HERBERT DUGGER v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
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RENDERED: July 17, 1998; 10:00 a.m.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
C ommonwealth O f K entucky
C ourt O f A ppeals
NO. 96-CA-2669-MR
HERBERT DUGGER
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM PULASKI CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE WILLIAM T. CAIN, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 95-CR-0109
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION AFFIRMING IN PART,
VACATING IN PART, and REMANDING
* * * * * * *
BEFORE:
GUDGEL, Chief Judge, ABRAMSON, and GUIDUGLI, Judges.
ABRAMSON, JUDGE:
Herbert Dugger appeals from a September 22,
1996, judgment of Pulaski Circuit Court convicting him, in accord
with a jury verdict, of manslaughter in the second degree (KRS
507.040) and sentencing him to ten years in prison.
Dugger was
accused of murder for having fatally shot Joseph Bryant.
Dugger
presented a justification defense and now claims that he was
unfairly tried because (1) potential jurors were improperly
dismissed from the venire, (2) the trial court made incorrect
evidentiary rulings and (3) the trial court failed to direct a
verdict in his favor.
Dugger also claims that he was unlawfully
denied an opportunity for probation.
Having concluded that
Dugger was fairly tried, we affirm the portion of the judgment
convicting him of manslaughter in the second degree.
We are
persuaded, however, that Dugger was eligible to be considered for
probation and, accordingly, vacate his sentence and remand for
re-sentencing after due consideration of that option.
In September 1995, the Pulaski Grand Jury charged
Dugger with murder in the April 25, 1995 shooting death of Joseph
Bryant.
Dugger was then 17 years old and was living in Somerset,
Kentucky with his mother, Betty Dugger.
At trial both sides
acknowledged that Dugger shot Bryant at Betty Dugger's home
during an altercation that involved Dugger, his mother, Bryant,
and Bryant's girlfriend, Tracy Proffitt.
The two sides also
agreed that the altercation arose from a dispute over money which
Bryant and Proffitt claimed Dugger owed them.
agreement on any other aspect of the incident.
There was little
Because an
understanding of the parties' specific testimony is necessary to
resolution of the issues presented, we must review the testimony
in some detail.
Proffitt testified that on April 23, two days before
the shooting, Bryant had loaned Dugger $40 and that on the night
of April 24 or early in the morning of April 25 and again in the
afternoon of April 25 she and Bryant had seen Dugger and demanded
that he repay the loan.
She further testified that between 5:00
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and 6:00 pm on April 25 she had returned a phone call from Dugger
who told her to come pick-up the money at his house.
Proffitt claimed that she and Bryant went immediately
to the Duggers' residence where, soon after Betty Dugger invited
them inside, Mrs. Dugger accused them of having beaten Dugger the
night before.
According to Proffitt, Betty Dugger proceeded to
attack Proffitt physically, calling out to her son for help as
she did so.
According to Proffitt, when Dugger entered the room
in response to Mrs. Dugger's call, he was armed with a shotgun
which he pointed at Bryant.
Proffitt testified that she managed
to extricate herself from Mrs. Dugger and that she and Bryant,
trying to escape through the kitchen, had passed from the living
room into the kitchen, almost to the door, when Dugger shot
Bryant in the back.
Bryant fell, pulling Proffitt down with him.
When they regained their feet Bryant was facing Dugger, who shot
him a second time in the abdomen.
Bryant fell again, but
Proffitt helped him to his feet and out of the house to a
neighbor's yard, where he collapsed and remained until an
ambulance arrived.
Two police officers testified, the officer who examined
the scene, Detective Vito, and the officer ultimately in charge
of the investigation, Officer Jones.
Detective Vito testified
that he found virtually all of the evidence of the shooting in or
near the kitchen.
The evidence included shotgun wadding, two
spent shells, an unspent shell, and blood.
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He found the unspent
shell in the living room, where he also found an empty styrofoam
cup.
He found two spent shells in the hallway between the living
room and the kitchen, wadding in the same hallway and in the
kitchen, and several areas of blood in the kitchen.
He found no
blood spots or any other sign of a shotgun blast in the living
room.
Detective Vito also testified that he examined the caller
identification device attached to the Duggers' phone and found
Tracy Proffitt's phone number recorded therein.
Officer Jones
testified by avowal concerning the investigation into Bryant's
background.
The medical examiner confirmed that Bryant had been
shot once in the back and once in the abdomen, but he could not
determine which injury had occurred first.
He testified that
either shot could have caused Bryant's death.
The Commonwealth also called Betty Dugger.
She
testified that on April 25 when Bryant and Proffitt had appeared
at her door, she had been surprised to see them because of an
incident between them and Dugger the night before.
Before she
could elaborate about the alleged incident, she was asked instead
to describe the shooting.
She testified that she had invited
Proffitt and Bryant into her living room, and Proffitt had told
her that she had given Herbert some marijuana and wanted either
Herbert or Mrs. Dugger to pay for it.
Mrs. Dugger refused to
pay, and when she threatened to call the police, Proffitt threw
soda pop in her face and attacked her.
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Mrs. Dugger claimed that
she called for Dugger.
She also struggled against Proffitt, but
as soon as she began to get the better of Proffitt, Bryant joined
the attack.
He pulled her hair, hit her in the back of the head,
and threatened her with a pistol.
While that was happening, Dugger came into the room
with the shotgun.
He told Bryant to get away from Mrs. Dugger,
and, when Bryant did not do so, Dugger shot him.
The shot
knocked Bryant down, but he immediately got back up, pulled a
knife from his pocket, and advanced on Dugger, swearing to kill
him.
Dugger then shot him again.
This shot stunned Bryant, but
Proffitt reached him before he fell and helped him to the kitchen
where he fell on the table.
Proffitt helped him to stand, and
the two of them managed to leave the house.
Mrs. Dugger also
testified, over objection, that Dugger was 17 years old when he
shot Bryant and was not enrolled in school.
Dugger was the lone witness for the defense.
He
testified that he had become acquainted with Proffitt, who was in
her thirties, more than a year before the shooting and that his
relationship with her had been cordial.
She had helped his
family when their home was damaged by a fire, and she also
regularly made him welcome at her home, where, Dugger claimed, he
had often obtained illegal drugs.
About a month before the
shooting, Proffitt and Bryant had begun to live together.
had encountered Bryant at Proffitt's house and had been
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Dugger
frightened by Bryant's threatening manner and by his sinister tattoos.
Two days before the shooting, Proffitt, in the course
of house cleaning, had found a small bag of marijuana.
She gave
this marijuana to Dugger, which he believed was a gift.
The next
night, however, when Dugger and a friend stopped by Proffitt's
house, Bryant angrily told Dugger that the marijuana had been his
and that he wanted $40 for it.
When Dugger explained that he
could not pay and tried to leave, Proffitt and Bryant detained
him and his friend.
They beat him, Dugger claimed, and
threatened to cut off his fingers.
ran all the way home.
Dugger eventually escaped and
He told his mother that Bryant and
Proffitt were after him and armed himself with the shotgun his
mother kept for protection.
Mrs. Dugger took the gun from him
and called the police, who, apparently, checked for Dugger's
friend at Proffitt's house, but found nothing amiss.
Mrs. Dugger
also took her son to the hospital where he was examined, both
physically and mentally, and released.
The next day, Dugger testified, he had gone in the
early afternoon to a pool hall in hopes of meeting up with his
friend of the previous night.
He was waiting outside the
building when Proffitt and Bryant drove up.
the car and came after him.
Bryant leapt from
Dugger fled to a store nearby where
he met a policeman who gave him a ride home.
There, Dugger
admitted, he found Proffitt's phone number recorded on his
phone's caller identification device.
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He called that number, he
claimed, and spoke to one of Proffitt's roommates.
He denied
having spoken to Proffitt on the phone that afternoon and denied
having told her to come to his house for the money.
He was in the basement later that day repairing a
window, he said, when he heard his mother calling for help.
When
he arrived upstairs he saw Proffitt and Bryant in the living room
beating her.
He immediately retrieved and loaded the shotgun,
went to the living room, told them to get away from his mother,
and shot Bryant.
Dugger could not remember where he shot Bryant,
but the shot seemed only to stun him momentarily.
It knocked him
back a step or two, but then Bryant swore and, wielding what
Dugger believed was a knife, came at him.
Dugger reloaded the
single-shot gun as fast as he could and shot again.
sure what had happened next.
He was not
He remembered trying to find the
phone to call for help, and he remembered Bryant lying in the
kitchen.
He claimed that Proffitt removed something from
Bryant's pocket, left the house, then returned to help Bryant out
the door.
Dugger complains that the trial court failed to enter
its reasons for excusing several members of the jury panel, as
required by KRS 29A.100, and thus presumptively deprived him of a
properly constituted jury.
He preserved this error by moving,
just prior to voir dire, to dismiss the allegedly tainted panel.
KRS Chapter 29A provides for the selection of grand and
petit juries.
Section 29A.080 invests the chief circuit judge
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with discretion to determine which potential jurors are
disqualified from service, and section 29A.100 authorizes the
chief circuit judge (or, if appropriate, the trial judge) to
excuse jurors "upon a showing of undue hardship, extreme
inconvenience or public necessity."
KRS 29A.100 further provides
that "[w]hen excusing a juror, the judge shall record the juror's
name, as provided in KRS 29A.080, and his reasons for granting
the excuse."
To ensure compliance with these and the other jury
selection provisions of KRS Chapter 29A, our Supreme Court has
held that, assuming proper preservation, a judge's substantial
deviation from the statutory requirements is presumptively
prejudicial and necessitates reversal.
Minor errors in jury
selection, on the other hand, are reversible only upon a showing
of actual prejudice.
Commonwealth v. Nelson, Ky., 841 S.W.2d 628
(1992); Robertson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 597 S.W.2d 864 (1980).
In Nelson, supra, a substantial deviation from the
mandated procedure was found where the chief circuit judge
improperly delegated the exercise of discretion to non-judges,
and in Robertson, supra, a jury selection procedure significantly
at odds with the requirements of KRS 29A.060 and RCr 930(1)(a)
was deemed to require reversal even absent a showing of
prejudice.
In Smith v. Commonwealth, Ky., 734 S.W.2d 437 (1987),
however, a judge's minimal noncompliance with the notation
requirement in KRS 29A.100 (the same deficiency alleged here) was
held not to be a substantial deviation from the jury selection
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rules.
The Court noted that proper explanations had been
recorded next to the names of most of the excused jurors and that
no juror had been shown to have been improperly excused.
In light of these precedents, we are not persuaded that
Dugger is entitled to relief on this ground.
Dugger complains
that of ten potential jurors excused (out of 67), the trial court
provided explanations for only three.
It appears from the
record, however, that two of the jurors apparently excused
without explanation did, in fact, participate in voir dire.
The
remaining five jurors excused without explanation were excused,
according to the court's notation, only during August of the
July-September term.
The record does not suggest, and Dugger has
not shown, that any of these temporary dismissals was improper.
Although it would have been better practice for the trial judge
to have explained these absences, his failure to do so was not so
egregious an abuse of discretion as to justify reversal absent a
showing of prejudice, and Dugger has shown none.
In particular
he has not shown that any significant group was
disproportionately excluded from the jury panel or from his jury.
His reliance on authority prohibiting invidious discrimination in
jury selection, therefore, is not apt.
Dugger also complains about three of the trial court's
evidentiary rulings.
The court erred, he maintains, by excluding
evidence of the victim's criminal history, by permitting hearsay
testimony concerning a phone call the victim's girlfriend
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allegedly made to Dugger, and by permitting the Commonwealth to
elicit irrelevant testimony that characterized Dugger unfairly.
During cross-examination of Officer Jones (ostensibly
to show that the investigation of this matter had not been
thorough), Dugger sought to question him concerning the police
inquiry into Joe Bryant's criminal record.
The trial court
permitted Dugger to ask if such an inquiry had been made, but did
not allow the introduction of any of the details of Bryant's
history.
That history, introduced by avowal, consisted of
several felony charges and convictions, including convictions for
a drug offense and for assault.
Dugger claims that his trial was
rendered unfair by the exclusion of this evidence of Bryant's
criminal record.
Ordinarily in self-defense cases, evidence of specific
acts or conduct is not admissible to show the violent character
of the deceased.
Thompson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 652 S.W.2d 78
(1983) (overruled on other grounds in Shannon v. Commonwealth,
Ky., 767 S.W.2d 548 (1988)); Parrish v. Commonwealth, Ky., 581
S.W.2d 560 (1979), U.S. cert. denied at 444 U.S. 966, 100 S. Ct.
454, 62 L. Ed. 2d 378 (1979).
If the defendant claiming self-
defense was aware of the decedent's reputation for violence,
however, or knew of specific violent acts by the decedent, such
evidence may be admissible to show the defendant's fear of the
victim at the time of the incident.
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Wilson v. Commonwealth, Ky.
App., 880 S.W.2d 877 (1994) (citing Robert G. Lawson, The
Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook (3rd ed. 1993).
Apparently Bryant's record includes at least one
assault conviction and charges or convictions for other offenses
that may be characterized as violent.
Dugger, however, has not
claimed to have known of those offenses at the time of the
shooting, a necessary condition for the admissibility of that
evidence.
The trial court did not err, therefore, by deeming the
details of Bryant's criminal history inadmissible as evidence
relevant to Dugger's fear of Bryant or of his need for selfdefense.
Additionally, Dugger claims that the evidence of
Bryant's criminal past was admissible, not to bolster his
defense, but to rebut the Commonwealth's case by showing the
police investigators' lack of diligence.
If we understand
Dugger's argument, he claims that if the jury had been made aware
of the investigators' dilatoriness in obtaining Bryant's criminal
record, it is likewise apt to have attributed the failure to
locate the weapons Bryant allegedly wielded during the
confrontation with Dugger, as well as other evidence, to the
investigators' lack of thoroughness instead of, perhaps, to
Dugger's lack of credibility.
Dugger notes in this regard that
broad scope has been accorded a defendant's right to impeach the
witnesses against him.
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KRE 404(b) provides for the admission of evidence of a
person's crimes or wrongs if offered, not to show action in
conformity with a criminal or malicious disposition, but "for
some other purpose. . . ."
As Dugger notes, evidence of prior
crimes, inadmissible for other purposes is sometimes admissible
for impeachment.
Admissibility under KRE 404, however, is
subject to the general rule that relevant evidence "may be
excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by
the danger of undue prejudice, confusion of the issues, or
misleading the jury . . ."
938 S.W.2d 243 (1996).
KRE 403; Haight v. Commonwealth, Ky.,
These determinations are assigned to the
discretion of the trial judge and may be reversed on appeal only
for an abuse thereof.
Brock v. Commonwealth, Ky., 947 S.W.2d 24
(1997).
We are not persuaded that the trial court abused its
discretion here.
The relevance of Bryant's criminal history to
the thoroughness of the police investigation is slight.
Although
Dugger claimed that Bryant was armed, that Tracy Proffitt
concealed that evidence, and that the police did not try
seriously to find it, he has not suggested that the information
in Bryant's criminal record is apt to have led to the discovery
of the "missing" evidence or would otherwise have borne directly
on the facts of this case.
Nor was that evidence necessary for
Dugger to substantiate his claim of a lax investigation.
investigation was truly lax, other evidence was available.
If the
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Dugger was permitted to show for example, that the police did not
inquire about Bryant's record until they were ordered to do so.
Also, in response to a question by Dugger's counsel, Tracy
Proffitt testified that the police did not search her following
the shooting.
Dugger was free to ask what steps the
investigators took and why they did not take others.
fair opportunity to present this issue to the jury.
He had a
This line of
inquiry would have been so marginally advanced by the admission
of Bryant's criminal record, however, that the probative value of
that evidence was substantially outweighed by the clear risk of
undue prejudice to the Commonwealth.
The trial court did not err
by so ruling.
Dugger further claims that the trial court erred by
admitting into evidence hearsay evidence concerning an alleged
phone call from Tracey Proffitt to Dugger.
Proffitt testified
that on the day of the shooting, not long before it occurred, she
and Bryant had gone out to a restaurant.
They had encountered
Dugger on their way, she said, and had repeated their demand that
he pay them for the marijuana.
When she and Bryant returned to
Proffitt's house, one of Proffitt's roommates told her that
Dugger had telephoned.
Proffitt claimed to have returned
Dugger's call by using a phone company service, "star 69," which
recalls the phone number of the last caller to a phone.
When she
placed a call to the number so provided that evening, she said,
Dugger answered and told her that if she wanted the money she
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would have to come to his house to get it.
Dugger, who denied
having talked to Proffitt on the phone and telling her to come to
his house, maintains that Proffitt's references to the
housemate's message and to the automated phone service were
hearsay that should not have been admitted.
Additionally, one of the investigating officers,
Detective Vito, testified that in response to information he had
received from Proffitt he had checked the "caller identification"
device attached to Dugger's phone.
"Caller ID," another phone
company service, displays for the recipient of a phone call the
phone number from which the call is coming and also records that
number.
Officer Vito said that the Duggers' caller ID device had
recorded Tracy Proffitt's phone number, indicating that there had
in fact been a call from Proffitt's phone to the Duggers'.
Dugger claims that Detective Vito should not have been permitted
to testify concerning what Proffitt told him and that his
testimony about the caller ID device was tainted by the hearsay.
The alleged statement of Proffitt's roommate, as
alluded to by Proffitt, and Proffitt's alleged statement to
Detective Vito were hearsay as defined by KRE 801.
Those
statements were inadmissible, therefore, under KRE 802, unless
one of the many exceptions to that rule applied.
Detective Vito
did not report a particular statement by Proffitt, but said,
"based on information received from Tracy Proffitt, I checked the
Duggers' caller ID box."
The trial court apparently ruled that
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Detective Vito's reference to what Proffitt told him was
permissible to explain why he examined the Duggers' phone.
Our Supreme Court has held that where the taking of a
certain action by a police officer is an issue in the case,
"hearsay may be admissible to prove why the police acted in a
certain manner, but not to prove the facts given to the officer."
Gordon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 916 S.W.2d 176, 179 (1995).
Because
Detective Vito's examination of the Duggers' phone was not an
issue in this case, we are not persuaded that it provided a basis
for an exception to the hearsay rule.
There was no need for
Detective Vito to justify this examination, and he could easily
have introduced it without mentioning Proffitt.
Nevertheless, we
do not believe that Dugger is entitled to relief on this ground.
The error here, if any, was minimal and harmless.
The hearsay
was strictly circumscribed and did not directly implicate Dugger
in any criminal activity.
Proffitt herself testified to the same
effect, moreover, and was subject to cross-examination.
RCr
9.24, the harmless error rule, precludes relief in these
circumstances.
Allgeier v. Commonwealth, Ky., 915 S.W.2d 745
(1996).
For the same reason, Dugger is not entitled to relief
because of Proffitt's scant reference to her roommate.
Dugger
admitted having phoned Proffitt's residence and having spoken
with her roommate on the day of the shooting.
Proffitt's hearsay
testimony merely indicated that her roommate let her know of
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Dugger's call; it did not characterize Dugger in any way, include
the roommate's actual comments, or suggest what Dugger had said.
While it is true that the roommate did not testify, Dugger has
not claimed that she was unavailable.
Even if the trial court
erred by admitting Proffitt's reference to her roommate,
therefore, the error was harmless.
RCr 9.24.
Finally, we are not persuaded that Proffitt's
description of the "star 69" system implicated the hearsay rules,
but even if it did, and even if there is a foundational
prerequisite for such evidence which the Commonwealth failed to
satisfy, Dugger did not adequately preserve the error by
objecting specifically on those grounds.
Tucker v. Commonwealth,
Ky., 916 S.W.2d 181 (1996); Bell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 473 S.W.2d
820 (1971).
Furthermore, Dugger's admission that he had phoned
Proffitt's residence that day rendered Proffitt's testimony
concerning the "star 69" system cumulative and harmless.
RCr
9.24.
Dugger next claims that the trial court erred by
permitting the Commonwealth to question Dugger's mother
concerning the fact that Dugger had left school at age 16.
Dugger contends that this testimony was irrelevant and
prejudicial in that it tended to characterize him unfavorably.
Dugger correctly insists that irrelevant evidence is
inadmissible and that even relevant evidence should be excluded
if it is unduly prejudicial.
KRE 401-403.
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Even though its
relevance may be tenuous, however, a limited amount of background
evidence is permissible to enable the jury to understand the
context and the nature of the alleged crime.
Commonwealth, Ky., 788 S.W.2d 260 (1990).
Campbell v.
In assessing the
propriety of such evidence, the trial court must guard against
characterizations of either the victim or the defendant apt to
inflame or otherwise mislead the jury.
Commonwealth v. Johnson,
Ky., 777 S.W.2d 876 (1989); Sanborn v. Commonwealth, Ky., 754
S.W.2d 534 (1988).
Application of these rules is entrusted to
the discretion of the trial court.
809 S.W.2d 852 (1991).
Dunbar v. Commonwealth, Ky.,
We are not persuaded that the trial court
abused its discretion here.
Mrs. Dugger's testimony concerning Dugger's age and
school status was relevant as background evidence; it shed light
on the relationship between Dugger and his mother and helped to
provide a context for his interactions with Proffitt and Bryant.
The Commonwealth elicited this information during the early,
background phase of Mrs. Dugger's testimony without emphasizing
that Dugger had left or been removed from school.
Furthermore,
other evidence, uncontested, established Dugger's age and implied
that he was not attending school during the period of these
events.
We believe that Mrs. Dugger's testimony on these matters
was not so prejudicial as to require its exclusion.
Dugger claims that he was entitled to a directed
verdict of acquittal.
Our Supreme Court has noted that a
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defendant relying upon a self-protection defense will rarely be
entitled to that result:
Only in the unusual case in which the
evidence conclusively establishes
justification and all of the elements of
self-defense are present is it proper to
direct a verdict of not guilty. . . . [I]f
there is other evidence from which the jury
could reasonably conclude that some element
of self-defense is absent, a directed verdict
should not be given. While the Commonwealth
always bears the burden of proving every element
of the crime charged, a defendant relying upon
self-defense bears the risk that the jury will
not be persuaded of his version of the facts.
West v. Commonwealth, Ky., 780 S.W.2d 600, 601 (1989).
Dugger admitted that he shot Bryant twice, once, he
claimed, in defense of his mother and again when Bryant turned
his attack against him.
The evidence established that Bryant
died as a result of these gunshots.
The evidence contrary to
Dugger's version of the shooting included the testimony of Tracy
Proffitt, who denied that Bryant had been armed or had threatened
Dugger, and who claimed that Dugger had shot him as she and
Bryant were attempting to leave Dugger's house.
Other contrary
evidence was the fact that there was no evidence of the shooting-no blood spots and no signs of the shotgun blasts--in the room
where Dugger claimed the shooting occurred and the fact that the
weapons Bryant allegedly brandished were not discovered.
Finally, Dugger admitted that he had wanted to shoot Bryant the
previous night and that he was under the influence of marijuana
at the time of the shooting or had been shortly before.
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Dugger's
assertion notwithstanding, this countervailing evidence is
sufficient to support a reasonable belief that Dugger did not act
in self-defense and so justified the denial of his directed
verdict motions.
Commonwealth v. Benham, Ky., 816 S.W.2d 186
(1991).
Finally, Dugger claims that because he was a juvenile
at the time of the offense, it was palpable error for the trial
court not to consider him for probation.
The trial court ruled
that KRS 635.020(4) required that Dugger be treated as an adult
for all aspects of sentencing, and so applied the provision of
KRS 533.060 which disqualifies firearms offenders from
eligibility for probation to Dugger's case.
Our Supreme Court
has recently addressed this issue as follows:
KRS 635.020(4) does not create a new category
of adult offender that precludes children
transferred to circuit court pursuant to it
from eligibility for the ameliorative
provisions of KRS 640.040. Rather, . . .
that subsection(4) of KRS 635.020 was
designed merely to facilitate transfer of
juveniles accused of committing a felony with
a firearm to the circuit court by bypassing
the proof required under KRS 640.010.
Britt v. Commonwealth, Ky., 965 S.W.2d 147 (1998).
Among the
ameliorative provisions of KRS 640.040 is preservation, KRS
533.060 notwithstanding, of a youthful offender's right to be
considered for probation.
Britt renders the trial court's construction of KRS
635.020(4) palpably erroneous, but because Dugger did not
preserve this issue (in fact he concurred in the trial court's
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reading of the statute), we can address it only if the error has
resulted in a manifest injustice, one so serious that Dugger is
entitled to relief despite his failure to object.
We believe
that relief is necessary.
The General Assembly has provided for individualized
criminal sentencing.
In accord with this legislative intention,
our Supreme Court has held that the validity of a sentence
depends not only upon its not exceeding the range of authorized
penalties, but also upon the trial court's compliance with
sentencing procedure, such as having pre-sentence reports
prepared and considering, in most instances, an array of
sentencing alternatives.
KRS 532.050; KRS Chapter 533; KRS
640.040; RCr 11.02; Hughes v. Commonwealth, Ky., 875 S.W.2d 99
(1994); Edmonson v. Commonwealth, Ky., 725 S.W.2d 595 (1987);
Wellman v. Commonwealth, Ky., 694 S.W.2d 696 (1985).
Because
Dugger was improperly denied an opportunity to be considered for
probation, his sentence is invalid and must be reassessed.
We do
not believe that Dugger's good-faith interpretation of KRS
635.020(4) before the trial court precludes this result.
Contrary to the Commonwealth's assertions, Dugger's trial
counsel's agreement with the trial court that Dugger did not have
a right to be considered for probation was not a strategic
maneuver which he now would disavow, nor was it a typical waiver,
which is the voluntary relinquishment of a known right.
Rather,
it was an instance of dealing candidly with the trial court, as
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required by our Supreme Court Rules (SCR 3.1, 3.3), and should
not be needlessly penalized.
For these reasons we affirm the September 22, 1996
judgment of Pulaski Circuit Court as to Dugger's conviction, but
vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing in accord with
this opinion.
ALL CONCUR.
-21-
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:
Michael M. Losavio
Appellate Public Advocate
Louisville, Kentucky
A. B. Chandler, III
Attorney General
Paul D. Gilbert
Asst. Attorney General
Frankfort, Kentucky
-22-
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