Court Opinion

ID: 9783920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:22:21.070257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:41.630486
License: Public Domain

CUNNINGHAM, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in most all of the majority opinion. However, I take strong exception to this Court’s affirming the conviction and sentence on Count One to the 1974 crime. I recognize that, in this case, it will not substantially affect the ultimate sentence. However, I firmly believe that the serious flaw in the Court’s reasoning will bode ill in future cases.
Actually, the majority’s handling of this narrow issue strikes me as being unusual and bordering on the bizarre. We hold today that a trial judge can change one criminal charge to another after a person has been tried on the first charge.
This is not a matter of palpable error as addressed by the majority. Nor is the error “technical” unless we consider the whole subject of jurisdiction as being technical. The trial court never acquired jurisdiction over the offense for which Appellant was sentenced. And all agree that the court did not have jurisdiction of the 1974 act under the sodomy in the first degree statute. That statute was not enacted until 1975.
To recap succinctly, Appellant was charged with and convicted of sodomy in the first degree for a 1974 crime. Yet, there was no sodomy in the first degree crime in 1974. The prosecutor knew of this problem before the case was tried, but inexplicably charged on. After conviction and before sentencing, the prosecutor and judge went to work looking for a crime that existed in 1974 which seemed to fit the facts of the case. They found it in the old KRS 435.105 — “indecent or immoral practices with another.” Pull the first-degree sodomy offense on which the jury *626had already voted and slip in “indecent or immoral practices with another.” So, Appellant was convicted of sodomy in the first degree under KRS 510.070 and sentenced under KRS 435.105 for another crime.
That, to me, is slightly bizarre.
As it stands, this case holds that the circuit court can take jurisdiction of any felony at any time it pleases — as long as the facts developed in the case fit the crime.
The majority spends almost eight pages in its opinion attempting to show that the old crime is, in essence, the same as the new sodomy in the first degree felony. That exhaustive analysis seems irrelevant to me since we are talking about jurisdiction. With that said, no history lesson on the two crimes is needed. They are distinguishable on their face. Under the old law, KRS 435.105, this crime cannot be committed by a juvenile less than seventeen years of age. And the victim must be under fifteen years of age. Pursuant to KRS 510.070, under which Appellant was convicted, a person of any age can commit the crime and the victim has to be under the age of twelve. Certainly, they are “different offenses” as intended by RCr 6.16.
“The court may permit an indictment, information, complaint or citation to be amended at any time before verdict or finding if no additional or different offense is charged....” RCr 6.16. (Emphasis added). Clearly, different offense was charged in this case for sentencing.
The issue is addressed in Crouch v. Commonwealth, 323 S.W.3d 668 (Ky.2010). There, the defendant was charged with theft of identity, but he asked that the indictment be amended, charging him with the offense of giving a false name to a peace officer. This Court affirmed the Court of Appeals holding that the trial court could not amend the indictment because it would result in the defendant being charged with an entirely different offense. The Court said:
[A] trial court lacks jurisdiction to change a valid indictment except as provided by Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure (RCr) 6.16. RCr 6.16 provides in pertinent part that a court “may permit an indictment, information, complaint or citation to be amended any time before verdict or finding if no additional or different offense is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced.” (Emphasis in original).
Id. at 672.
Clearly, changing the charge against Crouch from the felony offense of theft of identity to the misdemeanor charge of giving a false name to a peace officer would have resulted in Crouch being charged with an entirely different offense. So the trial court properly denied Crouch’s request to modify the indictment.
In Coleman v. Commonwealth, 501 S.W.2d 583, 584 (Ky.1973), the defendant was indicted for murder, convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and sentenced to twenty-one years. He made a motion to amend the indictment from murder to homicide occurring in the course of striking, stabbing or shooting. In response to the motion, the Court said: “A trial court has no authority to amend an indictment to charge an additional or different offense, RCr 6.16. This has been the rule in this Commonwealth for a great number of years, see Commonwealth v. Adams, 92 Ky. 134, 17 S.W. 276 (1891).”
There are only two ways that a circuit court in Kentucky acquires jurisdiction of felony cases — through grand jury indictment or by information. Neither method was used in this case for the crime in question.
*627RCr 6.02(1) states: “All offenses required to be prosecuted by indictment pursuant to Section 12 of the Kentucky Constitution shall be prosecuted by indictment unless the defendant waives indictment by notice in writing to the circuit court, in which event the offense may be prosecuted forthwith by information.” Appellant was never indicted under KRS 435.105, nor waived “indictment by notice in writing to the circuit court” before his conviction.
Justice Graves speaks to this issue in the important case of Malone v. Commonwealth, 30 S.W.3d 180, 183 (Ky.2000):
A criminal prosecution requires the existence of an accusation charging the commission of an offense. Such an accusation either in the form of an indictment or an information, is an essential requisite of jurisdiction. In Kentucky, subject matter jurisdiction over a felony offense may be invoked either by a grand jury indictment or by information in cases where the individual consents. (Emphasis added).
In Malone, our Court simply upheld the proposition that a defendant may waive a grand jury indictment and be charged by information. It simply follows RCr 6.02. Either an indictment or information is required. There is no other way.
The Malone case makes clear that there is a peculiar twist in regard to the prosecution of felonies. It is a subject matter jurisdictional question. But it is one instance where jurisdiction can be waived. Waiver does not come into play here for two reasons. The charge was not changed before the prosecution and conviction, but afterwards — way too late for any waiver. Secondly, any acquiescence to be sentenced under a different statute was never given in writing as required by RCr 6.02.
In this case, the prosecution would not have been able to amend the indictment, even before trial, since it charged a separate offense and not a lesser included. The proper procedure would have been to re-indict Appellant or charge him on this count by information if he consented— which would have been likely since it was one of several charges for which he stood trial.
Today, this Court, by judicial fiat, has created a third way for the circuit court to gain jurisdiction over criminal cases — indictment, information, and agreement. In doing so, we have totally eviscerated RCr 6.02(1) — the rule for proceeding by information. That rule now becomes no more necessary than the human appendix. We have also held that an indictment can be amended, even if it charges a different crime — a practice proscribed by RCr 6.16.
The importance of this error gets lost in this case because of numerous charges and sentences. However, I respectfully submit that it will loom large somewhere down the road. I, therefore, dissent only in regard to Count One and concur in what is otherwise a very fine opinion.
SCOTT, J., joins.