER

AFFIRMING

Chazerae Taylor appeals as a matter of right1 from the Fayette Circuit 

Court judgment sentencing him to twenty years’ imprisonment after a jury 

1 Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b).
2

convicted him of wanton murder and four counts of first-degree wanton 

endangerment. On appeal, Taylor argues that the trial court erred by denying 

his motions for a directed verdict of acquittal on these charges. After review of 

the record and applicable law, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

At approximately 3:50 a.m. on October 16, 2016, seventeen-year-old 

Trinity Gay was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Cook Out Restaurant in 

Lexington, located next to the Waffle House. Gay and others were hanging out 

in the Cook Out parking lot after leaving a house party. That parking lot was 

known as a “hang out” spot for people, with a “party like” atmosphere. At the

time, Taylor was also at the Cook Out, circulating through the parking lot with 

a gun in hand looking for the man who earlier that night had robbed his son, 

D’Markeo, and his friend Raekwon Berry. 

Taylor fired multiple gunshots into the air to disperse the crowd of 

people. As people scattered, others in the vicinity returned fire. A Waffle 

House security guard heard one shot, looked up from his phone, and saw a 

man matching Taylor’s general description with a gun in the air, who then fired 

three additional shots. The security guard observed multiple people fire shots

in response. A Waffle House server was outside on a smoke break when she 

heard a vehicle’s tires squealing/doing a burn out in the Cook Out parking lot 

and then saw a man pull out a gun and shoot into the air. She did not hear 

any other gunshots before she saw the man shoot into the air. She then 

observed another person in the Waffle House parking lot start shooting towards

the Cook Out. 
3

Amidst the gunfire, Gay was hit by a .45 caliber bullet. The .45 caliber 

handgun which fired the fatal shot was never found. Other shell casings found 

in the parking lot were .38 caliber, which is the caliber handgun Taylor fired. 

Forensic examination of projectiles and spent shell casings confirmed that 

multiple people had opened fire in response to Taylor’s gunfire. 

At the close of the Commonwealth’s case at trial, Taylor moved for a 

directed verdict on the wanton murder charge and the four counts of wanton 

endangerment. He renewed that motion before the case was submitted to the 

jury. The trial court denied his motions, and the jury convicted Taylor of 

wanton murder in the death of Gay and four counts of first-degree wanton 

endangerment with respect to four people in Gay’s immediate vicinity. The trial

court imposed the jury’s recommended sentence of twenty years. Taylor now 

appeals. 

II. ANALYSIS

Taylor claims that the trial court erred by denying his motions for a 

directed verdict on the wanton murder and wanton endangerment charges as 

the evidence was insufficient to establish “aggravated wantonness” and to 

prove that his conduct caused Gay’s death. We disagree.

The denial of a directed verdict motion is reviewed to determine whether 

“under the evidence as a whole, it would be clearly unreasonable for a jury to 

find guilt, only then the defendant is entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal.”

Lamb v. Commonwealth, 510 S.W.3d 316, 325 (Ky. 2017) (quoting 

Commonwealth v. Benham, 816 S.W.2d 186, 187 (Ky. 1991)). 

On motion for directed verdict, the trial court must draw all fair 

and reasonable inferences from the evidence in favor of the 
4

Commonwealth. If the evidence is sufficient to induce a reasonable 

juror to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is 

guilty, a directed verdict should not be given. For the purpose of 

ruling on the motion, the trial court must assume that the 

evidence for the Commonwealth is true, but reserving to the jury

questions as to the credibility and weight to be given to such 

testimony.

Benham, 816 S.W.2d at 187. Thus, “there must be evidence of substance, and 

the trial court is expressly authorized to direct a verdict for the defendant if the 

prosecution produces no more than a mere scintilla of evidence.” Id. at 187–88

(citing Commonwealth v. Sawhill, 660 S.W.2d 3, 5 (Ky. 1983)). So long as the 

Commonwealth produces more than a mere scintilla of evidence to support the 

charges, a defendant’s motion for directed verdict should be denied. 

Three statutes are applicable to the case at hand—the statute creating 

the offense of murder, the statute defining the term “wantonly,” and the statute 

governing causation. The jury convicted Taylor of murder under a theory of 

aggravated wanton conduct under KRS2 507.020(1)(b), which requires a person 

to act “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life . . . 

[and] wantonly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to 

another person and thereby causes the death of another person.” With respect 

to first-degree wanton endangerment, the jury found that Taylor engaged in 

conduct that created “a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury 

to another person.” KRS 508.060(1). 

The term “wantonly” is defined in relevant part as follows: 

A person acts wantonly with respect to a result or to a 

circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is 

aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and 

unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the 

 

2 Kentucky Revised Statutes.
5

circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree 

that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the 

standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the 

situation.

KRS 501.020(3). 

In other words, “wantonness is the awareness of and conscious disregard 

of a risk that a reasonable person in the same situation would not have 

disregarded[.]” Robertson v. Commonwealth, 82 S.W.3d 832, 835 (Ky. 2002). 

For both wanton murder and first-degree wanton endangerment, conduct must 

have transpired that manifests extreme indifference to the value of human life, 

i.e., “aggravated wantonness.” Brown v. Commonwealth, 174 S.W.3d 421, 426 

(Ky. 2005). “To be convicted, the defendant must have both acted with the 

requisite mental state and created the danger prohibited by the statute.” Hall 

v. Commonwealth, 468 S.W.3d 814, 829 (Ky. 2015). 

Taylor maintains that when he fired gunshots into the air, it was not 

foreseeable that his conduct would set off a ripple effect of others’ response 

gunfire, endangering bystanders and resulting in Gay’s death. Accordingly, he 

argues that his conduct was not the proximate cause of Gay’s death and that 

others’ responsive gunfire was an unanticipated intervening, superseding event 

that cuts off his liability. He further avers that his act of aimlessly firing into 

the air in public, and not at a person or occupied vehicle, is not conduct that 

manifests extreme indifference to the value of human life. 

The General Assembly has codified the concept of criminal causation

within KRS 501.060: “Conduct is the cause of a result when it is an antecedent 

without which the result in question would not have occurred.” KRS 
6

501.060(1). As Taylor was charged with wanton conduct, KRS 501.060(3) is 

applicable:

When wantonly . . . causing a particular result is an element of an 

offense, the element is not established if the actual result is not 

within the risk of which the actor is aware . . . unless:

(a) The actual result differs from the probable result only 

in the respect that a different person or different property is 

injured or affected or that the probable injury or harm would 

have been more serious or more extensive than that caused; 

or

(b) The actual result involves the same kind of injury or 

harm as the probable result and occurs in a manner which 

the actor knows or should know is rendered substantially 

more probable by his conduct.

“The question of whether an actor knew or should have known the result he 

caused was rendered substantially more probable by his conduct is an issue of 

fact.” KRS 501.060(4). Indeed, “the plain intent of the statute is to have the 

causation issue framed in all situations in terms of whether or not the result as 

it occurred was either foreseen or foreseeable by the defendant as a reasonable 

probability.” Powell v. Commonwealth, 189 S.W.3d 535, 538 (Ky. 2006) (citing 

Lofthouse v. Commonwealth, 13 S.W.3d 236, 239 (Ky. 2000) (quoting Robert G. 

Lawson & William H. Fortune, Kentucky Criminal Law § 2–4(d)(3), at 74 

(1998)).

3 

As the Commentary to KRS 501.060 discusses,4

 

3 Professors Lawson and Fortune state that “[t]he ‘unintended victim’ problem 

has been widely viewed as a problem of homicide, limited to situations in which 

aggression or unlawful conduct directed toward one person resulted in the death of 

another. KRS 501.060 . . . recognizes that the problem can arise in cases involving all 

four mental states used in the Code to define crimes.” Lawson & Fortune, Ky. 

Criminal Law 74 n.182. 

4 KRS 500.100 provides that commentary “may be used as an aid in construing 

the provisions of this code.”
7

Once an act is found to be a cause in fact of a result and a 

substantial factor in bringing about that result, it is recognized as 

the proximate cause unless another cause, independent of the 

first, intervenes between the first and the result. And even then the 

first cause is treated as the proximate cause if the harm or injury 

resulting from the second is deemed to have been reasonably 

foreseeable by the first actor.

KRS 501.060 Kentucky Crime Commission/LRC Commentary (1974). 

KRS 501.060 contemplates that “many of the matters now treated as 

‘causation’ questions should be dealt with as problems of mens rea.” Id. Both 

KRS 501.060(2) and (3),5 attempt to “provid[e] a uniform standard by which to 

measure criminal responsibility for a result which occurs in a manner different 

from that intended. That standard requires that in every case the issue of 

responsibility turns on whether the actual result ‘occurs in a manner which the 

actor knows or ought to know is rendered substantially more probable by his 

conduct.’” Id. “[T]he main thrust of this approach is to place emphasis upon 

culpable mental states rather than causation and to recognize that a large part 

of the responsibility for solving issues of this type must rest squarely upon the 

decision makers[.]” Id.

Accordingly, Taylor’s culpability lies with the fact-finder’s determination 

of whether he knew or should have known that his conduct would render it 

substantially more probable that return gunfire would result, thereby causing 

Gay’s death and placing bystanders at risk of serious physical injury and/or 

death. What the defendant “knew or should have known with respect to the 

probable consequences of his conduct, is crucial to determining the issue of his 

 

5 KRS 501.060(2) applies “[w]hen intentionally causing a particular result is an 

element of an offense[.]”
8

criminal liability.” Robertson, 82 S.W.3d at 836–37 (defendant’s act of fleeing 

from and resisting police constituted wanton conduct causing death of officer 

in pursuit).

With respect to whether others’ responsive gunfire was an intervening 

event that cut off the chain of causation between Taylor’s conduct and Gay’s 

death and the endangerment to those near her, the inquiry is the same: “Did 

the defendant know, or have reason to know, that the result (as it actually 

occurred) was rendered substantially more probable by his conduct?” Lawson 

& Fortune, Ky. Criminal Law § 2–4(d)(2) at 73. “The similarity between the 

yardstick of Bush [v. Commonwealth, 78 Ky. 268 (1880)](natural and probable 

consequences) and the one required by [KRS 501.060] (foreseeability of the 

actual result as a reasonable probability) is obvious and substantial.” Id. at 

74.

Case law is clear that a wide variety of actions under differing 

circumstances may constitute aggravated wanton conduct. In addressing the 

sufficiency of the evidence for wanton endangerment, this Court has held that 

“[f]iring a weapon in the immediate vicinity of others is the prototype of first 

degree wanton endangerment.” Swan v. Commonwealth, 384 S.W.3d 77, 102 

(Ky. 2012) (quoting Robert G. Lawson & William H. Fortune, Kentucky Criminal

Law § 9–4(b)(2) at 388, and n.142 (1998)) (citations omitted).6 In Swan, the 

 

6 As the commentary to KRS 508.060 notes: “The offenses created by KRS 

508.060 and 508.070 can best be described by use of this hypothetical situation: D, 

with no intent to kill or injure but with an awareness of the risk involved, shoots a gun 

into an occupied building, thereby consciously disregarding the risk of death or injury 

to its occupants.... If D’s act causes neither [death nor physical injury], he has 

committed the offense of wanton endangerment. . . . The types of conduct indicating 

such character and punishable under these two statutes are such things as 

discharging firearms in public, pointing firearms at others, obstructing public 
9

defendants, armed with handguns, invaded and robbed a home, firing into the 

ceiling, as well as toward specific victims in the living room located in the front 

of the home. 384 S.W.3d at 84–86. This Court concluded that a directed 

verdict should have been granted on first-degree wanton endangerment

regarding the person who was hiding in the back bedroom of the house, as no 

proof was presented that the defendant shot in her direction. Id. 

Contrast the holding in Swan to Hall, wherein we found sufficient 

evidence to uphold first-degree wanton endangerment convictions for children

who were somewhere inside the house that the defendant shot through from 

across the street using a scoped .30-06 deer rifle, killing the children’s parents. 

468 S.W.3d at 829. We analogized those facts to Paulley v. Commonwealth, 

323 S.W.3d 715 (Ky. 2010), in which the Court upheld the trial court’s denial 

of a directed verdict on nine counts of wanton endangerment, one for each 

person present in the home at the time the defendant fired three shots from a 

shotgun into the closed doorway of the home. Id. at 723, 726. In affirming the 

denial of the directed verdict, the Paulley court did not consider the precise 

location of each of the victims inside the home, instead emphasizing that with 

respect to wanton endangerment, a single gunshot can endanger multiple 

people.

The determination of whether the defendant’s conduct is “wanton” is one 

for the jury to make, considering the circumstances of the case. See KRS 

507.020 Kentucky Crime Commission/LRC Commentary (1974). “Typical of 

 

highways, and abandoning containers which are attractive to children.” KRS 508.060 

Kentucky Crime Commission/LRC Commentary (1974).
10

conduct contemplated for inclusion in ‘wanton’ murder is: shooting into a 

crowd, an occupied building or an occupied automobile; placing a time bomb in 

a public place; or derailing a speeding locomotive.” Id.

A reasonable jury could have concluded that Taylor wantonly fired 

multiple shots into the air, amidst a crowd of people during the early morning 

hours, which set into motion the foreseeable response gunfire that resulted in 

Gay’s death and created a substantial danger of death or serious physical 

injury to the four people in her immediate vicinity. See e.g., Phillips v. 

Commonwealth, 17 S.W.3d 870 (Ky. 2000) (upholding defendant’s wanton 

murder conviction since a jury could “reasonably conclude that a person who 

deemed it necessary to arm himself before going to that neighborhood [to 

purchase crack cocaine from a street dealer] would have been aware of the risk 

that others in the neighborhood . . . would also be armed, and if fired upon, 

would return fire[]”). The four people in Gay’s vicinity, for whom Taylor was 

convicted of first-degree wanton endangerment, all testified at trial as to their 

location when the bullets were fired and their nearness to Gay when she was 

shot. Their testimony, and all testimony presented, was for the jury to assess 

and weigh. See Morgan v. Commonwealth, 421 S.W.3d 388, 393 (Ky. 2014)

(“[W]hen the evidence is contradictory, the credibility of witnesses and the 

weight to be given to sworn testimony are for the jury to decide[]” (citation 

omitted)). 

Furthermore, a reasonable jury could have concluded that Taylor had 

reason to know that a shoot-out was rendered substantially more probable by 

his firing the initial, and multiple, shots into the air amid a late-night crowd 
11

gathered in a parking lot to socialize. Evidence showed that Taylor went to the 

Cook Out looking for a fight: he armed himself with a handgun in preparation 

for confronting the man who had robbed his son earlier that day. Taylor was 

aware that the perpetrator had also taken a gun from another young man. 

Taylor entered a crowd of people, armed and on a mission, and fired gunshots 

into the air with the intent to disperse the crowd so that he could locate his 

target. Indeed, by his own admission, Taylor began firing gunshots into the air 

to clear the crowd: he knew the crowd would panic and disperse, and he 

counted on it. Forensic evidence showed that multiple people returned fire, a 

testament to the likelihood that a dangerous reaction to Taylor’s provocation

might occur. When bullets start flying in a crowd of people, no one should be 

surprised when someone gets shot. 

Based on the evidence presented, the Commonwealth met its burden of

persuasion and therefore the trial court did not err by denying Taylor’s motions 

for a directed verdict of acquittal on the wanton murder and wanton 

endangerment charges.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Fayette Circuit Court is 

affirmed. 

All sitting. All concur. 

COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT:

Jared Travis Bewley

Assistant Public Advocate

Department of Public Advocacy
12

COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE:

Daniel Jay Cameron

Attorney General of Kentucky

James Coleman Shackelford

Assistant Attorney General