Court Opinion

ID: 9684281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:52:28.724481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:54.593696
License: Public Domain

KELLER, Justice,
Concurring.
Although I agree with the plurality opinion’s ultimate holding in this case, I follow a very different path to that conclusion. And, in fact, as to certain fundamental issues — e.g., whether evidence of a person’s habits is actually probative of his or her conduct on a particular occasion — my views diverge sharply from those expressed in the plurality opinion and are aligned quite closely with those held by the dissenters. In particular, while I acknowledge that Justice Johnstone has outlined some valid concerns regarding the potential malleability of the habit label, I believe that those concerns could be allayed with an appropriately narrow definition and/or interpretation of habit, and thus I would support this Court’s adoption of an eviden-tiary rule permitting the introduction of habit evidence for the purpose of proving conforming action on a particular occasion. I vote to reverse Appellant’s convictions and to remand this indictment for a new trial, however, because, in my opinion, before Kentucky trial courts may permit the introduction of habit evidence, this Court must amend the Kentucky Rules of Evidence in accordance with the procedures outlined in KRE 1102. In large part, my conclusions in this regard stem from my belief that, through its purposeful rejection of proposed KRE 406, this Court “took the initiative to retain preexisting law ... that evidence of habit is not admissible.”1 Accordingly, I concur with the plurality’s con-*500elusion that the trial court in this case improperly allowed the Commonwealth to introduce evidence of Appellant’s daily marijuana use to prove that Appellant smoked marijuana on the date in question.
In large part, the view expressed by the dissenters should be seen as the progeny of five-year-old dicta in Stringer v. Commonwealth2 suggesting that the admissibility of habit evidence, like so-called “ultimate issue” evidence, was an evidentiary question “left open” when proposed KRE 406 was not adopted with the rest of the Kentucky Rules of Evidence. My vote falls the way it does because I have a different opinion as to the significance of this Court’s rejection of proposed KRE 406. Today’s dissenters conclude that the Court’s “failure to approve” proposed KRE 406 was an act without significance, and suggest that the answer to the allegedly “open question” regarding the admissibility of habit evidence can be found in KRE 401 and KRE 402. I, however, believe that the Court’s explicit rejection of proposed KRE 406 demonstrated the Court’s intention to continue to exclude habit evidence under the relevancy provisions of the new Kentucky Rules of Evidence. In large part, our divergence of opinion stems from a separate, and perhaps more fundamental, disagreement about the nature and purpose of proposed KRE 406. The dissenters interpret proposed KRE 406, much like Stringer interpreted proposed KRE 704, as a provision with little more than tautological significance that failed to “add anything” to the relevancy rules. I disagree, and I find the Evidence Rules Study Commission’s commentary to the proposed KRE 406, which states that “Rule 406 authorizes the introduction of a person’s habit,”3 important:
Rule 406 effectuates a significant change in the preexisting law of Kentucky. The courts of Kentucky have consistently rejected evidence of habit when offered to prove conforming behavior. See e.g., Lexington R. Co. v. Herring, 29 Ky.L.Rptr. 794, 96 S.W. 558 (Ky.1906); Cincinnati, N.O. & T.P. Ry. Co. v. Hare’s Adm’x, 297 Ky. 5, 178 S.W.2d 835 (Ky.1944). This change serves to bring Kentucky law in line with the law of other jurisdictions and with the federal law.4
Also illuminating is the Committee’s commentary to KRE 401 that states that the broadly inclusionary definition of “relevant evidence” in the Kentucky Rules of Evidence corresponds with the definitions utilized under Kentucky common law and that common law precedent would guide KRE 401 relevancy determinations:
The definition of relevancy provided by this rule, although more carefully and precisely stated, is not significantly different from the definition previously used in this state. The old Kentucky Court of Appeals said that “the term ‘relevant’ as applied to evidence means that the evidence tends to establish or disprove an issue in litigation.” O’Bryan v. Massey-Ferguson, Inc., 413 S.W.2d 891, 893 (Ky.1967), and on an earlier occasion that evidence is relevant when it “tends to make the proposition at issue either more or less probable,” Mason v. Bruner’s Adm’r, 10 Ky.L.Rep. 155 (1888). Prior rulings on the rele*501vancy of particular types of evidence mil serve as useful guideposts for lawyers and judges.5
When considered in the context of the contemporary understanding of these provisions, the Court’s rejection of the proposed KRE 406 takes on a light different from that suggested by the dissenters. The Court adopted a definition of “relevant evidence” — KRE 401 — that was consistent with existing precedent and that it understood to be guided by its prior jurisprudence, but rejected a specific rule of relevance — proposed KRE 406 — that would have changed Kentucky evidence law by permitting the introduction of habit evidence that Kentucky courts consistently had found not relevant. Academics who study the law of evidence interpreted the Court’s rejection of proposed KRE 406 as an indication “that the Supreme Court intends to keep Kentucky on its prior course, which would mean that evidence of habit is not admissible to prove conformity therewith on a given occasion.”6 In addition, opinions written and/or joined by members of this Court who participated in the contemporaneous decision to reject proposed KRE 704 reflect that KRE 704’s deletion was deliberate and intended to retain then-existing common law as to the admissibility of “ultimate issue” testimony.7 It requires no great leap of logic to conclude that the Court’s rejection of proposed KRE 406 was motivated by a similar desire to preserve the status quo. While today’s dissenters suggest that the Court’s failure to adopt proposed KRE 406 was an act without independent significance that merely paved the way for the admission of habit evidence under KRE 401 and KRE 402, that suggestion is, in my view, baseless historical revisionism.
Considered in the appropriate context, this Court’s rejection of proposed KRE 406 evidenced its intent that habit evidence would remain inadmissible after the adoption of the Kentucky Rules of Evidence. Today’s dissenters wish simply to change the law because they have reached a different conclusion as to the relevance of habit evidence. Instead of changing the rules in the middle of the game by reevaluating this Court’s previous relevancy determinations, I believe this Court must follow the procedures outlined in KRE 1102 if it wishes to permit the introduction of habit evidence to prove conforming behavior. While I *502would support such an amendment, and I observe that the Evidence Rules Review Commission has recently recommended rule changes to this Court, the Commission has not yet recommended adoption of a rule permitting the introduction of habit evidence. And, until such a proposal comes before the Court, I believe we should apply the Rules of Evidence as previously adopted, understood, and interpreted by the Court, and should not undermine predictability and consistency in the law of evidence by reevaluating common law notions of relevancy that were accepted when the Rules were adopted and that this Court intended to continue after their adoption. Accordingly, I believe the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed the Commonwealth to introduce evidence of Appellant’s marijuana “habits” in the face of an unbroken line of precedent from this Court prohibiting the introduction of habit evidence, and I would reverse the Court of Appeals and remand Appellant’s indictment to the trial court for a new trial.

. Robert G. Lawson, William S. Cooper, and William H. Fortune, Kentucky Rules of Evidence § 2.51 (UK/CLE, 2d.ed„ 2002). I recognize that this Second Edition of the monograph, which was published while this case was pending on appeal, also states elsewhere in a new Chapter that "the preexisting common law on habit ... comes into direct conflict with the plain language of KRE 402,” id. at § 1.27 — an observation on the part of the monograph’s authors that also may be found elsewhere. See Robert G. Lawson, Interpretation of the Kentucky Rules of Evidence — What Happened to the Common Law?, 87 Ky. L.J. 517, 576 (1999); Dissenting Opinion, ante. The language I quote above, however, was carried over from the first edition, see Cooper, Fortune, Lawson & Niehaus, Kentucky Rules of Evidence, § D-3, (UK/CLE, 1992), and thus in my view represents a more accurate, con*500temporaneous interpretation of the significance of this Court's rejection of proposed KRE 406.

. Ky., 956 S.W.2d 883 (1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1052, 118 S.Ct. 1374, 140 L.Ed.2d 522 (1998).

. Evidence Rules Study Commission, Kentucky Rules of Evidence at 29 (Final Draft 1989) (emphasis added).

. Id. at 29-30 (emphasis added).

. Id. at 21.

. Robert G. Lawson, The Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook § 2.35, at 117 (3d ed. Michie 1993). See also Richard H. Underwood & Glen Weissenberger, Kentucky Evidence: 2001 Courtroom Manual at 123 (Anderson Publishing Co.2000) ("The original draft of the KRE included a provision like FRE 406, which would have permitted the use of habit evidence. However, the Supreme Court deleted the proposed rule, and one can only assume that this is another instance in which the Court is going to steer the old course rather than adopt the majority position exemplified by the FRE.”).

. See Newkirk v. Commonwealth, Ky., 937 S.W.2d 690, 694 (1997) (Current Chief Justice Lambert writing for a majority including then-Chief Justice Stephens that "there is no ambiguity in our decision to eliminate the proposed Rule 704 from the Kentucky Rules of Evidence.”); Stringer v. Commonwealth, supra note 3 at 896 (Lambert, J. concurring) (expressing a similar argument in a concurring opinion joined by then-Chief Justice Stephens); Id. at 897 (Stumbo, J., dissenting, joined in part by Justice Lambert):
We do more here than simply interpret KRE 401 and KRE 702. As the Newkirk opinion observes, there was no inadvertence in our failure to adopt FRE 704; it was deliberately rejected after thorough consideration. In direct violation of KRE 1102, the majority’s opinion does precisely what this Court refused to do when we rejected proposed KRE 704.

Id.