Adkins v. Commonwealth

96 S.W.3d 779, 2003 Ky. LEXIS 13, 2003 WL 367054
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 23, 2003
Docket2001-SC-0086-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by145 cases

This text of 96 S.W.3d 779 (Adkins v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Adkins v. Commonwealth, 96 S.W.3d 779, 2003 Ky. LEXIS 13, 2003 WL 367054 (Ky. 2003).

Opinion

COOPER, Justice.

Appellant Kalton Adkins was convicted by a Pike Circuit Court jury of murder, first-degree robbery, and first-degree burglary, and was sentenced to a total of seventy years in prison. He appeals to this Court as a matter of right, Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b), contending that the trial court erred by (1) overruling his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal; (2) failing to suppress evidence obtained as a result of an investigatory stop and frisk; (3) permitting a witness to testify for the Commonwealth knowing that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination on cross-examination; (4) admitting incriminating statements made by Appellant to his brother after he had invoked his Miranda rights; (5) permitting the Commonwealth to introduce evidence of his illegal drug activity and other bad acts in violation of KRE 404(b); (6) permitting the Commonwealth to introduce inflammatory evidence in an abuse of discretion under KRE 403; and (7) failing to dismiss a juror after being informed that she may have given false information during voir dire. Finding no error, we affirm.

I. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE.

Because Appellant asserts that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions, we will summarize the evidence “draw[ing] all fair and reasonable inferences from the evidence in favor of the Commonwealth.” Commonwealth v. Benham, Ky., 816 S.W.2d 186, 187 (1991).

On November 6, 1999, Richard “Bebay” Roberts, age sixty-eight, was beaten to death in his home on Rob Dam-ron Road near highway 1469 (Penny Road) in Pike County, Kentucky. His daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren discovered his body the next morning. The body was found lying near the front door clad only in *783 underwear. Missing from the residence were a .410 pump shotgun and the victim’s wallet, in which he was known to keep large sums of money. There were blood stains on the front porch and steps and smeared blood stains leading from the door to the victim’s body, indicating that the body had been pulled away from the door so that the door could be shut. There was no evidence of forced entry. The Commonwealth introduced evidence of the victim’s habits 1 of sleeping in his underwear on a recliner in the living room, always keeping the doors locked at night, and always ascertaining a visitor’s identity before unlocking the door. It was also his habit to never open the door to a visitor while in his underwear unless the visitor was a male with whom he was well acquainted.

Roberts was well acquainted with Appellant. Approximately twenty years before his death, Roberts cohabited with Appellant’s mother, during which time Appellant and his family lived in a mobile home on Roberts’s property. When the cohabitation ended, Appellant’s family moved elsewhere and Appellant and Roberts apparently had no significant contact thereafter until several months before Roberts’s death. Sometime prior to October 1999, Appellant came to Roberts’s residence wanting to rent the mobile home as a residence for Appellant and his girlfriend, Ruth Caudill. Roberts refused. Later, in October 1999, Appellant returned to Roberts’s residence wanting to sell Roberts some beefsteaks. Roberts paid for the steaks with a fifty dollar bill. Several weeks later, Appellant returned, again wanting to sell Roberts some meat. This time, Roberts declined. Because of these incidents, Roberts, who usually referred to Appellant by his nickname, “Bo,” began referring to him as “the meat man.”

On the night of October 30, 1999, Appellant came to Roberts’s residence wanting to pawn a woman’s ring. Roberts gave Appellant ten dollars and placed the ring in a small compartment of a wall clock for safekeeping. The ring was found in the compartment after Roberts’s death. (Appellant’s grandmother, Artie Adkins, testified that the ring belonged to her and that she had discovered it was missing shortly after Appellant and Caudill had paid a visit to her residence.) A ratchet from a military-style brass belt buckle was found on the floor near Roberts’s body. 2

Larry Branham, a neighbor and friend of Roberts, testified that he visited with Roberts on the afternoon of November 6, 1999, and that Roberts was “expecting the meat man,” whom Branham identified as “Bo Adkins.” Upon receiving information of Appellant’s frequent visits to Roberts’s residence and that Roberts was expecting him on the day of the murder, and upon learning that Appellant lived with Ruth Caudill and that Caudill owned a blue Ford Mustang, Kentucky State Police Detective Sean Welch obtained the registration number of Caudill’s vehicle and began searching for Appellant.

Ruth Caudill testified that in October and early November 1999, she and Appellant were cohabiting in a mobile home on Lizzie Fork Road off highway 23 near Virgie in Pike County. The owner of the mobile home had allowed them to stay *784 there without rent if they would “fix it up.” The mobile home had electricity but only one light bulb and no running water. Cau-dill had neither a job nor money; Appellant worked only “off and on” at a local automobile body shop. On the morning of November 6, 1999, Appellant and Caudill ate breakfast (crackers and a can of pork and beans), then drove Caudill’s blue Mustang to Wheelwright in Floyd County to look for a “friend” of Appellant. Unable to locate the friend, they returned to the mobile home. Later that day, Appellant told Caudill he was going to visit another friend who owed him some money and departed in the Mustang. He was wearing, inter alia, a pair of blue jeans that had been left at Caudill’s former residence by an acquaintance of her son. Since the jeans did not fit Caudill’s son, she gave them to Appellant. The jeans were distinctive in that the pants size was written in indelible ink on the inside of one of the pockets. Caudill testified that she slept for two or three hours while Appellant was gone. When Appellant returned, he had with him an unspecified quantity of cocaine.

On the morning of November 7, 1999, Caudill and Appellant loaded all of their belongings into the Mustang and left the mobile home. They again drove to Wheelwright, supposedly to buy cigarettes at a Dollar Store. They then drove to Pikeville and rented a room at the Colley Motel. The motel manager testified that Appellant paid for the room with a fifty dollar bill. He also testified that the two left the motel in the blue Mustang that morning and returned later in the day.

Detective Welch, accompanied by Detective Lee Weddington, first proceeded to the mobile home on Lizzie Fork Road and found it abandoned. Welch described the property as overgrown with weeds and full of trash. The electricity had been illegally connected by tapping into a nearby utility line. After leaving Lizzie Fork Road, Welch and Weddington began checking motel parking lots and found Caudill’s blue Mustang in the rear lot of the Colley Motel. Welch also observed a man matching Appellant’s description (later determined to be Appellant) walking from the rear of the Mustang toward his police cruiser.

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Bluebook (online)
96 S.W.3d 779, 2003 Ky. LEXIS 13, 2003 WL 367054, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adkins-v-commonwealth-ky-2003.