Court Opinion

ID: 9641976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:44:43.794183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:41.357155
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, J., dissents by separate opinion, with LAMBERT, C.J., joining that dissent.
STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent. I must conclude the retrial of this defendant is barred by the principles of double jeopardy. The majority has correctly noted that the importance of the information withheld from Appellant was such that the earlier conviction could not stand. What it did not emphasize is that the exculpatory information was known to the Commonwealth at the time of trial when Dr. Nichols took the stand, but was only disclosed to the defense after trial by way of a conversation the doctor had with a Public Advocate who was, it seems from the record, not associated with the case at the time of trial.
As the majority notes, retrial is not always barred by prosecutorial misconduct. “A party seeking to prevent his retrial upon double jeopardy grounds must show that the conduct giving rise to the order of mistrial was precipitated by bad faith, overreaching or some other fundamentally unfair action of the prosecutor or the court.”1 Tinsley v. Jackson, Ky., 771 S.W.2d 331, 332 (1989).
As noted in Appellant’s reply brief, neither the Commonwealth Attorney nor the Attorney General has ever suggested the failure to disclose this important opinion of the medical examiner was anything other than deliberate or intentional. Instead, the state merely contended there was no failure to disclose, an assertion that has been disposed of by the findings of the circuit court. Appellant argues the delay resulting from the Commonwealth’s subterfuge has permitted the prosecution to conduct further investigation that has now produced a sort of recantation of Dr. Nichols’ testimony, thus throwing doubt on the original exculpatory opinion he expressed privately to the Commonwealth’s Attorney during the first trial and officially to the court during the motion for new trial. Appellant insists this investigation constitutes *473prosecutorial overreaching of the sort condemned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Enoch, 650 F.2d 115, 117 (1981). Therein the Court stated:
[W]hen a criminal defendant’s successful request for mistrial is precipitated by “prosecutorial or judicial overreaching,” a subsequent trial on the same charges is barred by the double jeopardy clause. “Prosecutorial overreaching” is misconduct intended to “undermine the integrity of the first proceeding,” thereby prejudicing the defendant. It is not necessary that the prosecutor’s misconduct have the specific purpose of provoking a defendant’s request for mistrial. In instances of “prosecutorial overreaching,” the defendant’s interests in a single, fair adjudication outweighs the public’s interest in conducting a second trial.

Id.

Stated differently, the Commonwealth first concealed information vital to the defense, then denied it had done so. Having been found to have concealed the information, the Commonwealth used the delay caused by the proceedings that established the concealment to attempt to negate the testimony it concealed in the first place. Appellant calls this overreaching, and I must agree. I would prohibit retrial of the Appellant herein as a violation of the proscription against double jeopardy.
LAMBERT, C.J., joins this dissent.

. While the instant case does not involve the grant of a mistrial, the legal principles are the same.