# Stringer v. Commonwealth

> Kentucky Supreme Court · November 20, 1997 · 956 S.W.2d 883

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5093951

## Case

- **Full name:** William F. STRINGER v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** November 20, 1997
- **Citations:** 956 S.W.2d 883; 1997 Ky. LEXIS 149; 1997 WL 721710
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stephens
- **Judges:** Cooper, Graves, Johnstone, Joining, Lambert, Only, Stephens, Stumbo, That, Wintersheimer
- **Cited by:** 119 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5093951

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding “If [the witness] had testified that he believed Appellant to be guilty, such would have been an opinion as to the ultimate issue. However, an opinion that a result is consistent with a factual scenario is not an opinion that the scenario occurred.”
- holding “[o]ur failure to adopt proposed KRE 704 simply left the ‘ultimate issue’ unaddressed in the Kentucky Rules of Evidence and, therefore, subject to common law interpretation by proper application of the rules pertaining to relevancy, KRE 401, and expert testimony, KRE 7…
- noting that “[t]he real question should not be whether the expert has rendered an opinion as to the ultimate issue, but whether the opinion ‘will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue’ ”
- holding the common law rule was not the “common sense view” and “the inherent inconsistency in our decisions” applying the common law justified reading KRE 401 and 702 as departing from it.

## Opinion text

STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
concurring.
Recognizing the law of the Commonwealth, I concur in the result reached by the majority. However, I renew my constitutional objection to KRS 421.350, as stated in my dissent in Commonwealth v. Willis, Ky., 716 S.W.2d 224, 234 (1986).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5093951. Public record. Not legal advice.