Opinion

Springer v. Commonwealth

  • 998 S.W.2d 439
  • 1999 WL 236406
Court
Kentucky Supreme Court
Filed
May 3, 1999
Status
Published
Author
Graves
On the bench
Graves, Stumbo, Wintersheimer, Cooper, Johnstone
Cited by
153 cases
Authority
More cited than 7.3%

finding defendant not entitled to protection-of- another instruction where “[u]nder the actually existing facts, there was no need to kill [victim] in order to protect [third person] from ‘imminent death, serious physical injury . . . or [forcible] sexual intercourse’ at his hands”

How later courts described this case

  • finding defendant not entitled to protection-of- another instruction where “[u]nder the actually existing facts, there was no need to kill [victim] in order to protect [third person] from ‘imminent death, serious physical injury . . . or [forcible] sexual intercourse’ at his hands”
  • finding that confession was not involuntary despite police ruse, in which police falsely used videotape to convince woman accused of murdering her husband that her calls had been monitored
  • explaining that “[a] new theory of error cannot be raised for the first time on appeal”
  • stating “[a] new theory of error cannot be raised for the first time on appeal[]”

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

GRAVES, Justice,

dissenting.

Respectfully, I must dissent from so much of the opinion that finds reversible error in the allocation of peremptory challenges. The majority opinion holds that the appellants were jointly entitled to 13 peremptory challenges. The trial court’s interpretation of the rules so as to allow 11 peremptory challenges is reasonable. Under the facts of this case, I would apply a harmless error analysis and affirm the judgment of the trial court. Therefore, I would modify the inflexible holding in Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cook, Ky., 590 S.W.2d 875 (1979).

LAMBERT, C.J, and WINTERSHEIMER, J., join in this dissent.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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