Johnson v. Commonwealth

12 S.W.3d 258, 1999 Ky. LEXIS 159, 1999 WL 1204870
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 16, 1999
Docket96-SC-0577-MR
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 12 S.W.3d 258 (Johnson 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
Johnson v. Commonwealth, 12 S.W.3d 258, 1999 Ky. LEXIS 159, 1999 WL 1204870 (Ky. 1999).

Opinions

Opinion of the court by

Justice COOPER.

Sometime prior to 12:30 p.m. on June 12, 1995, Appellant Terry Johnson’s father, Stanford Johnson, was strangled to death in their home. A Jefferson Circuit Court jury convicted Appellant of his father’s murder and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. He appeals to this Court as a matter of right, Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b). The primary issue on appeal is whether the testimony of a hair analysis expert should have been suppressed. Appellant [260]*260also asserts that the Commonwealth should not have been granted a continuance after the completion of jury selection, that the jury was improperly instructed on the offense of murder, and that a mistrial should have been declared after a juror and a deputy sheriff engaged in an ex parte conversation while the jury was deliberating its verdict.

I. FACTS.

Appellant and his father shared a residence in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Between 12:30 and 12:45 p.m. on Monday, June 12, 1995, Appellant telephoned his cousin, Lisa McDowell, and told her that he thought his father was dead. When McDowell inquired whether the victim had been sick, Appellant replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t been here for two days.” At 12:56 p.m., Appellant telephoned the Jefferson County 911 emergency service and advised that he had found his father lying on a couch and that, while attempting to arouse him, he noticed that the victim’s body was cold. When Lisa McDowell arrived at the residence, she immediately noticed cuts and abrasions on the victim’s body which she had not noticed when she last saw him several days before. It was subsequently determined that the victim had been strangled to death.

Because the residence was equipped with security doors and there was no evidence of forced entry, Appellant became an immediate suspect. A blood spot found on the victim’s clothing was consistent with Appellant’s blood type, which is found in only three of every one thousand persons. Hairs were found between the fingers of the victim’s left and right hands. The hair found in the victim’s right hand was subsequently determined to have the same characteristics as hair samples obtained from Appellant’s head. The hair found in the victim’s left hand was determined to have the same characteristics as hair samples obtained from the victim’s head. While obtaining hair and blood samples from Appellant, Dr. William Smock, the assistant medical examiner, noticed that Appellant had a ⅜ inch abrasion across the bridge of his nose and numerous scrapes, contusions, and abrasions on his neck, left shoulder, left upper chest, right arm, and right knee, all of which appeared to be of recent origin. Appellant told Dr. Smock that he sustained those injuries while changing a flat tire. Dr. Smock testified at trial that he had never before seen a patient who had sustained such injuries while changing a tire. Four witnesses testified that they noticed no marks or bruises on Appellant during their respective encounters with him between 4:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on June 11.

Appellant told the police that his father was “hard to get along with,” that he and his father had had problems in the past, and they had argued a great deal. He denied ever hitting his father, but claimed that his father once “took a slug” at him. Appellant further told the police that he left home at about 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. on June 11 and did not return to the house until about 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. the next morning. (A neighbor testified that she saw Appellant in the back yard of the house at 12:00 a.m. on June 12.) Upon returning home, Appellant noticed nothing unusual and went to bed. He awoke at about 11:00 or 11:30 a.m. and went to a restaurant and then to a department store. When he returned home at about 12:30 or 12:45 p.m., he found his father dead. Appellant was the .beneficiary of his father’s $15,000 life insurance policy.

An autopsy revealed multiple injuries to various parts of the victim’s body, including a fracture of the top vertebra of the neck and a fracture of the hyoid bone, which is located deep within the neck. The cause of death was manual strangulation.

II. HAIR COMPARISON EVIDENCE.

Appellant filed a motion in limine to suppress evidence that the hair found between the fingers of the victim’s right hand had the same characteristics as hair [261]*261samples removed from Appellant’s head. This fact had been determined by microscopic comparison performed by a serologist at the Kentucky State Police Crime Laboratory. After determining that evidence of hair analysis by microscopic comparison has been routinely admitted into evidence in this jurisdiction for many years, the trial judge first overruled the motion without an evidentiary hearing. However, the trial judge subsequently allowed Appellant to introduce evidence in support of his motion by way of avowal. Appellant then proffered evidence consisting of the published opinion in the case of Williamson v. Reynolds, 904 F.Supp. 1529 (E.D.Okla.1995), in which a federal district judge in Oklahoma concluded that hair analysis by microscopic comparison no longer satisfies the test of reliability enunciated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), and an inconclusive cross-examination of the Commonwealth’s expert serologist, who denied any knowledge of the studies and statistics cited in the Williamson opinion. After considering this evidence, the trial judge again overruled the motion to suppress.

Prior to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Daubert, supra, the test for admissibility of scientific evidence was whether the scientific method or theory at issue had been generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923); Harris v. Commonwealth, Ky., 846 S.W.2d 678 (1992). Under Daubert, adopted by this Court in Mitchell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 908 S.W.2d 100 (1995), overruled on other grounds, Fugate v. Commonwealth, Ky., 993 S.W.2d 931 (1999), the Frye test of general acceptance is but one factor to be considered in determining the admissibility of scientific evidence under FRE (or KRE) 702. Other factors include whether the method or theory can be tested, whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication, the known or potential rate of error, and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique’s operation. Daubert, supra, 509 U.S. at 592-95, 113 S.Ct. at 2796-97.

Daubert also recognized that some scientific methods, techniques and theories are so firmly established as to be proper subjects of judicial notice pursuant to FRE 201(b)(2). Daubert, supra, 509 U.S. at 592 n. 11, 113 S.Ct. at 2796 n. 11. Thus, in United States v. Martinez, 3 F.3d 1191, 1197 (8th Cir.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1062, 114 S.Ct. 734, 126 L.Ed.2d 697 (1994), it was held that once an appropriate appellate court holds that the Daubert

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
12 S.W.3d 258, 1999 Ky. LEXIS 159, 1999 WL 1204870, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-commonwealth-ky-1999.