Court Opinion

ID: 9652850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:33:47.59871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:54.608210
License: Public Domain

LUKOWSKY, Justice,
dissenting.
My noble and learned confreres have once again countenanced the impeachment of the exculpatory stories of defendants, told for the first time at trial, by direct evidence of and cross examination about their failure to tell these stories after receiving “Miranda” warnings at the time of arrest. They find the justification for this result in the harmless error rule enunciated in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) and applied in Niemeyer v. Commonwealth, Ky., 533 S.W.2d 218 (1976). I respectfully dissent.
Our opinion in “Niemeyer” was rendered on February 6, 1976. In unequivocal language, it holds that it is error to admit this type of evidence. In equally strong language, it points out that it is the duty of the Commonwealth Attorney to prosecute not persecute and cautions prosecutors against the use of such evidence. On the basis of overwhelming evidence and rationality of penalty, we found the error to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Since our decision in “Niemeyer” we have seen a parade of cases in which this error has reared its ugly head. Some of these cases have been reversed on other grounds. Others have been affirmed by application of the harmless error principle or because the error was not properly preserved for appellate review. Having seen the same error pass in review so many times, I am compelled to conclude that prosecutors are deliberately disregarding the teaching of “Niemeyer” in the hope of finding salvation in the harmless error doctrine. In other words, they are more interested in obtaining a conviction than in obtaining a conviction that will stick.
It may well be that we fathered this attitude when we failed to reverse “Niem-eyer”. We provided the tightrope of harmless error and perhaps that was enough to encourage zealots to walk it. However, one would have thought that their ardor would have been substantially dampened on June 17, 1976 when the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its opinion in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91, in which it was held that the use of post arrest silence in this manner violated due process.
This case did not go to trial until October 4, 1976. By that time the bench and bar should have gotten the message of “Niem-eyer” and “Doyle” and avoided this error like the plague. Apparently such is not the case.
It seems to me that to approach this problem on a case by case basis by hopefully precise but sometimes nebulous characterization of error as either harmless or prejudicial is but to encourage the commission of such error. The time has come for us to take a more prophylactic approach. We should exercise our supervisory authority over the lower courts of Kentucky and hold that whenever this error is committed it will result in reversal and a new trial. If that should prove to be insufficient to eliminate this form of gamesmanship we should assess the costs of appeal and the new trial against the Commonwealth Attorney.
For the reasons given, I would reverse the judgment of the Greenup Circuit Court and remand the case for a new trial.