Court Opinion

ID: 9778457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:05:32.465932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:09.384545
License: Public Domain

WINTERSHEIMER, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the affirmance by the majority of the conviction of both Dillingham and Hicks, as well as the sentence imposed on Dillingham. However, I must respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion that reverses the sentence imposed on Hicks because I believe there was sufficient evidence to fix the sentence and that the error described by the majority is not palpable error as contemplated by RCr 10.26.
I cannot agree that upon a review of the entire case, this Court should conclude that there is a substantial possibility that Hicks would not have received the maximum punishment in the absence of the NCIC report. Consideration of the entire case indicates that there is no substantial possibility that the result would have been any different if the irregularity is held to be nonprejudicial. Cf. Abernathy v. Commonwealth, Ky., 439 S.W.2d 949 (1969); RCr 9.24.
As I noted in my dissent to Robinson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 926 S.W.2d 853 (1996), it appears that this Court is not quite ready to fully trust the advances of the electronic age as demonstrated by the NCIC reports. Clearly, a prudent prosecutor must now exemplify such printouts pursuant to the decision in Robinson. This case was tried in 1998, two years after the Robinson decision. Although I may not agree with the result of Robinson, those practicing in the courts of the Commonwealth must give it proper deference.