Court Opinion

ID: 9777576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:15:56.776582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:56.542267
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent. The majority has tossed aside precedent more than ten years old and ignored the rules of this Court in affirming this conviction. RCr 9.60 provides as follows: “A confession of a defendant, unless made in open court, will not warrant a conviction unless accompanied by other proof that such an offense was committed.” When the evidence is examined, without considering the confession, there is not enough left to fulfill the corroborative evidence requirement. Blades was found in an intoxicated state walking on the roadway. His car was found some distance away, its engine on, parked in the roadway. Blades testified that he had been drinking at Dueling Grounds race track, so he got his stepdaughter to drive him home. The stepdaughter and an independent witness both testified that she did indeed drive the vehicle from the grounds of the track. Both Blades and his stepdaughter testified that the vehicle began to malfunction and that the stepdaughter left to obtain help, catching a ride with a passing car back to Dueling Grounds. No one puts Blades behind the wheel in an intoxicated condition. If the statement Blades gave is disregarded, there is simply no evidence to prove that he committed the offense of driving under the influence. The case law is clear. There must be proof that the crime was committed to corroborate the out-of-court confession. Wilson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 476 S.W.2d 622 (1971); Dolan v. Commonwealth, Ky., 468 S.W.2d 277 (1971). Here, there is no proof of a crime without Blades’ statement. The statement made by Blades should not have been admitted into evidence because it was uncorroborated.
It is this scenario that the now-overruled cases of Pence v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 825 S.W.2d 282 (1991) and Wells v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 709 S.W.2d 847 (1986), sought to address. The evidence in each of those cases was just as consistent with guilt as with innocence. Thus, the cases were taken from the jury because there was insufficient evidence to support a jury finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In the instant case, once the proper evidentiary ruling was made, then a directed verdict should have been granted. I would reverse the conviction of Appellant.
STEPHENS, C.J., and MARGARET KEANE, Special Justice, joins this dissenting opinion.