Opinion ID: 1868744
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Substantive Provisions of the 2006 Self-Defense Law Apply Prospectively Only.

Text: As the parties correctly note, our savings statute, KRS 446.110, one of the oldest statutes carried forward into the current Kentucky Revised Statutes, [4] provides in pertinent part that [n]o new law shall be construed to repeal a former law as to any offense committed against a former law, ... or in any way whatever to affect any such offense or act so committed or done, ... before the new law takes effect, except that the proceedings thereafter had shall conform, so far as practicable, to the laws in force at the time of such proceedings. If any penalty, forfeiture or punishment is mitigated by any provision of the new law, such provision may, by the consent of the party affected, be applied to any judgment pronounced after the new law takes effect. This statute marks a departure from the common law, under which the repeal of a statute describing a criminal offense precluded prosecution for outstanding violations of the statute which had occurred prior to repeal. Commonwealth v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 186 Ky. 1, 215 S.W. 938 (1919). Under KRS 446.110, unless the General Assembly unmistakably intends otherwise, substantive changes to criminal statutes will not be retroactively applied and offenses committed against the statute before its repeal, may thereafter be prosecuted, and the penalties incurred may be enforced. Lawson v. Commonwealth, 53 S.W.3d 534, 550 (Ky.2001) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Substantive amendments are those which change and redefine the out-of-court rights, obligations and duties of persons in their transactions with others. Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Agriculture v. Vinson, 30 S.W.3d 162, 168 (Ky. 2000). By contrast, procedural amendments[t]hose amendments which apply to the in-court procedures and remedies which are used in handling pending litigation id. at 168-69 are to be retroactively applied (assuming no separation-of-powers concerns) so that the proceedings shall conform, so far as practicable, to the laws in force at the time of such proceedings. Finally, amendments to penalty provisionsprovisions pertaining to punishment, such as those creating terms of imprisonment, periods of probation or parole, fines, or forfeitures may be retroactively applied if the defendant specifically consents to the application of the new law which is `certainly' or `definitely' mitigating. Lawson, supra, 53 S.W.3d at 550; Commonwealth v. Phon, 17 S.W.3d 106 (Ky.2000). This is consistent with our approach to substantive, procedural, and remedial civil statutes under KRS 446.080. That statute provides in part that [t]here shall be no difference in the construction of civil, penal and criminal statutes and that [n]o statute shall be construed to be retroactive, unless expressly so declared. Pursuant to these provisions, we have held, substantive civil statutes are not to be applied retroactively unless the General Assembly expressly declares otherwise, while procedural and remedial statutes are to be so applied. Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Agriculture, supra ; Peabody Coal Co. v. Gossett, 819 S.W.2d 33 (Ky.1991). With one exception, the new self-defense legislation effects substantive changes to our self-defense law, not changes to penalty provisions or to procedures. As noted above, the new amendments alter the circumstances constituting self-defense and create certain presumptions which will alter the burden of proof in self-defense cases. Those are amendments to the substantive law. University of Louisville v. O'Bannon, 770 S.W.2d 215, 217 (Ky.1989) (Whether a particular circumstance constitutes a cause of action [or conversely a defense] ... is a matter of substantive law.); Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Agriculture, 30 S.W.3d at 169 (The change in the burden of proof was ... a change in substantive law.) Under the savings statute therefore, absent the General Assembly's contrary direction, the changes to substantive law apply prospectively only. Rodgers asserts, nevertheless, that the 2006 amendments to Kentucky's self-defense provisions should apply retroactively in their entirety. He relies on the last sentence of the savings statute, the provision permitting retroactive application of amendments that mitigate punishments, and argues that by liberalizing the law of self-defense the new amendments tend to mitigate the effects of the former law. Clearly, however, this construction of the savings statute would swallow entirely the rule against retroactivity. Under Rodgers's construction, any changes to the criminal laws that either narrowed or repealed an offense or created or enlarged a defenseplainly substantive changes altering the rights and duties of citizens would apply retroactively because by increasing a defendant's chance of either acquittal or conviction of a lesser offense, they mitigate the potential penalty. In the criminal context, at least, such an approach would render KRS 446.110, the savings statute, null. That statute is not needed to prevent the retroactive application of amendments creating new or expanded offenses, because the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution accomplishes that. And under Rodgers's construction the savings statute's rule against retroactivity would have no effect on amendments repealing or narrowing offenses either, leaving the statute with no effect at all. Courts, of course, are to avoid if possible constructions of statutes that read them out of existence. King Drugs, Inc. v. Commonwealth, 250 S.W.3d 643 (Ky.2008). Rodgers's construction of the savings statute would do just that. Rodgers's construction, moreover, has already been rejected by our cases applying the savings statute to legislation that repeals an offense altogether, the ultimate mitigation in Rodgers's sense. Commonwealth v. Louisville & N.R. Co., supra , (prosecution could proceed for violation of repealed statute that had prohibited shipping or transporting liquor into dry territories except in certain limited circumstances). If one remains subject to prosecution for the pre-repeal violation of a repealed criminal statute, then one must also remain subject to the pre-amendment version of a statute amended to strengthen a defense. In short, the new substantive self-defense provisions adopted in 2006 are not mitigating penalty provisions under KRS 446.110 and do not apply retroactively to Rodgers's case. Finally, with respect to the new substantive portions of the self-defense statutes, the rule of lenity does not apply. This rule, often invoked by criminal defendants seeking a more favorable construction of a statute, was recently described by the United States Supreme Court as requiring ambiguous criminal laws to be interpreted in favor of the defendants subjected to them. United States v. Santos, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2020, 2025, 170 L.Ed.2d 912 (2008). Most recently, in White v. Commonwealth, 178 S.W.3d 470 (Ky.2005), this Court unanimously invoked the rule to construe the intentional killing of a public official statutory aggravator which renders a defendant eligible for the death penalty. See also Haymon v. Commonwealth, 657 S.W.2d 239 (Ky.1983) (applying rule in construing statute governing eligibility for probation for certain offenses involving use of a weapon); Commonwealth v. Stinnett, 144 S.W.3d 829 (Ky. 2004) (applying rule in construing statute regarding jury determination of concurrent/consecutive service of felony sentences). As a rule of construction, the rule of lenity applies only if the statute at issue is genuinely ambiguous and even then only if the ambiguity cannot be resolved by resort to the other traditional rules of construction. United States v. Banks, 514 F.3d 959 (9th Cir.2008); United States v. Gosselin World Wide Moving, N.V., 411 F.3d 502 (4th Cir.2005). The rule of lenity is inapplicable here because there is nothing to construe, i.e., there is no ambiguous language regarding the retroactivity of the new self-defense statutes which requires construction.