# Sanders v. Commonwealth

> Kentucky Supreme Court · September 27, 1990 · 801 S.W.2d 665

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9662855

## Case

- **Full name:** David Lee SANDERS, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** September 27, 1990
- **Citations:** 801 S.W.2d 665; 1990 Ky. LEXIS 93; 1990 WL 139438
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Leibson
- **Judges:** Combs, Stephens, Gant, Lambert, Vance, Wintersheimer, Leibson
- **Cited by:** 92 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/9662855

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that defense questioning on cross-examination can open the door to certain redirect examination

## Opinion text

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
Respectfully, I concur in results only.
First, there were jurors who should have been excused for cause, but were not.
Second, the evidence of a similar offense in Lincoln County may well have been admissible in rebuttal as bearing on the insanity defense, People v. Santarelli, 49 N.Y.2d 241 , 425 N.Y.S.2d 77 , 401 N.E.2d 199 (1980), but it should not have been admitted during the Commonwealth’s casein-chief, because at that stage the highly inflammatory nature of the evidence far outweighed any probative evidentiary value.
Third, a jury should be instructed on the difference between a guilty but mentally ill and not guilty by reason of insanity ver-diet, because otherwise the difference is obscure and the instructions may be misleading. Mitchell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 781 S.W.2d 510 (1990), Leibson, J., dissenting. Here the defense did not specifically object to the instruction given at trial, so the issue may fail as a matter of trial tactics.
I concur in results with the Majority Opinion because this was not a close case. These errors were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt when considered in context and in light of the overwhelming evidence of premeditated, multiple murder.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9662855. Public record. Not legal advice.