Court Opinion

ID: 9757630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:50:17.353965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:41.691189
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part.
I disagree with two aspects of the majority opinion. One relates to the extent of polygraph evidence admissible upon retrial. The other relates to the majority’s conclusion that Appellant was not entitled to an instruction on first-degree criminal trespass as a lesser included offense of first-degree burglary.
1. Polygraph evidence.
I agree that Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986), permits Appellant to attack the credibility of his own confession by showing that it was made in response to the polygraph examiner’s statement that he had failed the polygraph examination. *47However, I would not permit Appellant to challenge the procedures used in administering the polygraph examination because that evidence goes to the issue of whether Appellant did, in fact, fail the examination. If Appellant can attack the validity of the polygraph examination, surely the Commonwealth can rebut that attack with evidence that the examination was properly conducted and that Appellant did, in fact, fail. This would then require a limiting admonition to the jury similar to the one approved in State v. Schaeffer, 457 N.W.2d 194 (Minn.1990), the case upon which the majority primarily relies. In my view, however, the issue is not whether Appellant passed or failed the examination but whether his confession was induced by the assertion (correct or incorrect) that he had failed. I would limit the polygraph evidence to that issue alone.
2. First-degree criminal trespass.
Voluntary intoxication is a defense to an offense if it “[njegatives the existence of an element of the offense.” KRS 501.080(1). However, voluntary intoxication does not negate a culpable mental state of wantonness because voluntary intoxication, itself, supplies the element of wantonness. KRS 501.020(3). Even if Appellant was so intoxicated as to negative the element of intent necessary to convict him of murder or first-degree manslaughter, such would not be a complete defense but would only reduce the offense to a wanton homicide, ie., second-degree manslaughter. Fields v. Commonwealth, Ky., 12 S.W.3d 275, 282 (2000); Slaven v. Commonwealth, Ky., 962 S.W.2d 845, 857 (1997). However, there is no lesser offense of wanton robbery, Sla-ven at 857, or wanton burglary. To the extent that intoxication negatives the element of intent to commit a theft, “the theft element of robbery evaporates,” and the assault element is reduced to a charge of wanton assault. Id. Where, as here, however, the assault element of the robbery charge merges with the homicide charge, intoxication is an absolute defense to robbery. Id. Burglary also has two mens rea elements, ie., knowingly entering or remaining in the budding or residence of another with the intent to commit a crime therein. KRS 511.020; 511.030; 511.040. If Appellant was so intoxicated as to negative either the knowledge element or both the knowledge and intent elements of burglary, intoxication is an absolute defense, but if the jury believed that Appellant’s intoxication negatived only the element of intent and not the element of knowledge, Appellant would still be guilty of first-degree criminal trespass. KRS 511.060. Thus, Appellant was entitled to an instruction on first-degree criminal trespass as a lesser included offense of first-degree burglary.
GRAVES and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join this opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part.