Court Opinion

ID: 9773171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:38:55.221043+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:50.535147
License: Public Domain

*164LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
The heart of the Majority Opinion is its conclusion that “[t]he language of KRS 31.200(3) is clear and unambiguous.” Considered in context, such is not the case.
This is but one subsection of the statutory scheme originally intended to provide for the “defense of indigent persons,” H.B. 461, Ch. 353, Sec. 1,1972, and subsequently expanded to include also “representation of indigent persons accused of ... mental states which may result in their incarceration or confinement.” S.B. 266, Ch. 177, Sec. 1, 1976; now codified as KRS 31.-010(1). In expanding Ch. 31 to cover representation in involuntary commitment of the mentally ill as well as defense of criminal cases, the General Assembly dropped the phrase in KRS 31.200(3) which leads to the decision of the Majority of our Court. The phrase in KRS 31.200(3) which was deleted, “who are charged with a serious offense committed at such institution,” would have created confusion when public defender service was expanded to include representing the mentally ill.
Our Majority decision transfers the bur- ■ den of paying the expense for trial expert evaluation and testimony from the counties which have elected to support the public defender system, where the responsibility is located under the statutory scheme, to the office of public defender. This approach disregards the language in subsection (1) KRS 31.200, which was not changed, specifying that “any direct expense, ... necessarily incurred in representing a needy person under this chapter, is a charge against the county on behalf of which the service is performed.” Worse yet, it sets the stage for an unconscionable result: counties can avoid their statutory responsibility to pay the “direct expense” (KRS 31.200(1)) incurred in felony prosecutions in their county by the simple expediency of delaying prosecution where the defendant is charged with another serious felony offense in a different county. It rewards the county who waits to prosecute until after conviction and sentencing elsewhere.
The statutory scheme established in KRS Chapter 31, in setting up “a state-wide public defender system” (H.B. 461, Ch. 353, 1972, supra), envisions the participation by election of the fiscal courts of the various counties. KRS 31.160, et seq. Where, as here, the county elects to participate, KRS 31.200(1) places the burden of a “direct expense” such as presently involved squarely on the county. The purpose of subsection (3) was not to divest the county of that burden except in those cases involving indigents “charged with a serious offense committed at [‘a state correctional’] institution.” The reason for this has not changed. Counties such as Oldham and Lyon should not be expected to bear the burden of the large expenses from crimes committed by prisoners brought from all over to be lodged within the correctional institutions located within these counties. It is one thing to say counties should not be expected to bear the burden of these kind of expenses, and quite another to say that counties should not be expected to bear the burden of paying expenses necessarily incurred in trial of crimes committed on the citizens of the county, crimes in which the county has a direct interest. This “is a charge against the county on behalf of which the service is performed.” KRS 31.-200(1), supra. The 1976 Act of the General Assembly does not shift the burden to pay these direct expenses to the state public defender’s when, fortuitously, the indigent defendant has been locked up in a state institution between the time the crime was committed and the accused is brought to trial. The Act of the General Assembly is not arbitrary and unreasonable, and our Opinion should not interpret it in a way that makes it so.
The Majority Opinion rests entirely on the “plain meaning” principle of statutory construction which controls where the words of the statute are “clear and unambiguous.” This presupposes that such is the case. It is our duty to decide what the legislature has done, and the “plain meaning” rule is but a guideline in trying to do so. Indeed, properly stated, the rule is:
*165“We have a duty to accord the words of a statute their literal meaning unless to do so would lead to an absurd or wholly unreasonable conclusion.” Bailey v. Reeves, Ky., 662 S.W.2d 832 (1984).
Reason and common sense should not be strangers in the house of the law. In the present case, when we view the statutory structure in its entirety, reason and common sense compel the conclusion that the General Assembly did not intend to tear a hole in the fabric of the statute by the 1976 Amendment to KRS 31.200(3). It only intended to accommodate the purpose of the amending act, which was to expand public defender coverage to involuntary commitment. To accommodate this change necessitated dropping the phrase presently involved. As we stated in Bd. of Educ. v. Logan Aluminum Inc., Ky., 764 S.W.2d 75 (1989), when confronted with a similar problem in statutory interpretation:
“Our mandate does not demand tunnel vision but reasoned analysis of the statutory scheme. Id. at 78.
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We must assume that the legislature intended to create a workable procedure and construe the statutes involved to provide one rather than acceding to a hyper-technical, literal interpretation that would lead to a wholly unreasonable conclusion.” Id. at 80.
The Court of Appeals’ Opinion which we now reverse states:
“However, ambiguity in a statute may develop when literal application of the plain wording of the statute would lead to an absurd or unreasonable result or the statute conflicts with other statutory provisions in pari materia. See Fidelity & Columbia Trust Co. v. Meek, 294 Ky. 122, 171 S.W.2d 41 (1943). Furthermore, regardless of the actual language used we must ‘give effect to the intention of the lawmakers.’ ” See Green v. Moore, 281 Ky. 305, 135 S.W.2d 682, 683 (1939).
Applying these principles, the Court of Appeals decided “the 1976 change in the language of KRS 31.200(3) was not intended to make the Department of Public Advocacy responsible for bearing the expenses of the defense of a crime allegedly committed by a defendant confined in a state correctional institution when the commission of the crime took place outside the correctional institution itself.” This decision was correct, and should be affirmed.
GANT, J., joins this dissent.