Court Opinion

ID: 9649139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:43:14.350383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:08.095094
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I concur with the majority’s analysis of the issues of collateral estoppel and the time limitations of CR 60.02, I must dissent from the final portion of the opinion which concludes the trial court did not err when it denied Spaulding a new trial.
As the majority correctly notes, when reviewing a conviction obtained based on perjured testimony, the Court’s overriding concern must be the integrity of the judicial process. During such an inquiry, the “question of the guilt or innocence of the accused is not a necessary subject of the inquiry.” Anderson v. Buchanan, Ky., 292 Ky. 810, 820, 168 S.W.2d 48, 54 (1943). Despite this clear proposition, the trial court indeed focused on the question of Spaulding’s guilt or innocence when it treated Garner’s perjured testimony as a nullity, then proceeded to review the remaining evidence against Spaulding and conclude this evidence alone was sufficient to support the conviction of manslaughter.
Rather than weighing the evidence at trial under the fiction that the perjured testimony never came in, the trial court should have done the exact opposite. It should have looked closely at the perjured testimony and weighed the likely effect that testimony had on the jury. If there existed any possibility that the perjured testimony contributed to Spaulding’s conviction, then the trial court should have vacated the conviction and granted a new trial.
Garner was the only eye-witness to the actual stabbing, and, without reservation, he swore that Spaulding swung the knife at the victim and plunged it into his chest. In my mind, there is no doubt that Garner’s testimony sealed the Commonwealth’s case and helped ensure the conviction. To allow that conviction to stand, despite the knowledge that Garner’s testi*659mony was untruthful, seriously undermines the integrity of the judicial process. I would, therefore, affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for a new trial.
STEPHENS, J., joins.