Court Opinion

ID: 9769688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:58:47.291943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:06.884829
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
This case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial for the following reasons:
1) Failure to require payment of the defense psychiatrist.
The Commonwealth had agreed before trial that the defense was entitled to employ a psychiatrist to investigate potential issues concerning the accused’s mental state. The court had authorized the employment and ordered the county to pay the bill. Notwithstanding, the county authorities refused to accept responsibility for payment and thereafter the psychiatrist who had been employed, who was from Ohio and could not be subpoenaed, refused to participate further in appellant’s defense.
There were a number of potential issues bearing on appellant’s mental state at the time of the crime, relating to both the question of intentional murder and to the appropriate punishment, which supported *390the appointment of a psychiatrist in the circumstances of this case. Certainly, the court was acting within its authority when it decided that the psychiatrist’s services should be employed, and when it ordered the County to pay for such services. KRS 31.110(1); KRS 31.200(1).
In my judgment it was then incumbent upon the trial court to take necessary steps to enforce its order of payment against the County, and the failure to do so was reversible error. The recent case of Ake v. Oklahoma, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985) reenforces the accused’s right to access to a psychiatrist’s assistance at his trial when it is clear that his mental state at the time of the offense is a substantial factor in his defense. While perhaps Ake can be distinguished in certain respects, it applies in the circumstances of this case. Likewise, the right to present evidence in mitigation when charged with a capital offense made the appointment of a psychiatrist reasonable in the circumstances of this case. See, Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978).
The issue here is not whether a psychiatrist should have been provided — that decision had already been made — but what should have been done when the County indicated it would refuse to pay a psychiatrist. The court’s order should have been enforced against the county. Failing to do so was reversible error.
2) The confession.
The written confession introduced into evidence against the appellant was challenged on grounds that it was the product of coercion. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760 (1961). There were circumstances surrounding the taking of the confession which lend considerable support to this claim, although not necessarily compelling this conclusion. This includes the extended interrogation, evidence of psychological intimidation, and the accused’s condition with reference to the taking of drugs.
Of equal or greater importance, in itself the written statement used against the accused suggests that on a number of occasions the appellant attempted to stop the questioning, as was his constitutional right, but his will was overridden. It is essential to have the tape recording to make this critical decision.
The record shows that clerical personnel in the police department erased the audio tape of this interrogation two or three days after the confession was procured, at the direction of the police officer in charge.
The tone of voice which would be evident from the audio tape, the pattern of interruption, and other non-verbal elements of this interrogation, have been destroyed. The tape recording of the conversation was the best evidence from which to decide the issues bearing on its admissibility. It has been disposed of so that the trial judge could not fairly decide, and we cannot review, this important issue.
In the circumstances of this case, where the written confession indicates a number of significant points at which the tone of voice and the manner of questioning would be critical to deciding whether the confession should have been suppressed, neither the trial court nor this court should affirm the use of the confession when the tape has been destroyed. In Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 92 S.Ct. 619, 30 L.Ed.2d 618 (1972), the United States Supreme Court directs that a coerced confession shall not be used, ‘'whether true or false,” because the method used to obtain it “offends constitutional principles.” 404 U.S. at 485, 92 S.Ct. at 624. Faced with the shocking circumstances of the present offense, enforcing this constitutional principle places a disagreeable duty and an onerous responsibility on the court called upon to do so, but nevertheless a duty to be performed however disagreeable.
In Hendley v. Commonwealth, Ky., 573 S.W.2d 662 (1978), in similar circumstances we state:
“The interrogation of appellant was subject to proper inquiry and the tapes on which the questions and answers were *391recorded were likewise the proper subject of inquiry. This court cannot overemphasize the importance of not only retaining such evidence, but of promptly making it available to counsel for the accused when requested and if it is in existence.” 573 S.W.2d at 667.
In Hendley, there was nothing to indicate that the missing tape made a difference. Where, as here, the written transcription used as evidence raises serious questions about the manner of questioning, questions which could only be answered properly by listening to the tape, preserving the tape becomes crucial to the use of the confession. Without it, the written statement should have been suppressed.1
3) Improperly suggesting to the jury that in imposing the death sentence it makes only a recommendation.
Caldwell v. Mississippi, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985), removes any lingering doubt about the impropriety of referring to the responsibility of the jury in imposing a death sentence as only a recommendation.
In Kentucky, the jury’s decision is more than a recommendation because it is critical to whether the death penalty can be imposed. The trial court cannot impose a death sentence unless the jury first decides that it is proper.
But without regard to whether this set of circumstances should or should not be termed a “recommendation,” we are bound by the United States Supreme Court decision in Caldwell v. Mississippi, supra, where, in circumstances substantially identical to ours, the court stated:
“[W]e conclude that it is constitutionally impermissible to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant’s death rests elsewhere....
... Belief in the truth of the assumption that sentencers treat their power to determine the appropriateness of death as an ‘awesome responsibility’ has allowed this Court to view sentencer discretion as consistent with — and indeed as indispensable to — the Eighth Amendment’s ‘need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case.’ ” - U.S. at -, 105 S.Ct. at 2639-40, 86 L.Ed.2d at 239-40.
The importance of Caldwell v. Mississippi is that it makes clear that what is critical is telling the jury that its sentence is only a recommendation, without regard to the argument over the word “recommendation” as technically correct.
Whereas, perhaps, it may still be arguable that where the term has not been used so extensively as to be pervasive, it is not reversible error, no such argument can be made in the present ease. Over objection, each of the twelve jurors who decided appellant’s fate were qualified with the express understanding that their sentencing function was only to recommend a sentence to the trial judge. The jury was told in opening statement that its duty was to “recommend” to the trial judge a sentence to “fit the crime of this case,” and in the prosecutor’s closing argument the sentence function was relegated to the level of “recommendation” on five different occasions. There was a repeated and then a continuing objection to the Commonwealth’s reference to the jury’s sentencing function as on a recommendation.
It is probably true that the emphasis on the jury’s sentence as only a recommendation exceeded the bounds of propriety as discussed by this court in Ice v. Commonwealth, Ky., 667 S.W.2d 671 (1984). But we need not decide, because beyond ques*392tion the use of the term recommendation in this case exceeded the limitations in Caldwell v. Mississippi, supra.
For the reasons stated, this case should be reversed and remanded to be tried properly.

. It is noteworthy that appellant’s contention that his confession was involuntary was based in part on his claim that he was under the influence of drugs at the time his statement was taken. When arrested he had in his possession a bottle of pills, the contents of which bore directly on this question, which was never analyzed because, once again, the police had misplaced the evidence.