Court Opinion

ID: 9769539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:53:36.070009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:38:23.127921
License: Public Domain

PALMORE, Justice,
dissenting.
In construing ERS 509.050, the exemption statute, the majority opinion emphasizes that portion of the Commentary in which it is said that “a prosecutor could misuse the kidnapping statute to secure greater punitive sanctions for rape, robbery and other offenses than are otherwise available” and draws from it the conclusion that the purpose of the statute is “to act as a restraint on abusive prosecution by Kentucky authorities in charging kidnapping or degrees of unlawful imprisonment in addition to charges of rape, robbery, etc., all of which occur in Kentucky.”
After mentioning the possibility of abuse, the Commentary goes on to explain how the Model Penal Code and certain other criminal codes (including the New York statute, which requires a detention of 12 hours) are directed toward that particular problem. Then it says in so many words that there is a different basis for the Kentucky statute, as follows:
“The approach reflected by KRS 509.050 is unlike all of the above. The provision seeks to express a policy against the use of kidnapping to impose sanctions upon conduct which involves a movement or confinement (of another person) that has no criminological significance to the evil toward which kidnapping is directed. It then provides a flexible standard by which courts are to enforce that policy. Before criminal behavior that is directed toward the completion of robbery, rape, or some other offense can constitute kidnapping, there must be an interference with liberty in excess of that which ordinarily accompanies that offense.” (Emphasis added.)
The foregoing excerpt merely re-emphasizes what is said in the concluding portion of Commentary appearing at the beginning of KRS Chapter 509:
“More specifically, kidnapping convictions are precluded for confinements which are directed toward the commission of robbery, rape or other crimes of violence and which do not exceed in length and character the type of confinement which ordinarily accompany such offenses.” (Emphasis added.)
The point made by the Commentary (written by the drafter of the statute) is that physical detentions that are merely incidental to the commission of such crimes as rape and robbery are not the evil toward which kidnapping laws are directed. Presumably the laws against those particular crimes provide sufficient protection against them without the aid of kidnapping statutes.
In this case the detention existed for “about an hour, maybe a little more.” Had the rape and robbery taken place on the other side of town, in Kentucky instead of Indiana, the assault and unlawful imprisonment offenses leading up to and culminating in the rape and robbery would have merged in them. Certainly the appellant could not have been convicted of both rape and kidnapping. That the crimes culminated in Indiana should not make any difference. Indiana has laws against rape and robbery and has courts and prosecutors capable of enforcing them. It is my opinion that the defendants in this case should have been turned over to the Indiana authorities for prosecution there. Instead, I am afraid that KRS 509.050 has been misunderstood and subverted, and as a result we may witness a good many of the very abuses that the majority opinion indicates it was intended to prevent.
Another respect in which I come to a parting of ways with the majority opinion is in its treatment of the possible effect of a portion of the trial judge’s remarks to the jury panel at the beginning of. the term of court during which the appellant was tried. From my own personal acquaintance with the able and distinguished trial judge I am satisfied that if he had realized the similarities between the facts of this case and the example mentioned by him to the jury pan*505el, and that this case would be tried by 12 of the same jurors to whom he was speaking, he would have used a different example to illustrate his point. Nevertheless, here it is:
“I instruct you do not compromise your verdict, and here’s what I mean by that. Suppose you’re a member of a twelve-man jury and you go back there and you have some doubt about this man’s guilt; but just to get along with the remaining eleven, you say, “Okay. I’ll go along with the verdict of guilty, but I’m going to give the absolute minimum sentence.” That’s no way. That’s a compromised verdict. Once you agree a verdict of guilty is your verdict, you set an appropriate punishment. An aggravated offense certainly warrants more punishment than one that is not aggravated. In the words of Gilbert and Sullivan, “Let the punishment fit the crime.” I’ll give you a little example, and I don’t want to mention names. It would be embarrassing. A few months ago here we had a young man with a family — an attractive young man with a family charged with an offense — a sexual offense against an elderly lady. A bizarre type thing which nobody could believe that it could happen. Why? Why would that happen? He took her across the river. The serious offense took place in southern Indiana. We couldn’t prosecute him for the most serious offense. All they could prosecute for was for detaining a woman against her will, which carried a punishment from two to seven years in the penitentiary. Now that jury of mostly young women went back there and they went in there and thought — I know in their minds they thought this is unbelievable. It’s incredible and bizarre. I don’t understand how a young man would do this with a seventy-two year old lady. So there’s something awry here. The, evidence was overwhelming I’ll admit that, but I’m not going to give anything but the minimum sentence. Well, they did that — two years, and they might as well have hung a medal on him. Now that’s about the most poignant example that I can think of in my two years on the bench of a compromised verdict, and I don’t want you to do that. If your punishment should be too great under the law, I can reduce it. If it’s too little, I could never increase it. I’m not saying go back there and give the maximum sentence in every case. Don’t give the minimum sentence in every case. Give a sentence that fits the crime once you vote for a verdict of guilty.”
In a motion for new trial filed some six weeks after the trial, counsel for the appellant stated “that after due diligence and subsequent to the trial of this matter and the filing of a Motion and Grounds for New Trial . . . and the Court’s Order overruling said motion . . counsel became aware” of the court’s charge to the jury panel containing the passage quoted above. From this it is to be assumed that counsel was not present when the prospective jurors were addressed and had no reason to know what had been said in time to bring it up before the trial.
Appellant’s contention that the foregoing charge to the jurors conduced to deny him a fair trial is sloughed off by the comment that it “could be argued more appropriately in a close case. Here Calloway’s argument goes to the law of the case, not the facts.” Such an answer begs the question. It misses the point that the jury had a choice with respect to the penalty, ranging from 10 to 20 years. This was the precise aspect of the jury’s function toward which the trial judge’s remarks had been directed. Presumably the jurors accepted the guidance offered by those remarks. They chose the maximum sentence of 20 years. That the appellant’s main argument goes to the law of the case rather than the facts is simply irrelevant to the possible influence of the trial court’s remarks upon the jury’s choice of a penalty. I think he has a substantial due process claim.