Court Opinion

ID: 9747925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:43:40.312364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:28.913860
License: Public Domain

CUNNINGHAM, J.,
concurring, in part, and dissenting, in part.
I join Justice Scott’s opinion concurring, in part, and dissenting, in part; however, I wish to write further concerning the sentencing phase instructions.
In September of 1991, Appellant had already been convicted of murdering two people when he escaped from an Oklahoma jail with another inmate. Appellant and his partner then kidnapped Timothy Keeling, stole his truck, and executed the man in cold blood in a New Mexico desert. They made their way to Kentucky, where they kidnapped Frances Brady, took his vehicle, and set it afire. They then executed Brady in a secluded area of Bullitt County. When stopped for a routine traffic check in Hardin County by Trooper Herbert Bennett, Appellant fired shots into Bennett’s police cruiser. Both fugitives tried to flee, but Appellant was apprehended. Appellant was subsequently convicted of the murder of Frances Brady and sentenced to death. This case has been before us several times.
KRS 532.025(2)(a)(l) states as an aggravating circumstance that “[t]he offense of murder or kidnapping was committed by a person with a prior record of conviction for capital offense....” The majority correctly points out that the instruction given in this case was in error, in that it reads that the person only has to have a prior record of conviction for capital offense at the time of trial, as opposed to the time of the offense. However, it was obviously a harmless miscue, since the record is clear that Appellant did have, in fact, a conviction for a capital offense at the time he committed the offense in question. To be honest, Appellant has killed so many people and been convicted so many times for murder, it is difficult to sift through the record before me and ascertain exactly when all the murders were committed and the dates of all the convictions. He was also convicted in Oklahoma in 1994 — after the Brady killing — for the murders of Mary Louise Smith and Edward Jefferson Large.
The remaining portion of KRS 532.025(2)(a)(l) reads: “or the offense of murder was committed by a person who has a substantial history of serious as-saultive criminal convictions.” (Emphasis added.) Obviously, and as Justice Scott points out, all of the prior murders committed by Appellant before the trial were admissible. At least two of the capital offenses committed prior to the murder of Brady had evolved into convictions at the time of the Brady trial.
*325The erroneous wording of the instructions would loom large if Appellant had no capital convictions prior to the murder of Brady. But that is not the case. Appellant is a serial murderer, guilty of the coldblooded killing of — according to my count — at least six innocent people. He is not entitled to a perfect trial. No American is. He is only entitled to a fair one, and he has had several. This is his fourth or fifth trip to this state’s highest court. It makes one tired to consider the amount of litigation he has likely engendered within the borders of the other states he has terrorized. He has received his ample allotment of due process. I would affirm the conviction. Scott, J., joins.