Court Opinion

ID: 9759158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:07:40.258813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:59.875011
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
At the persistent felony offender (PFO) phase of the first trial the Commonwealth proved the elements of the prior Hardin County conviction by testimony from a probation officer from Pulaski County. This probation officer was permitted to testify from information furnished to her in a telephone conversation with a parole officer from Hardin County. Because the Commonwealth knew this testimony was improper, the Commonwealth agreed that the PFO conviction should be set aside and a new trial granted. Then at the retrial of the PFO charge, the Commonwealth was prepared with competent evidence to convict.
The issue is whether the retrial was double jeopardy because the first conviction was obtained by insufficient evidence, as in Hon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 670 S.W.2d 851 (1984), or whether the hearsay testimony, though incompetent, should be classified as “trial error,” so that a retrial at which competent evidence was utilized was appropriate, as in Hobbs v. Commonwealth, Ky., 655 S.W.2d 472 (1983).
The proof is overwhelming that the Commonwealth knew that it was unprepared to *290prove the PFO conviction by competent evidence at the first trial, and therefore had the Pulaski County probation officer make a telephone call back to Hardin County to obtain information about the previous conviction, and presented this obviously incompetent evidence as a “stop gap” measure:
1) The Commonwealth started the PFO trial with neither the judgment of conviction from Hardin County nor a subpoena for any witness from Hardin County.
2) Upon conviction of the defendant for receiving stolen property, the Commonwealth moved for a continuance of the PFO phase, implicitly (if not expressly) admitting it was unprepared to prove the PFO phase at that time.
3) The Commonwealth joined in the defendant’s post-trial motion for a new trial, conceding error.
We should not condone the substance of a conviction when the Commonwealth started a trial with no proof to prove the elements of the offense, and then knowingly and intentionally utilized incompetent evidence to cover up the defect with the obvious intent of then curing the defect through a retrial.
This case should be treated as one where there was insufficient evidence to prove the previous conviction (as in Hon), and not as a case of “trial error” (as in Hobbs). We should not put our stamp of approval on the Commonwealth’s transparent evasion of the Hon rule. This case is a triumph of form over substance.