Kentucky v. Rank
Annotate this CaseThe Commonwealth appealed a Court of Appeals judgment remanding this case back to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on Appellee Douglas Rank's RCr 11.42 motion. Rank pled guilty to and was subsequently convicted of first degree assault for which he was serving a fifteen-year prison sentence when he moved pursuant to RCr 11.42 to vacate his conviction. Rank's motion included a request for an evidentiary hearing to establish that his guilty plea was not made knowingly, intelligently and voluntary and was, instead, the result of ineffective assistance of his trial counsel, Robert Gettys, and to lesser degree, attorney Pat Hickey. The circuit court denied Rank's motion without an evidentiary hearing. The Court of Appeals concluded that he had raised issues of fact that required an evidentiary hearing and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing. After review, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the Court of Appeals' judgment and affirmed.
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