Court Opinion

ID: 9763394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:44:05.21264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:17.517554
License: Public Domain

WINTERSHEIMER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because the jury was well within its right and duty to find that the wanton behavior of McGinnis amounted to extreme indifference to human life sufficient to convict him of wanton murder. The effort of the majority to fashion some kind of rule based on this case is without any merit. The so-*531called Shannon problem is not solved in any respect.
The majority opinion states that “self-protection is not a defense to criminal homicide where wantonness or recklessness constitutes the culpable mental state.” This is essentially the same language which created the original so-called Shannon problem. The holding in Shannon is perfectly sound. As in this case, the real problem arises in the extended discussion indulged in by the majority opinion.
The fatal flaw in the logic of the interpretation and academic comment of the majority opinion is that it overlooks the fact that it is a jury, and not this Supreme Court, that properly decides whether particular conduct evidences “extreme indifference to human life.”
As noted in the dissent by Justice Spain, in which I fully concur, this opinion continues to proliferate the confusion which trial judges face on a regular basis. This Court can have an impact on the common law of Kentucky, but this opinion cannot alter the clear language of the statute, nor does it even attempt to challenge that language.
There may well be good reason for concern as to whether a self-defense instruction could be given for wanton murder. Such concern should be directly addressed to the General Assembly so that the statute in question might be revised in some manner.
The majority opinion indicates, and correctly so, that the only difference between second-degree manslaughter and wanton murder is that wanton murder adds the element that the defendant must have acted “with extreme indifference to human life.” McGinnis claims not to have wanted to kill the victim, yet during a street brawl, where he was the only person armed with a gun, he spun around and discharged the gun at point blank range into the victim’s chest. Terry claims he wrestled the gun out of the victim’s hands before shooting him in the neck and the back of the head. I see no reason to reverse the decision of the jury.
I also believe it should be noted that the majority opinion seems to elevate remarks made in the commentary into the prece-dential law of this Commonwealth. I believe this is unwarranted and unnecessary. I believe it creates a kind of legislative function in a judicial opinion.
The Criminal Law of Kentucky states on page ii that its contents are “Reprinted from Baldwin’s Kentucky Revised Statutes Annotated (Official Edition).” On page 1 of Title L, September 1984 update of Baldwin’s Kentucky Revised Statutes Annotated (Official Edition), reprinted in Criminal Law of Kentucky (1992-93), p. 633, is the following:
Publisher’s note: Explanatory notes, designated COMMENTARY (1974), have been brought forward from our 1975 publication of Title L. These notes were prepared AFTER enactment of the Penal Code and are NOT “Commentary accompanying this Code” referred to in KRS 500.100.
These unofficial notes are based on Commentary which accompanied the final draft of the Penal Code in 1971, published by the Kentucky Crime Commission and the Legislative Research Commission. These notes were revised by the former Department of Justice and the Legislative Research Commission to conform the material to the Penal Code as finally amended and enacted.
Even if this Commentary were somehow an official interpretation of the will of the Legislature, it would only be relevant to the statute for which it was written. The statute was changed in 1984 and in 1976. This Commentary was never written by the Legislature to include information regarding those statutory changes. It was based on the statute as it appeared at that time, not the present. Cf. Commonwealth v. Hinton, Ky., 678 S.W.2d 388 (1984).
In my view, this Commentary is really a series of “unofficial notes” published by the Kentucky Crime Commission and the L.R.C. after being revised by the former Department of Justice and L.R.C. to conform to the Penal Code. This Court has previously decided that L.R.C. may not speak for and in place of the Legislature. L.R.C. v. Brown, Ky., 664 S.W.2d 907 (1984). Adding the Kentucky Crime Commission and the former Department of Justice does not change that *532holding. The material presented cannot possibly provide “the legislative history for the Penal Code.”
For a further example of the lack of reliability of the Commentary as published in Criminal Law of Kentucky, the last paragraph of the Commentary associated with KRS 506.070 appears after the section on “Relationship to pre-existing law” and is NOT reprinted in Criminal Law of Kentucky, although it clearly is a discussion of KRS 506.070(3) and appears in the Baldwin’s KRS annotated.
In these cases, the convictions should be affirmed.
REYNOLDS and SPAIN, JJ., join in this dissent.