Court Opinion

ID: 9772867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:31:50.210969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:48.959193
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
Respectfully, I concur in results only.
*434The Majority Opinion reaches the right results for the wrong reason. The Majority concludes that the “alleged error in instructions” was not preserved by a sufficiently “specific objection” as required by RCr 9.54(2).
My review of the videotaped record confirms that the defense counsel objected at length to qualifying the self-defense instruction by further language permitting a conviction for wanton homicide, thus preserving the issue. The trial court finally terminated the discussion emphatically by advising counsel that the “objection was noted, in color.” Emphasis added.
Nevertheless, the conviction is properly affirmed because the self-defense instruction as given was substantially correct, under principles stated in Commonwealth v. Rose, Ky., 725 S.W.2d 588 (1987). There is no ex post facto principle involved in applying Commonwealth v. Rose to this case. Our Court has previously addressed this same problem in a series of cases reaching varying results: Blake v. Commonwealth, Ky., 607 S.W.2d 422 (1980) and Commonwealth v. Rose, supra, on the one hand, and Baker v. Commonwealth, Ky., 677 S.W.2d 876 (1984) and Gray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 695 S.W.2d 860 (1985), on the other. Commonwealth v. Rose is the most recent, and it is dispositive.
The Penal Code has stayed the same throughout this series of cases. The application of the ex post facto principle does not turn on the Supreme Court’s application of the statute in any particular case. Ex post facto and stare decisis are separate and unrelated concepts.
GANT and LAMBERT, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.