Court Opinion

ID: 9763393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:44:05.208974+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:17.515963
License: Public Domain

SPAIN, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent from so much of the Majority’s decision as reverses and remands each of these convictions for the offense of wanton murder. Under the peculiar circumstances of each of these cases, as well as those in Barbour v. Commonwealth, Ky., 824 S.W.2d 861 (1992), and Sizemore v. Commonwealth, Ky., 844 S.W.2d 397 (1992), (neither of which should be overruled), the trial court was completely justified in instructing the jury on the offense of wanton murder as well as on the offense of intentional murder. This is so because there was evidence in the record which would support a conviction under either hypothesis. Commonwealth v. Duke, Ky., 750 S.W.2d 432 (1988), and Carsons v. Commonwealth, 243 Ky. 1, 47 S.W.2d 997 (1931). Lester v. Commonwealth, Ky., 239 Ky. 703, 40 S.W.2d 306 (1931).
The Majority criticizes and overrules our very recent decisions in the Barbour and Sizemore cases, commenting that they did not sufficiently address the degree of culpability required for a finding of wanton murder. While it is true that the phrase, “circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life,” is not quoted in Sizemore, our opinion there correctly equates the conduct of the defendant to this degree of culpability in describing his actions toward his brother, whom he killed, as follows:
[H]e shot a pistol out of the hand of the victim and ... while the victim was trying to pick the pistol up with his other hand, he turned his head and fired several times in the direction of the victim.
Sizemore at p. 399.
In Barbour, on the other hand, the description of the degree of culpability required for wanton murder is repeated three times in the two paragraphs discussing the issue at page 864:
*530[F]rom this evidence the jury could have reasonably believed from appellant’s testimony that by sticking the victim, Palmer, he did not intend to kill him, but that his conduct disclosed a mental state of wantonness manifesting an extreme indifference to human life. It is also reasonable to infer from the act of sticking the victim in the chest that appellant intended to kill him, but it is just as reasonable to infer (as appellant testified) that he did not intend to cause the victim’s death. Such inference is factually supported by appellant’s testimony that when he withdrew the knife from his pocket, that he did so only to scare Palmer. We reason, based upon this record, that a juror could have reasonably found that appellant’s conduct was so wanton as to manifest an extreme indifference to human life. Nichols v. Commonwealth, Ky., 657 S.W.2d 932 (1983). The trial court did not err by instructing the jury on wanton murder_ Thus, under the instructions as given, and before a jury could convict appellant of wanton murder, it was necessary to find Barbour not only guilty of wanton murder, i.e. that he engaged in wanton conduct which caused the death of the victim under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life, but additionally that appellant was not privileged to act in self-protection. (Emphasis added.)
I would also observe that the opinion of the Majority, in its scholarly dissertation of all the precise niceties of theoretical criminal law, engages in a high degree of “Monday morning quarterbacking.” It is one thing for us “ivory tower” appellate judges to apply twenty-twenty hindsight to what a trial judge should or should not have instructed upon, and quite another to anticipate what a panel of judicial experts will find erroneous this season. Furthermore, the Majority, I fear, has temporarily lost sight of the exclusive fact-finding function of the jury in these criminal cases. It is they, not we, who have the final word as to whether particular wanton acts do or do not reach the degree described by the scholars as “circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.” I, too, would quote from the comments to the Model Penal Code, upon which so much of the rationale of the Majority depends:
[Tjhere is a kind of [wanton] homicide that cannot fairly be distinguished ... from homicides committed [intentionally]. [Wantonness] ... presupposes an awareness of the creation of substantial homicidal risk, a risk too great to be deemed justifiable by any valid purpose that the actor’s conduct serves. Since risk, however, is a matter of degree and the motives for risk creation may be infinite in variation, some formula is needed to identify the case where [wantonness] should be assimilated to [intention]. The conception that the draft employs is that of extreme indifference to the value of human life. The significance of [intention] is that, cases of provocation apart, it demonstrates precisely such indifference. Whether [wantonness] is so extreme that it demonstrates similar indifference is not a question that, in our view, can be further clarified; it must be left directly to the trier of the facts. If [wantonness] exists but is not so extreme, the homicide is manslaughter.... Model Penal Code, § 201.2, Comment 2 (Tent.Draft No. 9, 1959). (Emphasis added.)
In view of the above, I would not disturb the jury’s verdicts in these cases, nor would I fault the trial judges for including instructions on wanton as well as intentional murder in these cases. While I do appreciate the Majority’s valiant effort to unscramble the eggs served in Shannon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 767 S.W.2d 548 (1988), it appears to me that, alas, we will continue to meander and float “where the River Shannon flows.”
REYNOLDS and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur in this dissenting opinion.