Opinion ID: 1874198
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Removal and Possession of the Crossens' Gun.

Text: Mark Crossen, Appellant's co-worker at the Just for Fun arcade, and Christy Crossen, his wife, testified that they kept a .22-mm Berretta hidden at their home. Appellant lived with the Crossens before moving to Roberts's residence. Mr. Crossen testified that he noticed that his gun was missing approximately two months before Roberts's death. Mrs. Crossen testified that Appellant called her from the Dayton Police Department on April 4, 2000, to tell her that the Berretta was in the safe at the arcade. Mrs. Crossen checked and, indeed, the Berretta was in the safe. Appellant does not claim insufficient pretrial notice of this evidence, but asserts that it was not relevant to any legitimate purpose under KRE 404(b). We conclude otherwise. Arrington testified that Appellant told her in one of his versions of the fatal night's events that Roberts came into Appellant's bedroom, took a gun off the dresser, and tried to hit him with it, thus supporting his claim of self-defense. Evidence of collateral criminal conduct is admissible for the purpose of rebutting a material contention of the defendant. Moore v. Commonwealth, 771 S.W.2d 34, 39 (Ky.1988), abrogated on other grounds by McGuire v. Commonwealth, 885 S.W.2d 931, 935 (Ky.1994). Evidence that Appellant possessed a gun during the time frame surrounding Roberts's death tended to refute any possible inference that Roberts owned the gun mentioned in that version of the events, an inference that would have tended to support Appellant's claim of self-defense. During its case-in-chief, the Commonwealth could not know which version of the events Appellant would testify to at trial, if he testified at all. It was entitled to introduce evidence to rebut every theory that he had related to Arrington or to the police at the time of his arrest. The testimony regarding Appellant's possession of the Crossens' Berretta was, thus, not obviously inadmissible, and given the substantial other evidence that tended to discredit Appellant's account of the relevant events, Part IV(A)(1), supra, admission of this evidence did not result in manifest injustice.