Court Opinion

ID: 9643149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:20:51.179109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:57.873319
License: Public Domain

SPAIN, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in so much of the opinion of the Majority as affirms the convictions of the appellant for two counts of first-degree robbery, along with the pre-enhanced punishments fixed thereon of two consecutive twenty-year terms of imprisonment, and further, in so much of the Opinion as reverses the first-degree persistent felony offender conviction and enhanced punishment of life imprisonment. I must respectfully dissent, however, from that part of the decision which directs the trial court to dismiss the PFO charge on remand.
The Majority cites Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), and Hobbs v. Commonwealth, Ky., 655 S.W.2d 472 (1983), in support of its action. I believe this interpretation of both cases is too broad in the situation at hand.
In Hobbs, as in the case sub judice, we were concerned with incompetent evidence erroneously admitted by the trial court at the instance of the Commonwealth, rather than with an insufficiency of evidence to sustain a conviction. We observed in Hobbs at pp. 473 and 474:
When a conviction is reversed on appeal because the evidence at trial was not sufficient to sustain a verdict of guilt, the United States Supreme Court has held that the case cannot be remanded for retrial but must be dismissed. Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). Kentucky has followed this holding in Crawley v. Commonwealth, Ky., 568 S.W.2d 927 (1978).
Hobbs contends that charges against him must be dismissed rather than remanded because there would have been no sufficient evidence to sustain his conviction if the trial judge had sustained his objection and refused to admit the incompetent evidence to establish the dates of the commission of the offenses, citing Burks and Crawley.
Burks and Crawley were each decided upon the basis that the evidence admitted at the trial, without regard to whether it was erroneously admitted, was not sufficient to sustain a conviction. Here, the testimony admitted in evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction. We are not disposed to hold that an error by a trial court in the admission of testimony in evidence precludes a retrial when an appellate reversal is procured by a defendant on that ground. In such a case, the defendant is entitled only to an-opportunity to obtain a fair readjudication of his guilt free from error.
Burks v. United States, supra, relied upon by Hobbs, makes this very point in the following language:
As we have seen in Part II, supra, the cases which have arisen since [U.S. u] Ball [163 U.S. 662, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300] (1896) generally do not dis*492tinguish between reversals due to trial error and those resulting from evidentia-ry insufficiency. We believe, however, that the failure to make this distinction has contributed substantially to the present state of conceptual confusion existing in this area of the law. Consequently, it is important to consider carefully the respective roles of these two types of reversals in double jeopardy analysis.
Various rationales have been advanced to support the policy of allowing retrial to correct trial error, but in our view the most reasonable justification is that advanced by [U.S. v.] Toteo, supra, [877 U.S. 463] at 466 [84 S.Ct. 1587 at 1589, 12 L.Ed.2d 448] (1964):
“It would be a high price indeed for society to pay were every accused granted immunity from punishment because of any defect sufficient to constitute reversible error in the proceedings leading to conviction.”
See [U.S. v.] Wilson, supra, [420 U.S. 332] at 343-344, n. 11 [95 S.Ct. 1013 at 1021-1022, n. 11, 43 L.Ed.2d 232] (1975); Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 688-689 [69 S.Ct. 834, 836-837, 93 L.Ed. 974] (1949). In short, reversal for trial error, as distinguished from evidentiary insufficiency, does not constitute a decision to the effect that the government has failed to prove its ease. As such, it implies nothing with respect to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Rather, it is a determination that a defendant has been convicted through a judicial process which is defective in some fundamental respect e.g., incorrect receipt or rejection of evidence, incorrect instructions, or prosecutorial misconduct. When this occurs, the accused has a strong interest in obtaining a fair readjudication of his guilt free from error, just as society maintains a valid concern for insuring that the guilty are punished. (Emphasis ours.)
In Crawley, supra, we also remanded for a new PFO hearing and added the following comment:
The judgment is reversed with respect to Crawley’s persistent felony conviction. The judgment is affirmed as to his conviction on the charge of first-degree robbery. This cause is remanded with directions that Crawley be granted a new trial on the persistent felony conviction. In the event the Commonwealth is unable to prove Crawley was 18 years of age at the time he committed the offense of storehouse breaking, this court directs that he be resen-tenced on the conviction of the principal offense of first-degree robbery.
I am persuaded that the identical action should be followed here with regard to the PFO conviction of Davis, and that the alternate sentencing proceedings would also be appropriate here in the event the Commonwealth were unable at retrial to prove any element of the PFO charge.
WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins.