Opinion ID: 1960245
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: firearm possession instruction.

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court's instruction on the firearm enhancement issue violated his right, guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Section 11 of the Kentucky Constitution, to be found guilty by a jury of every element of the crime with which he was charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 477, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 2356, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000); United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 2313, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995); Newby v. Commonwealth, 255 Ky. 597, 75 S.W.2d 25, 29 (1934). Apprendi, supra , established in a landmark decision that this requirement applies to every fact, with the exception of a prior conviction, that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the statutory maximum. 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. at 2362-63. The so-called firearm enhancement statute KRS 218A.992(1), works such an increase in the statutory maximum: Other provisions of the law notwithstanding, any person who is convicted of any violation of this chapter who was at the time of the commission of the offense in possession of a firearm, shall: (a) Be penalized one (1) class more severely than provided in the penalty provision pertaining to that offense if it is a felony; or (b) Be penalized as a Class D felon if the offense would otherwise be a misdemeanor. Thus, Appellant's convictions of possession of marijuana in violation of KRS 218A.1422 and possession of drug paraphernalia in violation of KRS 218A.500(2), both Class A misdemeanors otherwise subject to an aggregate maximum penalty of twelve months incarceration, KRS 532.090(1), KRS 532.110(1)(b), were, pursuant to KRS 218A.992(1)(b), increased to Class D felonies and he was sentenced to the maximum of five years imprisonment for each offense. KRS 532.060(2)(d). Appellant's conviction of possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, a Class D felony otherwise punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment, id., was enhanced to a Class C felony for which he was sentenced to the maximum of ten years imprisonment. KRS 532.060(2)(c). The sentences were ordered to run consecutively for a total of twenty years imprisonment. Since misdemeanor convictions must run concurrently with felony convictions, KRS 532.110(1)(a), absent the application of KRS 218A.992(1), Appellant's maximum aggregate sentence could have been only five years. Because KRS 218A.992(1) effected an increase in his sentence to twenty years, Apprendi required that the firearm charge be proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The separate instructions on each of the controlled substance and paraphernalia possession charges correctly authorized the jury to find Appellant guilty only if it believe[d] from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant committed the charged offense. However, the separate instruction on possession of a firearm contained no such provision. It only instructed the jury that: You, the jury, will determine whether or not the Defendant was in possession of a handgun on July 18, 2000. Appellant asserts that this instruction was inadequate to secure his constitutional right to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree. Apprendi, supra , required that the jury be instructed to find the facts necessary to apply KRS 218A.992(1) beyond a reasonable doubt just as they were instructed to find the existence of the elements necessary to prove the underlying offenses. Compare 1 Cooper, Kentucky Instructions to Juries (Criminal) § 9.34D, at 629 (4th ed. Anderson 1993) (If you find the Defendant guilty under this Instruction, you will so state in your verdict and further state whether you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant was in possession of a firearm when he committed the offense.) (emphasis added). The instruction also failed to allude to the nexus requirement. In Commonwealth v. Montaque, Ky., 23 S.W.3d 629 (2000), we held that KRS 218A.992(1) requires a nexus between the crime committed and the possession of a firearm. Id. at 632. Mere contemporaneous possession of a firearm is not sufficient to satisfy the nexus requirement. Id. Here, however, the instruction simply required the jury to find that Appellant had possessed a handgun on July 18, 2000. Thus, the jury could have found Appellant guilty on this open-ended count if it believed, e.g., that he had possessed a handgun at a target shooting range on the morning of his arrest. A proper instruction would have required the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of some nexus between Appellant's possession of the pistol and each of the individual drug and paraphernalia possession charges; i.e., that Appellant possessed the firearm in furtherance of the underlying offenses. Compare Cooper, supra, at 629 (requiring the jury to also find beyond a reasonable doubt that the firearm was possessed by the defendant when he committed the offense). These deficiencies presumably would have been corrected had they been brought to the trial judge's attention. However, they were not. Appellant neither objected to the firearm instruction nor proffered an alternative instruction to the trial court. RCr 9.54(2) provides: No party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless the party's position has been fairly and adequately presented to the trial judge by an offered instruction or by motion, or unless the party makes objection before the court instructs the jury, stating specifically the matter to which the party objects and the ground or grounds of the objection. See also Barth v. Commonwealth, Ky., 80 S.W.3d 390, 400 (2001); Clifford v. Commonwealth, Ky., 7 S.W.3d 371, 376 (1999); Davis v. Commonwealth, Ky., 967 S.W.2d 574, 580-81 (1998). Thus, the issue is not preserved for appellate review. But even analyzed on the basis of palpable error, RCr 10.26, we find no manifest injustice. Instruction No. 3 provided overall guidance on the issue of reasonable doubt. You shall find the Defendant not guilty unless you are satisfied from the evidence alone and beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. If upon the whole case you have a reasonable doubt that he is guilty, you shall find him not guilty. This instruction, while admittedly not specifically directed at the firearm possession issue, did inform the jury that the reasonable doubt standard applied to the whole case. If the jury followed this instruction in its deliberations with respect to the whole case, then it did so with respect to the firearm possession issue. Scobee v. Donahue, 291 Ky. 374, 164 S.W.2d 947, 949 (1942) (It is to be assumed that the jury ... followed the evidence and instructions in their entirety.); United States v. Davis, 306 F.3d 398, 416 (6th Cir.2002) (Juries are presumed to follow the instructions they are given.).