Court Opinion

ID: 9671832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:43:46.122416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.353248
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Respectfully, I must dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the conviction of Appellant for both murder and arson was proper pursuant to the second prong in Ingram v. Commonwealth, Ky., 801 S.W.2d 321 (1990).
The second prong in Ingram yields a different result than expressed by the majority. In this case, the act of burning the car (i.e., arson) is part and parcel of the murder, which was the intended result. In other words, the arson was but the instrumentality to accomplish the murder. As such, it is the product of the same act or impulse. Nor is this a case where there are “compound consequences.” Although the phrase “compound consequences” is laden with considerable ambiguity, the typical application would be where someone fired an automatic weapon into a crowd intending to kill only one person, but ended up killing several people. In that instance, the killer could properly be charged with multiple murders, even though they were the product of only “one act or impulse.” By contrast, in this case the result of burning the car was to kill the decedent; there were no additional consequences or repercussions as a result of the burning of the car itself. Therefore, the conviction of Appellant for both murder and arson in this case was a violation of the proscription against double jeopardy in Section Thirteen of the Kentucky Constitution.
With all other issues, I concur.