# Bills v. Commonwealth

> Kentucky Supreme Court · March 18, 1993 · 851 S.W.2d 466

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9635993

## Case

- **Full name:** Randall BILLS, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 18, 1993
- **Citations:** 851 S.W.2d 466; 1993 Ky. LEXIS 60; 1993 WL 75971
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Lambert
- **Judges:** Wintersheimer, Stephens, Reynolds, Spain, Lambert, Leibson, Combs
- **Cited by:** 45 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/9635993

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a trial court properly denied a directed verdict in a case involving both sodomy and sexual abuse because "[i]t was within the province of the jury to determine by method of reasonable inference whether the situation described here amounted to sexual contact.... T…
- explaining that, in most circumstances, the sexual organs would be considered an “intimate part,” even if touched over the clothes of the victim, and that the leg would also be considered to be an “intimate part” of the body, assuming the other two factors are satisfied

## Opinion text

LAMBERT, Justice,
concurring.
I wrote a dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Lundergan, Ky., 847 S.W.2d 729 (rendered February 18, 1993), and concluded that the “rule of lenity” was without any application. I have reached a similar conclusion in this case and for that and other reasons, have joined the majority opinion and declined to join Justice Leib-son’s dissenting opinion.
Despite the foregoing, I agree with Justice Leibson that this Court has engaged in an inconsistent application of the rule of lenity. The logical underpinning for the opinions in Lundergan are as applicable here as there, but the result is different. While the cases differ in that one involved a political crime while the other was a *474 vicious sex crime, the rule of law should be the same.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9635993. Public record. Not legal advice.