Walter Elliott Haggerty v. Kentucky Bar Association

Kentucky Supreme Court·Decided September 29, 2021·No. 2020 SC 0336·Unknown

Opinion

RENDERED: SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 TO BE PUBLISHED

Supreme Court of Kentucky 2020-SC-0366-MR

DYLAN TYLER MINCH APPELLANT

ON APPEAL FROM MADISON CIRCUIT COURT V. HONORABLE JAMES D. ISHMAEL, SPECIAL JUDGE NO. 19-CR-00028

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE

OPINION OF THE COURT BY CHIEF JUSTICE MINTON REVERSING

Dylan Tyler Minch appeals as a matter of right from the judgment imposing a seventy-year sentence for his convictions on forty counts of possession or viewing of a matter depicting a sexual performance by a minor, seven counts of the use of a minor under sixteen in a sexual performance, and one count of sexual abuse of a minor under twelve.1 He argues on appeal that (1) he was denied a fair trial on the sexual abuse and sexual performance charges because they were tried jointly with the possession charges; (2) pornographic images that were not connected to the indicted charges were used improperly as Kentucky Rule of Evidence (KRE)

1 Ky. Const. § 110(2)(b) (“Appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court imposing a sentence of . . . imprisonment for twenty years or more shall be taken directly to the Supreme Court.”).

404(b) evidence against him and rendered his trial unfair; (3) the trial court erred in denying his motion for a continuance because he needed to review the KRE 404(b) evidence used against him; and (4) the cumulative effect of these errors compels reversal. We find it necessary to reverse Minch’s convictions because the trial court erred in allowing the Commonwealth to use a voluminous number of unindicted images as KRE 404(b) evidence. Consequently, we decline to address Minch’s arguments that his conviction should be reversed on the bases of cumulative error and the trial court’s failure to grant his motion to continue.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND The Attorney General’s cybercrimes unit, the unit tasked with monitoring the internet for child pornography, received a flag from the monitoring system reporting the location of previously identified child pornography. Detective Littrell from the AG’s cybercrimes unit received the flag on his computer and obtained the IP address of the user who was in possession of the material. Littrell obtained the physical location of that IP address being used at that date and time. Littrell applied for and executed a search warrant at the Minch home where he encountered Minch, his wife, and their infant daughter (J.M.). Minch gave his cell phone and its passcode to Littrell, who then found content he suspected to be child pornography. Some of the images that Littrell discovered were images of J.M. taken by the cell phone’s camera.

Detective Bell from the cybercrimes unit conducted a manual examination of the phone. He found there ten similar images of J.M., all taken

within minutes of each other, all depicting her naked. Minch sent a text containing one of these images to his wife in response to hers informing him that she was headed home from work. This image showed a naked man— whose head was not visible—in the bathtub with a naked J.M. And in response to his wife’s question about whether J.M. had been fed, Minch sent a second image, this time showing his face and J.M. in the foreground taking her bottle.

In total, Bell found on Minch’s cell phone what the Commonwealth alleges to have been 925 files of child sexual-exploitation material. On one of the Minch home computers, Bell found what the Commonwealth alleges to have been 4,622 images and 1,005 videos of child sexual exploitation material. At the end of his investigation, Bell presented his full report to Littrell who selected some of the images and videos to present to the grand jury.

The grand jury’s original indictment of Minch contained thirty-one counts, twenty of which were for possession or viewing a matter depicting a sexual performance by a minor. A superseding indictment contained fifty-one counts, adding twenty more relating to the child pornography. During the trial, the Commonwealth moved to dismiss three counts. Ultimately, the jury convicted Minch of all pending charges and recommended sentences as follows: forty counts of possession or viewing of a matter depicting a sexual performance by a minor, for which the jury recommended consecutive five-year sentences; and seven counts of use of a minor under 16 in a sexual

performance, for which the jury recommended consecutive ten-year sentences. The trial court sentenced Minch to a total of 70 years’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Minch argues that any discussion of the images not presented to the grand jury and, therefore, not subject to indictment, should not have been allowed by the trial court because they constitute evidence of uncharged crimes in violation of KRE 404(b). Minch also asserts that the trial court should have severed the counts involving J.M. as the alleged victim. Minch additionally claims that the trial court should have granted his motion to continue the trial to allow him time to review all these images. Finally, he urges this Court to find that the cumulative effect of these errors rendered his trial fundamentally unfair.

II. ANALYSIS

A. The trial court did not err by denying Minch’s motion to sever the charges related to the images of J.M. for a separate trial.

Minch argues that his trial was rendered unfair because the more serious charges of his use of a minor under 16 in a sexual performance—the charges arising from the images he took of himself and J.M naked and in the bathtub—were not severed from the multiple remaining charges of possession or viewing of a matter depicting a sexual performance by a minor. Minch asserts that the jury could not fairly evaluate the evidence against him on the charges related to the bathtub images2 because of the overwhelming amount of

2 Originally, there were charges related to ten such images with J.M., but the Commonwealth moved to dismiss three charges. So seven were submitted to the jury.

evidence presented against him on the possession-of-child-pornography counts. He argues that the trial court erred in not severing the bathtub-image counts for separate trial. We disagree.

Minch was indicted on charges arising from two different sets of images.

One set was of images Minch took using his cell phone camera while he and J.M. were naked in the bathtub. The other set of images included those tracked on the internet by investigators as child pornography. While there were seven separate counts submitted to the jury relative to seven bathtub images, those images were all essentially the same shot taken seconds apart. The pictures displayed Minch, with his face not shown, in the bathtub with J.M. Both Minch and J.M are naked, and J.M is lying vertically, face up across her father’s genitals. These photos were taken shortly before accompanying text messages that place these pictures in context of a text-message exchange between Minch and his wife. The text messages include Minch’s wife informing him she will be home soon. Minch’s response to his wife’s text was the photo of him and J.M.—the photo for which he was indicted for sexual exploitation. The wife then asked via text if J.M. had been fed, and Minch responded with another image that showed his face along with J.M in the foreground taking a bottle. The text messages were read to the jury as follows:

J.M’s Mother: About to leave work Minch: Hurry, you can join us in the tub [Minch attaches picture of J.M. lying on top of him in the bathtub].

Minch: She has fun J.M.’s Mother: haha when was the last time she ate?

Minch: Idk you tell me. [Minch sends picture of J.M. holding a baby bottle still in the bathtub].

J.M.’s Mother: lol wtf?

Minch: Hey she’s happy AF. Don’t question it.

J.M.’s Mother: I’m leaving work.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Walter Elliott Haggerty v. Kentucky Bar Association, (Ky. 2021).

Walter Elliott Haggerty v. Kentucky Bar Association (Walter Elliott Haggerty v. Kentucky Bar Association) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Metcalf v. Commonwealth
158 S.W.3d 740 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2005)
Williams v. Commonwealth
178 S.W.3d 491 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2005)
Cohron v. Commonwealth
306 S.W.3d 489 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2010)
Fleming v. Commonwealth
144 S.W.2d 220 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976), 1940)
Southworth v. Commonwealth
435 S.W.3d 32 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2014)
Whaley v. Commonwealth
567 S.W.3d 576 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2019)