Court Opinion

ID: 9680434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:31:49.078266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:28.530618
License: Public Domain

VIRGINIA COLLINS BURBANK, Special Justice,
dissenting.
Since I reach a different conclusion, I must report my reason. The law is well-settled in Kentucky that evidence bearing on the character of the victim is admissible in limited circumstances, Lucas v. Commonwealth, 141 Ky. 281, 132 S.W. 416 (1910); Johnson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 477 S.W.2d 159 (1972). It is permitted in cases of self-defense to justify the action of the accused by proving the violent reputation known to the accused prior to the commission of the act for which he is charged. Lawson, Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook, Section 2.10(c); Lee v. Commonwealth, Ky., 329 S.W.2d 57 (1959); Wooten v. Commonwealth, Ky., 478 S.W.2d 701 (1972), Amos v. Commonwealth, Ky., 516 S.W.2d 836 (1974).
It appears to me, however, that there are numerous cases in which the victim may be the aggressor, but his violent character and reputation therefor may not be known to the accused. In such instances, the jury is entitled to all material facts from which it *81can draw logical conclusions. The language of an early Kentucky case, Duke v. Commonwealth, 191 Ky. 138, 229 S.W. 122 (1921), suggests to this writer that evidence of a prior criminal conviction of the victim would have been admitted to show who was the aggressor, but for the incompetent manner in which it was offered. Justice Hurt, speaking for a unanimous Court, stated:
“The ruling of the Court in excluding testimony offered by him of which the accused complains is that he offered to prove by the clerk of the court that prior to the killing of Wells (the victim) ... was indicted, convicted and committed to the penitentiary for the crime of accessory before the fact to the crime of shooting and wounding the accused... [T]he clerk had [no] personal knowledge of the shooting and wounding of the accused or the connection of the deceased with it, and the offered evidence was doubtless excluded, and properly so, upon the well-settled principle that the best evidence of a fact must be offered, and anything less than the best evidence within the power of a party to produce is not competent, and the only way to prove the existence and contents of records which are in existence is the production of same. The bill of exceptions then recites that the appellant offered as evidence an indictment accusing the deceased of counseling and advising and paying Elgin David to willfully and maliciously shoot and wound the accused, but upon objection the reading of the indictment as evidence was excluded by the court. The indictment is copied into the bill of exceptions and it shows that the deceased was indicted for such a crime, and the name of the accused, as well as the names of five or six other persons, were indorsed upon it as witnesses. The record which must necessarily have been made as to the disposition of the indictment was not offered, nor is it embraced in the bill of exceptions. Hence the one question before us is the admissibility of the indictment as evidence alone. It is very clear that an indictment, which is a mere accusation, would not be competent evidence to prove anything alleged in it or anything beyond its own existence.”
The rule of relevancy protects against misuse of such evidence and limits its use to prior convictions of crimes that are violent. Lawson, Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook, Section 200. Moreover, a proper admonition to the jury will reduce the hazard of prejudice resulting from its introduction.
I recognize that a prior criminal conviction represents a type of specific act or ats, but I do not find their exclusion under Kentucky cases binding or persuasive. Ray v. Commonwealth, 184 Ky., 800, 212 S.W. 908 (1919), Friley v. Commonwealth, Ky., 255 S.W.2d 483 (1953), and, Lee v. Commonwealth, Ky., 329 S.W.2d 57 (1959) all involved excluded testimony of a single or isolated act of violence. The opinions contain no rationale for their holdings. We are left to speculate if the basis of the exclusion is the singleness of the proffered proof, the risk of creating prejudice in the minds of the jury by a summary of the incident or some other basis. I would distinguish such cases, follow the federal rule, United States of America v. Burks, 470 F.2d 432 (D.C.Cir., 1972)1 to admit evidence of the victim’s prior conviction in cases in which the issue is to determine the aggressor and reverse the ruling of the Court of Appeals.

. The Burks case has been considered indirectly by the Supreme Court in United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342, in a case in which the prosecutor failed to divulge to the accused the victim’s prior criminal record. The Court, speaking through Justice Stevens, noted that in ruling upon the motion for a new trial, the trial judge evaluated the significance of the victim’s prior criminal record in the full context of the trial, remained convinced of the accused guilt and, thus, did not deprive the accused of due process of law.