Court Opinion

ID: 9769988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:10:14.021885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:09.667526
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge
(dissenting).
It has long been the law in this Commonwealth that a conviction will be set aside or a judgment reversed on appeal only for “any error or defect when, upon consideration of the whole case, the court is satisfied that the substantial rights of the defendant have been prejudiced.” RCr 9.24, 9.26.
In Rutherford v. Commonwealth, 78 Ky. (1 Rodman) 639, 1 Ky.Law Rep. 410, it was held that the power of this court to reverse a conviction depends upon an affirmative showing by the defendant that an error appears on the record and that “the court must be satisfied, from consideration of the whole case, that the substantial rights of the accused have been prejudiced by the error complained of.” In the Rutherford case the accused claimed that he had been denied the constitutional right to confrontation when he was not permitted to accompany the jury to view the place of the alleged killing.
In the instant case the court is reversing a death sentence conviction because of a hearsay statement concerning a fact which had been well proven by an eyewitness who said that he saw Roy Salisbury go to his home, return with his gun to the place where Mallie Denny, Roy Denny, and Thomas Spencer Combs were, and then saw the accused at close range shoot and kill them. This testimony was unimpeach-ed and was fully corroborated by evidence concerning the identity of the shells found at the scene of the murders and of the gun, as well as was other testimony. There was no testimony to excuse or justify appellant’s conduct.
The hearsay testimony upon which the judgment is being reversed is the testimony of the county judge who said that the sister of the accused, in response to an inquiry concerning the whereabouts of the gun, said: “Yes, my brother told me about it and showed me where he put it and said he had shot those people out there this evening.”
Admittedly the statement was hearsay and it was error to admit it, but I cannot agree that it was prejudicial in view of the eyewitness testimony, unimpeached and corroborated. The accused has failed to show that his substantial rights have been prejudiced. The admission of the hearsay testimony was merely cumulative. The substance of the testimony had already been established beyond question. The rule of the Rutherford case was recently approved by this court on a similar question in McQueen v. Commonwealth, Ky., 393 S.W.2d 787. Under the facts of the case here the accused unquestionably committed three cold-blooded, deliberate murders. The death sentence was an appropriate punishment.
I am alarmed at the growing tendency of courts to reverse convictions such as this when the identity of the accused and his guilt have been established beyond ques*249tion. Wedding v. Commonwealth, Ky., 394 S.W.2d 105, was another case of unquestioned proof of a heinous murder in which this court, by a four to three decision, reversed in a death sentence case. Harris v. Commonwealth, Ky., 389 S.W.2d 907, and Ky., 411 S.W.2d 924, is another example. Harris was successful in obtaining two reversals, and recently he obtained a dismissal of the prosecution against him. The basis, in my humble opinion, was not meritorious for either reversal. I could not agree that Harris’ substantial rights had been prejudiced. The tendency mentioned has a direct relationship to the increasing disregard for law and order and the resulting increase in the commission of crime. Prosecution without delay and sure punishment are the best deterrents to an increasing crime rate.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.