Opinion ID: 2005875
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Proof of Appellant's Criminal History/CourtNet

Text: During the penalty phase of a trial, the Commonwealth may offer evidence of a defendant's prior convictions, both felony and misdemeanor. KRS 532.055(2)(a)(2) (truth-in-sentencing statute). However, in order to obtain a conviction for persistent felony offender, the Commonwealth must prove the status by introducing evidence of one prior felony conviction for PFO in the second degree and two or more prior felony convictions for PFO in the first degree. KRS 532.080(1),(2). This is obviously done after the guilt phase of the trial, and if there is a PFO charge, the jury first decides the penalty for the underlying offenses, then the enhancement that comes from the PFO status, if any. This Court has approved using documents, such as certified copies of the judgment, to prove the prior convictions, and this Court has allowed the official records of convictions to be read to the jury. E.g., Martin v. Commonwealth, 13 S.W.3d 232, 235 (Ky.1999); Kendricks v. Commonwealth, 557 S.W.2d 417, 419 (Ky.1977). However, as Justice Combs pointed out in his dissent in Commonwealth v. Mixon, 827 S.W.2d 689 (Ky.1992), there must be an  official record or judgment forming the basis of the evidence, because there is a presumption of regularity of official records upon which a defendant can rely. Id. at 693 (emphasis added). The majority in Mixon found no palpable error when testimony came from an uncertified document, but that should not be read as an endorsement of using anything other than official records or certified copies thereof. CourtNet is a product that is compiled by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) that is generally useful for investigation into a person's background, but it is not intended as an official record of that background. In fact, CourtNet's user agreement states that the AOC  CANNOT GUARANTEE the accuracy of information obtained via CourtNet. Criminal Justice Agency, CourtNet Individual User Agreement, http://courtnet.kycourts.net/ courtnet/manuals/CourtNetCJIndividual. pdf. It further states that [d]ata obtained from this system is not an official court record and that [i]nformation received from CourtNet . . . may not at any particular moment reflect the true status of court cases. Id. In this case, the Commonwealth spent over eight minutes reading from ten pages of a CourtNet printout, listing fourteen of Appellant's previous misdemeanor convictions and including one felony that it had already introduced by testimony from a certified copy of the judgment. There was certainly no need to prove this conviction again, and doing so could have the effect of bolstering a false belief in the validity of the CourtNet listing of the fourteen misdemeanors. Oddly, neither party indicated in their briefs that the felony had already been proven by a certified copy of the judgment, and did not cite that portion of the record. Nonetheless, that is the state of the record this Court must consider. It appears from this that the Commonwealth thought it had to prove the PFO with a copy of a certified judgment, but could introduce truth-in-sentencing evidence with something less. This is not so. The purpose of truth in sentencing is to insure that a jury is well-informed about the person on trial. Commonwealth v. Bass, 777 S.W.2d 233, 234 (Ky.1989). It is geared toward giving the jury information relevant to arriving at an appropriate sentence for the offender. Williams v. Commonwealth, 810 S.W.2d 511, 513 (Ky. 1991). It is apparent that the legislature believed that an offender's prior criminal history had weight in deciding how he should be punished, and since that is the effect of such evidence, it must be competent to prove the convictions. It naturally follows that evidence based on a document such as CourtNet, which proclaims that it is not official, may not reflect the true status of cases, and whose accuracy cannot be guaranteed, is not competent to be weighed in fixing a penalty. Introducing fourteen misdemeanors would be irrelevant if it did not have an effect on the sentence. Given the effect such evidence is assumed to have, it cannot be said that it had no effect on the PFO penalty as well as that for the underlying offenses. CourtNet is not an appropriate document to use to influence a jury's decision on fixing a penalty. It lacks the requisite indicia of reliability necessary to reliably prove a defendant's prior convictions. To do that, the evidence of prior convictions must come from the official court record, or certified copies thereof. However, other elements of proof, such as proving a defendant's parole status or age, may be introduced through other appropriate records. Garner v. Commonwealth, 645 S.W.2d 705, 707 (Ky.1983). Consequently, this case must be remanded to allow the jury to consider a new sentence on the underlying charge, based on properly authenticated records of prior convictions. The conviction for PFO, being validly supported by a certified copy of the prior felony conviction, stands, but the sentence on the PFO charge must also be determined anew, based on the properly authenticated prior convictions.