Court Opinion

ID: 9662855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:20:03.981706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:43.287579
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
Respectfully, I concur in results only.
First, there were jurors who should have been excused for cause, but were not.
Second, the evidence of a similar offense in Lincoln County may well have been admissible in rebuttal as bearing on the insanity defense, People v. Santarelli, 49 N.Y.2d 241, 425 N.Y.S.2d 77, 401 N.E.2d 199 (1980), but it should not have been admitted during the Commonwealth’s casein-chief, because at that stage the highly inflammatory nature of the evidence far outweighed any probative evidentiary value.
Third, a jury should be instructed on the difference between a guilty but mentally ill and not guilty by reason of insanity ver-diet, because otherwise the difference is obscure and the instructions may be misleading. Mitchell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 781 S.W.2d 510 (1990), Leibson, J., dissenting. Here the defense did not specifically object to the instruction given at trial, so the issue may fail as a matter of trial tactics.
I concur in results with the Majority Opinion because this was not a close case. These errors were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt when considered in context and in light of the overwhelming evidence of premeditated, multiple murder.