Court Opinion

ID: 9762501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:25:36.345215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.062827
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting in part/concurring in part.
I would reverse this case because of the Boone error (Boone v. Commonwealth, Ky., 780 S.W.2d 615 (1989)), but I would permit a combined PFO/TIS sentencing hearing, and an enhanced sentence at the next trial. As I read the statutes, murder should be considered a Class A offense and not a capital offense, except in those instances where it is tried in fact as a capital offense.
As per my Concurring Opinion in Berry v. Commonwealth, Ky., 782 S.W.2d 625 (rendered 1/18/90), I disagree that PFO enhancement is not applicable to murder when tried as a Class A felony. Interpreting the statutes so as to deny enhancement as a PFO where murder is tried as a Class A felony is to distort the meaning of the statutes rather than to accommodate them. In my opinion we have reached an unreasonable and untenable result.