Court Opinion

ID: 9660553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:15:50.711128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.449865
License: Public Domain

KELLER, Justice,
concurring.
I vote to affirm Appellant’s convictions and sentences, but I write separately as to Parts III (“Pregnancy of Female Victim”) and IX (“Reasonable Doubt Instruction”) because I disagree with the majority’s analysis of the allegations of error addressed therein.
As to Part III, I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that the trial court properly allowed testimony that one of Appellant’s victims was pregnant when she was killed. Simply stated, evidence of the victim’s pregnancy did not have “any ten*209dency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action any more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” 1 The majority cites no authority for its assertion that, because the victim’s pregnancy was related to “who she was,” testimony about her pregnancy was probative as to any genuine issue presented at the culpability phase of Appellant’s trial. The evidence of Appellant’s victim’s pregnancy was irrelevant and inadmissible.2 And the trial court had no “discretion” to permit evidence that lacked any probative value. But the erroneous introduction of evidence constitutes reversible error only when the defendant is prejudiced by the evidence.3 I recognize the possibility that a defendant could suffer prejudice from this type of evidence, and I acknowledge Justice Stumbo’s justifiable belief that such prejudice was present in this case. However, I agree with the majority that the testimony as to the victim’s pregnancy was fleeting in comparison to the other, inculpatory evidence in this case, and I further observe that the jury did not sentence Appellant to death for his murder of the pregnant victim. Because the verdict in this case would not have been any different if the trial court had properly excluded this evidence, Appellant’s substantial rights were not prejudiced and the trial court’s error was harmless. I thus concur in the result reached by the majority-
As to Part IX, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the wording of Instruction No. 7 did not create a substantial risk that the jury would believe that it must impose the death penalty unless it had a reasonable doubt as to whether that penalty was appropriate. I take issue, however, with the majority opinion’s more substantive defense of the trial court’s inclusion of Instruction No. 7. I observe that the author of the treatise that contains the form instruction from which Instruction No. 7 was adapted describes the form instruction as “repetitious of [the introductory capital sentencing phase instruction] and ... unnecessary.” 4 In addition, I find it impossible to reconcile today’s majority’s characterization of Instruction No. 7 as “a proper statement of the law”5 with Skaggs v. Commonwealth,6 in which this Court held that “[t]here is no requirement that the jury be instructed to find that death is the appropriate punishment beyond a reasonable doubt.”7 Accordingly, I believe the better practice in capital cases would be to omit the instruction in order to avoid any risk that it might confuse a jury.

. KRE 401.

. KRE 402 (“Evidence which is not relevant is inadmissible.”) See also Evidence Rules Study Commission, Kentucky Rules of Evidence, Commentary to KRE 402 (Final Draft 1989) (“The requirement of relevancy must be satisfied before evidence may be admitted and before any of the other rules of evidence law become consequential.”).

. RCr 9.24.

. 1 Cooper, Kentucky Instructions to Juries (Criminal) § 12;08, comment (4th ed. Anderson 1999).

. Parrish v. Commonwealth, Ky., op. at 207.

. Ky., 694 S.W.2d 672 (1985).

. Id. at 680.