Miller v. Commonwealth

283 S.W.3d 690, 2009 Ky. LEXIS 97, 2009 WL 1438781
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedMay 21, 2009
Docket2007-SC-000048-TG
StatusPublished
Cited by111 cases

This text of 283 S.W.3d 690 (Miller 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
Miller v. Commonwealth, 283 S.W.3d 690, 2009 Ky. LEXIS 97, 2009 WL 1438781 (Ky. 2009).

Opinions

Opinion of the Court by

Justice SCOTT.

Appellant, Frederick Miller, appeals his convictions of four (4) counts of third-degree rape and one (1) count of third-degree sodomy enhanced by one (1) count of being a Persistent Felony Offender (PFO), first-degree, as a matter of right. Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b). He was sentenced to twenty (20) years imprisonment.

BACKGROUND

Appellant was charged with one (1) count of first-degree rape, seven (7) counts of third-degree rape, two (2) counts of third-degree sodomy, and of being a PFO, first-degree. These charges were the result of a sexual relationship, from March 2002 until October of 2002, between Appellant and a young girl, C.O., who was under the legal age of consent.

The two met in 2001 and eventually became friends. This friendship soon turned sexual, during the course of which C.O. was fifteen (15) years of age and Appellant was over twenty-one (21).

In September of 2002, Warren Comity police interviewed C.O. about the nature of the relationship. At first C.O. denied any sexual contact, but later admitted to it. Subsequently, she recanted, asserting she made up the allegations against Appellant. Then, C.O. recanted her recantation, acknowledging that she and Appellant did have a sexual relationship.

At trial, C.O. testified to several instances of sexual contact with Appellant. According to C.O., all of the instances were consensual, except one. Appellant was convicted of one (1) count of third-degree rape, as a lesser included offense of the first-degree rape charge, three (3) of the six (6) third-degree rape charges,1 one (1) count of the two (2) third-degree sodomy charges, and of being a PFO in the first-degree. He was acquitted of the remaining charges and sentenced to a total of twenty (20) years, from which this appeal follows.

Appellant alleges the court erred, in that: (1) the jury instructions lacked specificity and thus denied him a unanimous verdict and due process of law; (2) there was insufficient evidence to convict him of all the charges; (3) he was prejudiced by the court’s refusal to instruct the jury on attempted sodomy in the third-degree; (4) his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated; (5) the court erred in failing to dismiss the PFO charge; and (6) he was unduly prejudiced by the Commonwealth’s penalty phase closing argument. Upon review, we reverse Appellant’s convictions for reasons that shall be set forth herein.

I. Improper Jury Instructions

Appellant first alleges the identical jury instructions for the six (6) counts of third-degree rape and two (2) counts of third-degree sodomy lacked such factual differentiation that they denied him a unanimous verdict and thus, due process of law, because there is no assurance that the jurors were voting for the same factually distinct crime under each of the indistinguishable instructions. Appellant concedes the issue was not propei’ly preserved by his motion for directed verdict on grounds of insufficiency of the evidence. Seay v. Commonwealth, 609 S.W.2d 128, 130 (Ky.1980); Combs v. Commonwealth, 198 S.W.3d 574, 578-579 (Ky.2006). [695]*695Therefore, Appellant requests palpable error review pursuant to RCr 10.26.

Under RCr 10.26, an unpre-served error may be reviewed on appeal if the error is “palpable” and “affects the substantial rights of a party.” Even then, relief is appropriate only “upon a determination that manifest injustice has resulted from the error.” Id. An error is “palpable,” only if it is clear or plain under current law. Brewer v. Commonwealth, 206 S.W.3d 343 (Ky.2006). Generally, a palpable error “affects the substantial rights of a party” only if “it is more likely than ordinary error to have affected the judgment.” Ernst v. Commonwealth, 160 S.W.3d 744, 762 (Ky.2005). We note that an unpreserved error that is both palpable and prejudicial, still does not justify relief unless the reviewing court further determines that it has resulted in a manifest injustice; in other words, unless the error so seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceeding as to be “shocking or jurisprudentially intolerable.” Martin v. Commonwealth, 207 S.W.3d 1, 4 (Ky.2006).

In this regard, “[i]t is [ ] elementary that the burden is on the government in a criminal case to prove every element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt and that the failure to do so is an error of Constitutional magnitude.” Miller v. Commonwealth, 77 S.W.3d 566, 576 (Ky.2002). Plainly, a defendant cannot be convicted of a criminal offense except by a unanimous verdict. Ky. Const. § 7; Cannon v. Commonwealth, 291 Ky. 50, 163 S.W.2d 15 (1942); RCr 9.82(1). Therefore, we have held that:

[w]hether the issue is viewed as one of insufficient evidence, or double jeopardy, or denial of a unanimous verdict, when multiple offenses are chai*ged in a single indictment, the Commonwealth must introduce evidence sufficient to prove each offense and to differentiate each count from the others, and the jury must be separately instructed on each charged offense.

Miller, 77 S.W.3d at 576.

Prior to our recent decision in Harp v. Commonwealth, 266 S.W.3d 813 (Ky.2008), it was possible for an instructional error such as this to be “cured” by the Commonwealth’s introduction and explanation of the identifying characteristics from which the jury could determine the existence of facts proving each of the offenses, rendering any error in the instructions harmless. See Bell v. Commonwealth, 245 S.W.3d 738, 744 (Ky.2008). Then, in Dixon v. Commonwealth, 263 S.W.3d 583, 593 (Ky.2008), we recognized that “the arguments of counsel are not [now] sufficient to rehabilitate otherwise erroneous or imprecise jury instructions” because the arguments of counsel are not evidence. Harp further corrected dictum in Bell which supported the proposition that counsel could “cure” defects in identical instructions in closing argument, reaffirming the proposition that:

a party claiming that an erroneous jury instruction, or an erroneous failure to give a necessary jury instruction [is harmless error], bears a steep burden because we have held that “[i]n this jurisdiction it is a rule of longstanding and frequent repetition that erroneous instructions to the jury are presumed to be prejudicial; [thus,] an appellee claiming harmless error bears the burden of showing affirmatively that no prejudice resulted from the error.”

Harp, 266 S.W.3d at 818.

Thus, it is now settled that a trial court errs in a case involving multiple charges if its instructions to the jury fail to factually differentiate between the separate offenses according to the evidence. Combs, 198 S.W.3d at 580. Here, because the trial court used identical jury instruc[696]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
283 S.W.3d 690, 2009 Ky. LEXIS 97, 2009 WL 1438781, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-commonwealth-ky-2009.