Opinion ID: 1580899
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: exclusion of exculpatory evidence.

Text: An arguably exculpatory investigative report was discovered in the records of the Grayson Police Department and furnished to defense counsel prior to trial. The report was unsigned and consisted primarily of hearsay information obtained by its unidentified author from witnesses who implicated Minnie Burton, Phyllis Berry and Berry's boyfriend, Scott Trent, in the murder of Mrs. Horton. The report concluded: I, myself, believe after talking with these people and listening to their stories, that the burglary and murder took place earlier that evening and that the other people had ran off and left Sammy because he had gotten to (sic) wild for them and that Sammy had returned to Minnie Burton's apartment and broke in there looking for her. Not finding her there, he returned to the crime scene of Mrs. Horton's home. Officer Lindeman speculated that the report had been authored by Appellant's father, Ronald Fields, a former employee of the Grayson Police Department who was employed by the Olive Hill Police Department on the date of Mrs. Horton's murder. Ronald Fields admitted that he had conducted his own investigation and prepared a report which he furnished to the Grayson Police Department, though he was never called upon to identify this particular report. The report consisted almost exclusively of the kind of investigative hearsay which we have consistently condemned. Slaven v. Commonwealth, supra, at 859; Bussey v. Commonwealth, Ky., 797 S.W.2d 483, 486 (1990); Sanborn v. Commonwealth, Ky., 754 S.W.2d 534, 541 (1988), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 854, 116 S.Ct. 154, 133 L.Ed.2d 98 (1995). This kind of evidence is no more admissible when offered by the defendant than when offered by the Commonwealth. Nor does the report fall within the business records exception to the hearsay rule, since there was no proof that the person who prepared the report was under a business duty to do so. KRE 803(6); Rabovsky v. Commonwealth, supra, at 10; Prater v. Cabinet for Human Resources, supra, at 959; Lawson, supra, § 8.65 V, at 465-66. If it was, indeed, prepared by Ronald Fields, he did so at a time when he was not an employee of the Grayson Police Department. Finally, the author's opinion would not have been admissible under this exception. KRE 803(6)(B).