Opinion ID: 2343191
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: failure to instruct as to lwop

Text: Appellant was tried in August and September 1998 for conduct that he committed in October 1991. On July 15, 1998, new capital sentencing provisions of the 1998 General Assembly's omnibus crime legislation, HB 455, took effect, and a sentence of life without possibility of probation or parole (LWOP) became a sentencing option in capital cases. KRS 446.110 provides: 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. In a pretrial motion submitted by defense counsel, Appellant advised the trial court of the change in the law, stated that [t]he accused hereby consents to application of the 1998 amendments to KRS 532.030, and moved the trial court to include LWOP as a sentencing option available to the jury if the trial proceeded to a capital sentencing phase. As was the case in Furnish v. Commonwealth, Ky., 95 S.W.3d 34, 50-51 (2002), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 115, 157 L.Ed.2d 80 (2003), the trial court declined to instruct the jury regarding LWOP because it concluded that the previously available capital sentencing options were not clearly mitigated by the new penalties. A majority of this Court, however, subsequently reached the opposite conclusion when certifying the law in Commonwealth v. Phon, Ky., 17 S.W.3d 106, 108 (2000) ([U]pon the unqualified consent of the defendant, a sentence of life without parole may be lawfully imposed for capital crimes committed before July 15, 1998.). The Commonwealth now argues that although the trial court identified an erroneous basis for its ruling below, it correctly declined to instruct the jury on LWOP because the record does not contain evidence of Appellant's personal and unqualified consent to an LWOP instruction. In Furnish , this Court rejected the Commonwealth's identical argument, and we do so again today. In response to the Commonwealth's suggestion that KRS 446.110 permits trial courts to exercise discretion whether to instruct on LWOP in capital cases, we recognize that such an interpretation would permit inconsistency in capital sentencing procedures that is incompatible with due process. Accordingly, we hold that Appellant's motion satisfied the `unqualified consent' requirement we established in Phon, and he was entitled to receive an instruction on life without parole. Furnish, 95 S.W.3d at 51. Compare Garland v. Commonwealth, Ky., 127 S.W.3d 529, 537-38 (2003) (where the defendant made no request for an LWOP instruction). We find no merit in the Commonwealth's contention in its brief that the instructional error in this case was harmless. Accordingly, we reverse Appellant's death sentence and remand this case to the trial court for a new capital sentencing phase. Our reversal of Appellant's death sentence and remand for a new capital sentencing phase renders moot or partially moot several of Appellant's allegations of error. Accordingly, this opinion will not address Appellant's boiler-plate objections to the death penalty, i.e., # 53 (Death Sentence Disproportionate to Co-Indictee's Sentence), # 54 (Kentucky's Disproportionality Review is Unconstitutional), # 55 (Residual Doubt Bars Death Sentence), # 56 (Constitutional Challenges to Death Penalty), and # 58 (No Access to Data), which Appellant may assert upon remand and then pursue upon appeal if he again receives a death sentence. Nor will we address other allegations of error that we would characterize as unique to the capital sentencing phase at Appellant's previous trial, i.e., # 9 (Immediate Sentencing of St. Clair), # 10 (Exclusion of Sentencing Hearing Avowals), portions of # 27 (Improper Penalty Phase Closing Argument), # 32 (Denial of Motion to Recuse), # 49 (Commonwealth Hugging Victim's Family After Guilty Verdict), and # 52 (Coerced Death Sentence). We address each of Appellant's remaining allegations of error, but address the ones that relate exclusively to capital sentencing only to the extent that they may be relevant to proceedings upon remand. Although we will identify each argument by both subject matter and number, we have reorganized Appellant's claims according to the nature of the asserted error rather than its sequential place in Appellant's brief, and we will address the allegations in our reorganized order.