Opinion ID: 4581781
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Review Declined

Text: RCr 10.26 allows a court to review an unpreserved error if the error is palpable and it resulted in manifest injustice. However, “[a]bsent extreme circumstances amounting to a substantial miscarriage of justice, an appellate court will not engage in palpable error review pursuant to RCr 10.26 unless such a request is made and briefed by the appellant.” Shepherd v. Commonwealth, 251 S.W.3d 309, 316 (Ky. 2008). In Anderson’s brief to this Court, he alleges that his evidentiary arguments were adequately preserved and asks us to review the trial court’s rulings on these issues for an abuse of discretion. In his reply brief Anderson again asserts that his arguments were preserved by his trial counsel’s arguments at the pretrial conference described above and in his Motion for a New Trial. Anderson then says, “In any event, the standard, whether palpable error or abuse of discretion, is no doubt a difficult one to overcome.” This is the only time that he mentions palpable error in either of his briefs in regard to the evidentiary issues. He does not explicitly request review under RCr 10.26, and he does not argue that the errors were palpable or that manifest injustice resulted from them. 9 In Shepherd, the defendant similarly did not request palpable error review in his brief to the Court. 251 S.W.3d at 316. However, in his reply brief, he asked the Court “to analyze each failure of Shepherd’s trial counsel to object to the errors found on appeal as palpable errors subject to review under RCr 10.26.” Id. We noted that this “broad request” was intended “to cover all instances of unpreserved errors without specifically stating which individual errors amounted to palpable error under RCr 10.26 or how they rose to manifest injustice.” Id. We then went on to hold that “such a general request is not adequate to invoke palpable error review under RCr 10.26.” Id. The same is true in this case. Anderson’s passing mention of the difficulty of overcoming the palpable error standard is not sufficient to invoke palpable error review. We also do not find any “extreme circumstances amounting to a substantial miscarriage of justice.” Id. As such, we decline to review these alleged errors.