Court Opinion

ID: 9690440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:13:21.496067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:57.138300
License: Public Domain

NOBLE, Justice,
concurring in part, concurring in result in part, and dissenting-in part:
I cannot entirely agree with either Justice Abramson or Justice Scott, but I do concur with the majority on all but two issues.
In my view, the immunity provision of KRS 503.085 is not procedural. In fact, the statute grants a new status, under certain circumstances, that did not exist before its enactment. This can only be a substantive change in the law. As such, this provision can have no retrospective application. While I otherwise agree with Justice Abramson’s excellent discussion on how the immunity issue is to be determined, I do not believe it is appropriate to reach that issue in this case. However, she concludes that in fact the trial court conducted an adequate immunity hearing, and consequently the majority holding has no effect on the judgment in this case. Therefore, I concur in result.
On the other hand, the concept of “no duty to retreat” is not a substantive change in the law. Our case law has long recognized that “a Kentuckian never runs. He does not have to.” Gibson v. Commonwealth, 237 Ky. 33, 34 S.W.2d 936 (1931). This Court, in Hilbert v. Commomvealth, 162 S.W.3d 921 (Ky.2005), discussed .at length that “no duty to retreat” is a part of the law in Kentucky, but concluded that it was not necessary to include this language in an instruction on self defense. While clearly a part of the law, that notion had never been made a specific element of a statute until the 2006 amendments to the statutes. The majority states that whether this language must now be included in an instruction is not a question before the Court, but does say that the added language is a substantive change in the law. Given the reasoning applied to the immunity provision by the majority, it naturally follows that under that view it must be included prospectively.
The inclusion of the “no duty to retreat” concept in the 2006 amendments does nothing more than to state what the law has always been, and thus can only be procedural, from the standpoint of whether this language should be included in the instruction. Since I believe it should always have been included, and that this Court missed a good opportunity to correct that omission in Hilbert, I would reverse to require the inclusion of “no duty to retreat” in the self-defense instruction.