Court Opinion

ID: 9748878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:16:30.713069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:40.303523
License: Public Domain

*541STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent. As did the Court of Appeals, I believe the homicides here were unquestionably intentional. Both victims were shot with the same weapon, and their wounds indicate the shooter, with lethal accuracy, aimed to kill. From a close proximity above the victims, a single person fired at the Colemans with deadly precision, striking Kevin near his heart and Junior in the head, neck, and chest. This was not merely wanton or reckless conduct, but instead was quite calculated and clearly intentional.
The majority agrees the evidence introduced in this case was sufficient to show the Coleman brothers were intentionally killed. Yet it also believes that because the evidence was entirely circumstantial, the jury may infer the existence of a less culpable mental state. Although it acknowledges the prosecution in a criminal case has the burden of proving every element of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the majority nevertheless concludes that when evidence of an intentional crime exists, the Commonwealth is not required to prove alternative circumstances indicating wantonness or recklessness in order to convict of an offense requiring a less culpable mental state. Instead, the jury may simply infer the existence of wanton or reckless conduct. I believe this proposition unconstitutionally lessens the prosecution’s burden of proving every element of a crime, including the mens rea, beyond a reasonable doubt.
The evidence in the instant case proved that a single gunman intentionally shot and killed the Coleman brothers. Yet because the prosecution could not prove which of the Wolford men or their friends committed this crime, it charged several of them as both principals and accomplices, with the hope that the jury would either choose one defendant to convict of intentional murder, or, in the alternative, find all three defendants to be unsavory and convict them all of something, even if not of intentional murder. Although its strategy was successful, and although cosmic justice may have been served, actual justice and the rule of law have not. The Commonwealth has quite simply failed to meet its burden of proving that any one of the defendants, much less all three of them, acted with reckless or wanton conduct. For these reasons, I would hold the defendants’ convictions for second-degree manslaughter must be reversed.
Furthermore, because the jury failed to find the defendants guilty of either murder or first-degree manslaughter, its verdict amounts to an acquittal on those charges. Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970). I would therefore further hold that a retrial on either of those offenses is precluded by the constitutional proscription against double jeopardy. Commonwealth v. DeHaven, Ky., 929 S.W.2d 187 (1996).
I must also disagree with the majority’s holding regarding the issue of preservation. The majority concludes the giving of an unwarranted instruction on a lesser included offense can never be considered palpable error, reviewable pursuant to RCr 10.26. I must strenuously disagree. If an instruction is unwarranted because insufficient evidence exists to support a particular theory of the case, then it follows that any conviction which results from that instruction will also be unsupported by the evidence. To convict a person of a crime which is not supported by the evidence is the epitome of manifest injustice. I can think of few circumstances that more deservedly merit review under RCr 10.26.