# Commonwealth v. Burge

> Kentucky Supreme Court · June 19, 1997 · 947 S.W.2d 805

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9769791

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant, v. Roger Keith BURGE, Appellee; And Gary E. HERRIFORD, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee; And COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant, v. Kenny EFFINGER, Appellee
- **Court:** Kentucky Supreme Court
- **Decided:** June 19, 1997
- **Citations:** 947 S.W.2d 805; 1997 WL 346711
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Lambert
- **Judges:** Stephens, Baker, Graves, Lambert, Wintersheimer, Stumbo, King, Cooper, Johnstone
- **Cited by:** 172 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/9769791

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating “double jeopardy violations can be addressed as palpable error because the nature of such errors is to create manifest injustice[]”

## Opinion text

LAMBERT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with most of what Justice Stumbo has said in her dissenting opinion. In particular, I concur with her view that the majority opinion herein is insufficiently deferential to stare decisis and far too ready to overrule settled precedent.
In my view, existing law prior to the majority opinion was not incompatible with a determination that no double jeopardy bar exists in these cases. I concurred with the original majority opinion and my view of the result has not changed. What has changed is the substance of the majority opinion with the introduction of an inflexibility into our law which will produce inappropriate multiple charges and multiple punishments. Our decisions in Ingram v. Commonwealth, Ky., 801 S.W.2d 321 (1990), and Walden v. Commonwealth, Ky., 805 S.W.2d 102 (1991), amounted to a Kentucky gloss, by means of Section 13 of our Constitution, upon the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We were entirely within our rights to so interpret the Constitution of Kentucky (Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714 , 95 S.Ct. 1215 , 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975)), and inasmuch as it has been so interpreted, should be, for a time, let alone.
The majority opinion does not reveal some heretofore unrecognized theory of double jeopardy analysis nor does it identify any untoward results arising out of the current state of the law. We should remember that judges, lawyers and the people of Kentucky must live with the decisions we make and refrain from changing the law for less than compelling reasons.
For the reasons stated herein, I concur only in result.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9769791. Public record. Not legal advice.