Court Opinion

ID: 9611863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:00:54.282649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:16.911390
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent. I disagree with the majority opinion on both issues raised by Appellant. First, although join-der of offenses is within the sound discretion of the trial court, there are limits to that discretion. Sears v. Commonwealth, Ky., 561 S.W.2d 672, 674 (1978) (citing Rigsby v. Commonwealth, Ky., 495 S.W.2d 795 (1973) and Cargill v. Commonwealth, Ky., 528 S.W.2d 735 (1975)). Here, the offenses of robbery and escape were clearly not of same or similar character. Nor were the charged crimes based upon the same acts or transactions, or part of a common scheme or plan. The offenses were not closely related in time — the robbery occurred on October 30, 1997, whereas the escape occurred June 24, 1998. While it is true that evidence of the escape would have been admissible in the robbery trial as evidence of Appellant’s guilt, Napier v. Commonwealth, Ky., 306 Ky. 75, 79-80, 206 S.W.2d 53 (1947), the converse is not true — evidence of the robbery would not have been admissible in the escape trial. Rather, the jury would have heard simply that Appellant was incarcerated pending a trial on undisclosed charges.
Here, as in Sears v. Commonwealth, supra, the joinder of the escape charge *913with the armed robbery charge was clearly error. Sears, 561 S.W.2d at 674. Unlike in Sears, which held the error harmless due to the overwhelming evidence of guilt on all charges, the prejudice here was obvious and overwhelming. The majority concludes that no prejudice occurred here because Appellant was acquitted of the robbery and because the evidence of escape was uncontroverted. With this much, I agree. However, Appellant does not claim he was prejudiced in the guilt phase of the trial, but only in the penalty phase. The jury, which deliberated for five hours on the guilt phase issues, clearly struggled with its decision to acquit Appellant of the robbery charge. It is disingenuous to pretend the jury then turned a blind eye to the robbery acquittal during the penalty phase and sentenced Appellant to the maximum enhanced penalty of 20 years solely on the escape count, after learning that Appellant had two previous convictions for robbery and theft. The majority holds that Appellant’s contention of prejudice in the sentencing phase is mere speculation. I disagree and believe the prejudice to be obvious to anyone with common sense. Clearly the jury’s decision to sentence Appellant to an enhanced sentence of twenty years was not intended to punish him solely for the escape and his PFO status, but also for the robbery charge of which it has just acquitted him. As the prejudice resulting from the improper joinder of the robbery and escape charges is clear, I would reverse Appellant’s sentence for escape and remand for a new trial on the sentencing issue.
Secondly, I must object to the majority’s holding that the trial court’s failure to dismiss the PFO indictment was not error. The language of RCr 5.16 is clearly mandatory. The Commonwealth “shall” record the grand jury testimony. Failure to do so “shall” be ground for dismissal of the indictment “unless the Commonwealth can show good cause for the failure.” (Emphasis added). Here, the prosecuting attorney did not even attempt to explain the failure, and the trial court let the failure pass without question. This was clearly error.
Appellant’s maximum sentence would only have been five years had the PFO indictment been dismissed. The majority attempts to avoid this necessary result by distinguishing the language of RCr 5.16(2) from hypothetical language of its own invention. This approach is result-oriented, short-sighted, and a departure from the law as it is plainly written. No matter how unpalatable the proper resolution of a case may be, this Court is bound to enforce the mandatory language of our criminal rules. As Appellant was clearly prejudiced by the trial court’s failure to dismiss the PFO indictment upon Appellant’s timely request and clear recitation of the criminal rule precisely on point, I would prohibit retrial of the PFO charge upon remand for the new sentencing trial on the escape conviction.
■ LAMBERT, C.J., joins. KELLER, J., joins in part.