Anthony Hall v. Commonwealth of Kentucky

Kentucky Supreme Court·Decided March 19, 2026·No. 2025-SC-0016·Unpublished

Opinion

IMPORTANT NOTICE

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED OPINION

THIS OPINION IS DESIGNATED “NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.” PURSUANT TO THE RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE PROMULGATED BY THE SUPREME COURT, RAP 40(D), THIS OPINION IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AND SHALL NOT BE CITED OR USED AS BINDING PRECEDENT IN ANY OTHER CASE IN ANY COURT OF THIS STATE; HOWEVER, UNPUBLISHED KENTUCKY APPELLATE DECISIONS, RENDERED AFTER JANUARY 1, 2003, MAY BE CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT IF THERE IS NO PUBLISHED OPINION THAT WOULD ADEQUATELY ADDRESS THE ISSUE BEFORE THE COURT. OPINIONS CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT SHALL BE SET OUT AS AN UNPUBLISHED DECISION IN THE FILED DOCUMENT AND A COPY OF THE ENTIRE DECISION SHALL BE TENDERED ALONG WITH THE DOCUMENT TO THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES TO THE ACTION.

RENDERED: MARCH 19, 2026

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Supreme Court of Kentucky 2025-SC-0016-MR

ANTHONY HALL APPELLANT

ON APPEAL FROM MENIFEE CIRCUIT COURT V. HONORABLE ELIZABETH H. DAVIS, JUDGE NO. 20-CR-00006

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE

MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT AFFIRMING

Appellant Anthony Hall pleaded guilty in the Menifee Circuit Court to charges of kidnapping and murdering Jodi Stapleton, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. The trial court held a penalty phase jury trial, which resulted in a recommended sentence of life in prison. The trial court sentenced Hall in accordance with the recommendation. Hall now appeals to this Court as a matter of right. KY. CONST. § 110(2)(b). Following a careful review, we affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In 2019, Appellant Hall and Jodi Stapleton began an on-again-off-again relationship. In December 2019, Stapleton sent text messages and photos of domestic abuse inflicted by Hall to her friend Ashley Stanley.

Stapleton continued to have a relationship with Hall. On March 26, 2020, Stapleton went to Hall’s house. The following evening, the couple argued and violence erupted. Hall grabbed Stapleton from behind, threw her on the bed, punched her multiple times, restrained her in a chair with weed-eater string, hit her again, and taped a sock in her mouth to silence her. Stapleton’s ribs and nose were broken, and she also suffered numerous head injuries that resulted in subdural hemorrhaging.

Hall left Stapleton restrained in the chair and fell asleep. When he awoke on March 28, 2020, he realized Stapleton was dead. He then “hogtied” Stapleton’s body with electrical cords, wrapped it in a blanket and plastic, and placed it in his laundry room under trash bags and clothes.

On March 30, 2020, Hall contacted Tara Williams, a woman he had previously met on a dating site and invited her to his house. He met Williams in Morehead, where he used Stapleton’s ATM card to withdraw money. He used some of that money to get his weed-eater out of pawn. Hall and Williams then went back to his residence where they attempted to have sex. Williams testified, however, that Hall “really couldn’t keep it up.” At the time Williams noticed the plastic bundle that concealed Stapleton’s body but did not know what it was.

Hall then asked Williams to follow him in a truck to a friend’s house so he could drop off a vehicle for the friend to borrow. The vehicle was Stapleton’s Tahoe. Williams followed Hall “all over the place.” Ultimately, while Williams was elsewhere, Hall burned the Tahoe at a remote location. Williams later

picked up Hall on the side of the road, and the two then went their separate ways.

Stapleton’s family ultimately became suspicious of text messages that Hall was sending to them from Stapleton’s phone purporting to be from Stapleton. Stapleton’s mother and a relative went to Hall’s home looking for her. Hall became worried they knew something was wrong and then fled the state.

On April 1, 2020, Hall was stopped by law enforcement in South Carolina for trespassing. He admitted to a South Carolina deputy that he had killed Stapleton. In an interview with a South Carolina detective, Hall admitted he had punched Stapleton several times, killed her, tied her up, tried to hide the body, and burned the Tahoe. In a later interview with Kentucky State Police detectives, Hall again admitted to murdering Stapleton. A search warrant was executed for Hall’s residence, where law enforcement discovered Stapleton’s body.

Hall was indicted for murder, kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. Hall was initially represented for two years by a public defender. With that public defender as counsel, Hall entered a plea of guilty to the murder, kidnapping, and tampering charges in exchange for a sentence of thirty years. However, before final sentencing, Hall fired the public defender, retained private counsel, and moved to set aside his guilty plea. The trial court granted that motion.

While Hall’s case remained pending, his former public defender became an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in the Menifee Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. Hall therefore moved to disqualify that entire office from his case. At the hearing on the motion, Hall contended that the prosecution had been unduly “combative,” which Hall believed was because his former public defender was familiar with Hall and was informing the prosecution’s strategy. The prosecution responded that it had obtained an ethics opinion indicating disqualification of the entire office was not required, and that it had both orally and in writing put in place a screening process separating the former public defender from anything involving Hall’s case. The trial court denied Hall’s motion to disqualify the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, concluding there had been no showing of an actual impropriety and that the former public defender had been appropriately screened from Hall’s case.

On the morning of his scheduled trial, Hall pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, tampering, and abuse of a corpse. The trial court then began a two-day penalty phase before a jury in which the jury heard testimony regarding the factual circumstances of the crimes at issue, among other information. Williams also testified to attempting to have sex with Hall in the laundry room where Stapleton’s body was located, though Williams did not know at the time that the plastic bundle contained Stapleton’s body. Stanley testified to having received the text messages and photos from Stapleton regarding Hall’s domestic abuse of her. Stanley showed the texts and photos to the jury.

The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison, which the trial court imposed. Hall now appeals as a matter of right.

ANALYSIS

Hall raises three issues for our review: (1) whether the trial court erred in declining to disqualify the entire Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office; (2) whether a witness whom Hall contacted to assist him in disposing of the victim’s vehicle could properly testify to other activities such as attempted sex; and (3) whether the trial court erred in admitting the text messages and photos relating to Hall’s domestic violence against Stapleton a few months before the murder. We review each issue in turn, providing additional facts as necessary.

I. The Trial Court Did Not Err In Refusing To Disqualify The Entire Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

Hall first argues that the trial court erred in refusing to disqualify the entire Menifee County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office from Hall’s prosecution. Hall contends such disqualification was warranted because his former public defender had become an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, and that the prosecution failed to prove it put in place adequate procedures to screen that former public defender from Hall’s case. Hall preserved this allegation of error by his filing of a motion to disqualify, and we therefore review the trial court’s ruling for an abuse of discretion. Ward v. Commonwealth, 587 S.W.3d 312, 319 (Ky. 2019) (“We review a trial court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to disqualify a prosecutor for abuse of discretion.”).

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Anthony Hall v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, (Ky. 2026).

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