Court Opinion

ID: 9660540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:15:26.782004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.346583
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent from the majority’s holding that the trial court did not err in allowing limited evidence that Nairobi Warfield was pregnant when she was murdered.
The fact that one of the two victims was pregnant did not have “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” Springer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 998 S.W.2d 439, 449 (1999) (quoting KRE 401). KRE 402 provides that irrelevant evidence is inadmissible. Additionally, the underlying premise of KRE 403 is a balancing test between probative value and prejudicial effect. KRE 403 provides that relevant evidence may be excluded when the probative value is substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect.
The parties agree that the introduction of evidence that Ms. Warfield was pregnant was mentioned briefly and without elaboration. In Nugent v. Commonwealth, Ky., 639 S.W.2d 761, 764 (1982), this Court observed “where the value of evidence for a legitimate purpose is slight and the jury’s probable misuse of the evidence for an incompetent purpose is great, the evidence may be excluded altogether.” If, as contended, the evidence was of minimal value to the Commonwealth’s case, it is reasonable to infer that the mere reference to pregnancy would characterize Appellant as the murderer of a mother and her unborn child, and thus would have had an undue prejudicial effect.
The trial court reasoned that the evidence was admissible, as the pregnancy was a necessary part of explaining to the jury who Ms. Warfield was. I disagree. The facts sufficiently illustrated to the jury the brutality of the murders. The Commonwealth was required to prove that Appellant caused Ms. Warfield’s death and no more. The fact that Ms. Warfield was pregnant had no bearing on meeting this burden.
Appellant argues, and I agree, that the probative value of the evidence of Ms. Warfield’s pregnancy did not outweigh the *191potential for undue prejudice to Appellant. The evidence was irrelevant to the determination of Appellant’s guilt, and was therefore inadmissible. Thus, the trial court erred by allowing limited evidence that Ms. Warfield was pregnant when she was murdered.