Opinion ID: 1794408
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Separate Conviction

Text: Appellant also contends that the introduction of a separate murder conviction should have been inadmissible at the retrial of his penalty phase because the conviction did not exist at the time of the original penalty phase. Specifically, in 2002, after Appellant's convictions and original sentences in the instant case, he entered a guilty plea to the murder of another elderly woman who had been strangled in her home in 1997. The prosecution introduced evidence of this conviction in the penalty phase retrial. Appellant claims that because the prior conviction could not have been used at trial if he had not pursued his appeal, allowing its introduction at the retrial penalized him for pursuing his appeal. While this precise issue appears to be of first impression in Kentucky, KRS 532.025(b), KRS 532.055(2)(a), and our holding in Templeman v. Commonwealth [5] are instructive of the issue. KRS 532.025(b) mandates that a presentencing hearing be conducted before the jury in which it may consider certain mitigating and aggravating evidence, including the defendant's record of any prior criminal convictions or absence of such prior convictions. KRS 532.055(2)(a) permits the Commonwealth during the penalty phase to introduce evidence relevant to sentencing including prior convictions of the defendant and the nature of such prior offenses. In Templeman , we explicitly held that the term prior referred to the status of the defendant at the time of sentencing, not at the time of the commission of the charged crime. [6] In Templeman , we approved introduction of a conviction that was obtained subsequent to the offense for which Templeman was being sentenced because at the time of sentencing it had become a prior conviction. Federal jurisprudence concerning the permissibility of imposing harsher penalties on a retrial necessitated by a meritorious appeal is also instructive. Specifically, in Texas v. McCullough , [7] the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the contention that a longer sentence upon retrial could be imposed only if it was based upon conduct of the defendant occurring after the original trial. The Court held that even where the trial court imposed a harsher sentence on retrial than the jury had imposed prior to McCullough's successful motion for a new trial, McCullough's constitutional due process rights were not violated where the harsher sentence was not a result of vindictiveness against the defendant for exercising his constitutional rights. In McCullough , the harsher sentence was justified by the testimony of additional witnesses and other evidence that was not presented during the first trial. Further, the Court contrasted the defendant's right to appeal with the government's right to present relevant aggravating circumstances as follows: To be sure, a defendant may be more reluctant to appeal if there is a risk that new, probative evidence supporting a longer sentence may be revealed on retrial. But this Court has never recognized this chilling effect as sufficient reason to create a constitutional prohibition against considering relevant information in assessing sentences. [8] Furthermore, the Kentucky truth-in-sentencing statute is designed to provide the jury with information relevant to arriving at an appropriate sentence for a particular offense. [9] In the instant case, the second sentencing jury was informed that Appellant had been convicted of having previously murdered another victim. It is of no significance that Appellant's prior crime did not result in the required final conviction until after his conviction in this case. At the penalty phase retrial, the jury was entitled to all relevant evidence including the evidence of Appellant's prior crime, without regard to when the conviction occurred. Clearly, under both McCullough and Templeman , evidence of such conviction was permissible.