Court Opinion

ID: 9647209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:26:36.615167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:46.571147
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
Respectfully, I disagree with including the word “uncontrollably” within the definition for “extreme emotional disturbance” which is contained in the majority opinion.
*474The word “uncontrollably” applies more suitably to the mental state associated with temporary insanity than it applies to the mental state associated with extreme emotional disturbance. KRS 504.060 defines “insanity” to mean “that, as a result of mental condition,” one lacks “substantial capacity ... to conform one’s conduct to the requirements of law.” Insanity is a complete defense. KRS 504.120.
On the other hand “extreme emotional disturbance” does not exculpate the actor from criminal responsibility; it merely reduces the crime from murder to manslaughter, or from assault to the lesser offense of assault under extreme emotional disturbance.
The nature of extreme emotional disturbance is illuminated by KRS 508.040, which states in pertinent part:
“(1) In any prosecution [for assault] in which intentionally causing physical injury or serious physical injury is an element of the offense, the defendant may establish in mitigation that he acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance, as defined in subsection (l)(a) of KRS 507.020 [the murder statute].”
When the statute declares that being “under the influence” of “extreme emotional disturbance” is sufficient to mitigate criminal liability, it seems apparent that the legislature intends for the defendant to be able to utilize it “in mitigation” so long as it contributes to cause the act, rather than limiting its application to where it is an exclusive cause of the criminal act. Wherever the evidence shows that the defendant’s emotionally disturbed state was a contributing factor causing him to commit the criminal act, he should be entitled to mitigation of the degree of the offense to the lesser degree. The statutory scheme does not require that extreme emotional disturbance be the sole or exclusive cause of the act, as the word “uncontrollably” seemingly implies.
Next, assuming that on remand the defendant is again tried for capital murder, and that he is again convicted of murder, we should require a refinement in the instruction defining the use of Burglary I as an aggravating factor placing the defendant in the death eligible class. Burglary I should not be utilized as an aggravating factor if the jury believes that the crime that the defendant intended to commit when he unlawfully forced his way into the victim’s room was to shoot the victim. Burglary I should only be utilized to elevate murder to aggravated murder, sufficient to impose the death penalty, if the jury believes that the defendant’s intent when he broke into the room was to commit some crime other than assaulting Stut-zenberger with a gun. Otherwise, the same criminal intent, the intent to shoot Stutzenberger, is being utilized twice, first to prove the burglary and then to enhance murder to capital murder. This is double enhancement contrary to the theory of Boulder v. Commonwealth, Ky., 610 S.W.2d 615 (1980). It is also contrary to the theory of Polk v. Commonwealth, Ky., 679 S.W.2d 231 (1984), which implies that assault should not be separately punished from burglary except when it is an additional, gratuitous act.
In Collins v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 258, 263-4 (C.C.A. 8 1985), the United States Court of Appeals was confronted with the same problem, whether the “double counting” of “one aspect of the evidence” to prove both the intent behind the murder and the aggravating circumstance is constitutionally impermissible. The Court stated the “question is”:
“[W]hether use of an aggravating circumstance that duplicates an element of crime itself is a violation of the Eighth Amendment_ Aggravating circumstances, in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment, must ‘genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty.
The Court then answered the question:
“We see no escape from the conclusion that an aggravating circumstance which merely repeats an element of the underlying crime cannot perform this narrowing function.”
*475Burglary is not an end in itself. It is a crime of means, a means to an end, that end being the commission of some other offense after entry has been obtained. If the intent behind the burglary was murder, the murder that followed was not accompanied by an aggravating factor as necessary to place the accused in the death eligible class.
KRS 532.025 should not be construed as qualifying murderers for the death penalty on the basis of “situs.” Murder carried out on one side of a door should not qualify for the death penalty where the same murder on the other side would not. Death is not an appropriate penalty simply by reason of location. This is not what the United States Supreme Court meant by a rule requiring additional statutory aggravating factors before placing the murderer in the select group that should be eligible for the death penalty. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). This is an arbitrary classification in violation of the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel or unusual punishment.
We should instruct the trial court that upon a new trial the jury may only utilize burglary to place the accused in the death eligible class if it believes that the purpose of the burglary was to commit some crime other than murder, and further believes that, after gaining entry, the defendant then formed the intent to commit murder.