Opinion ID: 2538489
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Interpretation Considerations

Text: KRS 532.080(2) provides, as relevant to our review, as follows: A persistent felony offender in the second degree is a person who is more than twenty-one (21) years of age and who stands convicted of a felony after having been convicted of one (1) previous felony. (emphasis added). In Hayes v. Commonwealth, 660 S.W.2d 5 (Ky.1983), this Court determined that by the plain wording of KRS 532.080(2), a defendant is eligible for a PFO conviction if he is at least twenty-one years old at the time of his conviction, even though he may have been less than twenty-one at the time of the underlying crimes. Being only twenty-years-old when the crime was committed, Harris was not at that time subject to being convicted as a PFO. However, when he turned twenty-one he became PFO eligible. Harris contends that it is fundamentally unfair and absurd that a defendant is subject to conviction as a second-degree PFO even though he was less than twenty-one at the time the crimes were committed. He urges that we overrule Hayes and reinterpret KRS 532.080(2) to provide that one may not be subjected to a PFO sentencing enhancement if he was under twenty-one years of age when the underlying crime was committed. In Hayes, the defendant committed the offense of receiving stolen property when he was twenty-years-old, and turned twenty-one twelve days later. He was thereafter indicted for the underlying crime and as a second-degree PFO. Hayes addressed the issue as follows: The difficulty [with Hayes's argument] is that the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous. A person cannot be a persistent felony offender until he stands convicted of a second felony, and the statute provides that he is a persistent felony offender if at that time he is more than 21 years old. It makes no mention of age at the time of the commission of the second felony. [Hayes] would have us rewrite the statute to read in effect that a person is a persistent felony offender in the 2nd degree who stands convicted of a felony committed after he became 21 years of age if he had been convicted previously of a felony. We cannot take such liberties in construing a statute when the words used in the statute are not ambiguous, and the construction of the plain meaning of the words as written in the act does not reduce it to an absurdity. The General Assembly may have simply intended that no one under the age of 21 years at the time of trial should be weighed down with an enhanced sentence as a persistent felony offender. If it is the intention of the legislature that no one who is less than 21 years of age at the time of the commission of a second felony should be proceeded against as a persistent felony offender, that intention should be expressed by the legislature in the statute. Hayes, 660 S.W.2d at 6. By its plain wording, KRS 532.080(2) directs that the defendant's age for PFO purposes be examined at the time of his adjudication as a second-degree PFO ( is more than twenty-one). It does not say  was more than twenty-one at some former point in time (for instance, when the crime was committed). Moreover, KRS 532.080(2)(b) provides the additional criterion to PFO-eligibility [t]hat the offender was over the age of eighteen (18) years at the time the [prior felony] offense was committed [.] (emphasis added). By specifically requiring that the defendant be over eighteen at the time of the prior felony, but not specifically placing the same requirement as to the present felony, and instead avoiding that specific language, the legislature drew a clear distinction between the defendant's age at the time the crime was committed and his age at the time of sentencing. As such, we are persuaded that Hayes properly interpreted the statutory language. In the twenty-seven years since Hayes was rendered, KRS 532.080 has been amended and reenacted in new form on more than one occasion. See, e.g., 2006 Ky. Acts c 182, § 45; 1998 Ky. Acts c 606, § 76; and 1996 Ky. Acts c 247, § 1. Nevertheless, in all that time, the statutory language under consideration remains undisturbed. Because the General Assembly has not acted upon the matter, we presume that the legislature agrees with, or at least has adopted, our interpretation. [T]he failure of the legislature to change a known judicial interpretation of a statute [is] extremely persuasive evidence of the true legislative intent. There is a strong implication that the legislature agrees with a prior court interpretation when it does not amend the statute interpreted. Rye v. Weasel, 934 S.W.2d 257, 262 (Ky.1996). Nevertheless, Harris urges us to adopt an alternate interpretation of the statutory language, as given in Justice Leibson's dissenting opinion in Hayes. We decline the invitation because doing so would require this Court to re-define the elements that establish a second-degree PFO enhancement of a felony offense. The power to define crimes and assign their penalties belongs to the legislature, not the judiciary. See McClanahan v. Commonwealth, 308 S.W.3d 694, 700 (Ky.2010). Thus, as we stated in Hayes, any change in our interpretation of KRS 532.080 must come as a result of legislative action. Finally, we note that it is unlikely that random circumstances will play the inequitable role that Harris predicts as a result of our Hayes interpretation, whereby defendants will be unjustly persecuted because of this rule. A short delay in the trial because of weather, illness, and so on, is unlikely to result in a PFO conviction due to a defendant's intervening twenty-first birthday. Moreover, we trust that our prosecutorial bar will not take unjust advantage of such random and fortuitous delays to seek PFO enhancements and bear the inherent ethical questions associated with that. Further, in the event of a deliberate delay by the Commonwealth in order to qualify the defendant for PFO eligibility, due process concerns such as those expressed in Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), in the speedy trial context, would no doubt short-circuit such efforts. The United States Supreme Court has indicated on previous occasions that it is improper for the prosecution intentionally to delay `to gain some tactical advantage over (defendants) or to harass them.' Id. at 531 fn. 32, 92 S.Ct. 2182 (citing United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307, 325, 92 S.Ct. 455, 30 L.Ed.2d 468 (1971); Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 361, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393 (1957).)