Court Opinion

ID: 9669153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:41:02.307167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:53.027701
License: Public Domain

SPAIN, Justice,
dissenting.
With all due respect, I dissent from the decision of the Majority reversing the Court of Appeals and the Oldham Circuit Court and ordering the discharge of the appellant, Yost, from custody.
Numerous Kentucky cases are cited in support of the proposition that “... the state forfeits its jurisdiction when local authorities release a prisoner to another state without following proper administrative or statutory procedures.” The seminal case in this line of cases was Jones v. Rayborn, Ky., 346 S.W.2d 743 (1961). A close examination of that decision, however, reveals a situation quite unlike that involving the appellant, Yost.
As reflected in the Majority Opinion’s recitation of facts, before prisoner Rayborn was released to federal authorities for imprisonment outside Kentucky, our Attorney General’s office issued an opinion that the state sentence would run concurrently with the federal sentence during the time Rayborn was in a federal institution. Notwithstanding this advice, upon his parole by federal authorities in October 1959, our Attorney General’s office rendered an inconsistent opinion that Rayborn would now be required to serve an additional two years and two months in Kentucky, even though he would *856have been eligible for parole in November 1954 had he remained in Kentucky.
It was against this background of arbitrary and capricious conduct by the Kentucky authorities that the trial court and our Court ordered Rayborn discharged from custody. We specifically said:
By use of a detainer he (Rayborn) was restrained after he had served time which would have made him eligible for parole under Kentucky law.
Id. at 748.
In contrast, in the instant ease of prisoner Yost, he has not served even one additional day in custody by reason of his erroneous transfer by the Kentucky authorities temporarily to the State of Louisiana. K.R.S. 440.-451, Article V(6).
Moreover, the Rayborn case and virtually all of its progeny deal with extradition of fugitives from justice requiring action by governors of states, which action was usurped by lesser officials. The action involving Yost, however, did not deal with the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, K.R.S. 440.150-440.420, but rather with the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), K.R.S. 440.450-440.510. The latter act does not require action by the Governor; the warden of an institution can and must release a prisoner to the authorities of another state when required by the agreement on detainers. K.R.S. 440.500.
Here Yost was released by the institution in good faith reliance upon the IAD standard Form V Request for Temporary Custody which was apparently properly executed by the requisite Louisiana authorities (a District Attorney and a District Judge), and appeared regular and correct on its face. Unfortunately, and doubtless embarrassingly for the officials of both states, Louisiana had not become a signatory to the IAD. Upon discovery of this mistake by the Kentucky authorities, Louisiana was notified and returned Yost promptly, without even trying him in that jurisdiction.
If Rayborn and the later cases direct discharge of the prisoners involved therein as a constructive forfeiture, comparable to a sanction, then I would urge application of a sort of “good faith exception” here, much as we have done recently in Crayton v. Commonwealth, Ky., 846 S.W.2d 684 (1993), following United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), with regard to evidence seized as a result of a defective search warrant. There is simply no legitimate reason to reward prisoner Yost for an honest mistake under the IAD which has been of no real harm to him.
LAMBERT and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join this dissent.