Court Opinion

ID: 9619543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:29:36.152186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:42.062429
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
Chief Justice LAMBERT.
Respectfully, I must disagree with the majority’s analysis of the spousal testimonial privilege. The majority today holds that the privilege must be “invoked” before its protections are available. While this is so after the spouse is called as a witness, here the spouse was never called and a need to invoke the privilege never arose. Despite this, the Commonwealth was permitted to comment, over objection, upon the failure of the Defendant’s spouse to testify. Under a strict reading of the majority opinion, a party wishing to prevent the testimony or comment thereon of any potential witnesses on privilege grounds must invoke all available privileges at the outset or be held to have committed waiver.
The spousal privilege grants a defendant the right to prevent his or her spouse from testifying in a criminal case. However, in the instant case, the prosecution did not call the spouse to testify. Thus, it is perplexing that the majority has placed upon the Defendant the burden of invoking a privilege to prevent testimony where there was never any attempt to procure or offer such testimony.
After posing the question of whether the spousal privilege is only a potential privilege that must be invoked to be cognizable, or whether it is a privilege conferred and automatically in effect unless it is waived, the majority states that our decisions approaching the issue are inconsistent. I disagree. Sexton v. Commonwealth1 and Gossett v. Com.2 are directly on point, and both held that the failure of a defendant’s spouse to testify could not be the subject of unfavorable comment by the prosecution, precisely what occurred here. Sexton and Gossett are the only cases cited wherein the spouse’s testimony was never sought, but the failure to testify subjected to unfavorable comment. Both cases were reversed. As in the instant case, the Court held that there was no need for the defendant to invoke the privilege to prevent the introduction of testimony and the unfavorable comment on failure of the witness spouse to testify. The cases relied on by the majority to create a conflict with Sexton and Gossett are simply inapplicable due to factual dissimilarity. In those cases, the spouses testified or at least attempted to testify against the defendant spouses.
In other circumstances, where the prosecution calls the defendant’s spouse to testify, the defendant should be required to object on grounds of the spousal privilege. *637At that point, a hearing could be held to determine whether the privilege applied and a ruling rendered based on the evidence produced at the hearing. However, the need to object or “invoke” the spousal privilege would not arise until and unless the prosecution sought the testimony the privilege was designed to prevent.
Thus, I believe that Sexton and Gossett govern this case and I have found no other cases that abrogate or conflict with them.
McANULTY, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. 304 Ky. 172, 200 S.W.2d 290 (1947).

. 402 S.W.2d 857 (Ky.1966).