NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant, Latarra Martin, lived with her four children in an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. Her apartment was located across the hall from Jeff Wilburn's. Wilburn was a maintenance man for the apartment complex. On March 11, 2009, she knocked on his door and told him that her toilet and bathtub had dirt in them and asked that he fix them. Wilburn then went across the hall to Appellant's apartment where she shot and killed him. When...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant, Joseph Long, appeals as a matter of right, Ky. Const. 110, from a judgment entered by the Kenton Circuit Court convicting him of incest, third-degree rape, and third-degree sodomy, and sentencing him to a total of twenty years' imprisonment. In this appeal, Appellant raises the following claims of error: (1) that the trial court erred by permitting the victim's father to testify about the number of text messages the victim had...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT A Wayne Circuit Court jury found Appellant, Hope Renee White, guilty of murder, for which she received a thirty-year prison sentence. She now appeals as a matter of right, Ky. Const. 110(2)(b), alleging that the trial court erred to her substantial prejudice by denying her tendered instructions, by inhibiting her from questioning a witness with respect to specific instances of untruthfulness on the part of a prosecution witness, and by...
Opinion of the Court by Justice ABRAMSON. In 2006, Appellant James Miller was convicted of possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and being a persistent felony offender in the first degree (PFO I), for which he received a twenty-year prison sentence. Finding error on appeal, this Court remanded the case for a new penalty phase wherein the jury again sentenced Miller to twenty years in prison. Appealing to this Court as a matter of right, Miller claims (1) the Commonwealth...
Opinion of the Court by Justice SCOTT. A Lawrence Circuit Court jury found Appellant, Rachel Blackburn, guilty with respect to two counts of first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance. The jury also found her to be a second-degree persistent felony offender (PFO). For these crimes, Appellant received a forty-year prison sentence. She now appeals as a matter of right, Ky. Const. 110(2)(b), alleging that the trial court erred by failing to impanel a new jury and by entering an illegal...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant David Hoff was convicted by a Christian County jury of three counts of first-degree rape of Angela Green. Appellant now challenges his convictions, alleging multiple errors. Finding no error, this Court affirms. I. Background Appellant began living with Marilyn Benedict in 1984. Benedict had one daughter from a previous relationship, Angela Green, who was twelve years old in 1984 but was an adult when the charged crimes occurred....
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Brock Ramey appeals as of right from a Judgment of the Calloway Circuit Court convicting him of murder, in violation of Kentucky Revised Statute (KRS) 507.020, and sentencing him to life in prison. Ramey was also convicted of first-degree burglary (KRS 511.020), first-degree assault (KRS 508.010), second-degree assault (KRS 508.020), first-degree wanton endangerment (KRS 508.060), and tampering with physical evidence (KRS 524.100). For these...
Opinion of the Court by Justice VENTERS. When Appellant, Thomas E. Jones Jr., pled guilty to third-degree rape and other charges, the trial court imposed a twenty-year prison sentence and ordered him to pay $288,000.00 in restitution, $175.00 in court costs, and a jail fee of $5,126,00. While he does not deny his guilt and he does not challenge the conviction or the prison sentence imposed for his crimes, he appeals to this Court as a matter of right under Ky. Const. 110(2)(b) to challenge...
Opinion of the Court by Justice ABRAMSON. Larrell Porter pled guilty to three counts of trafficking in a controlled substance in the first degree, second or subsequent offense; being a persistent felony offender in the second degree; and two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia. This plea, which resulted in a twenty-year prison sentence, was pursuant to the second plea deal offered by the Commonwealth, the first of which Porter rejected when he refused to comply with a condition attached...
Opinion of the Court by Justice NOBLE. Appellant David Hoff was convicted by a Christian County jury of eight counts of first-degree rape and eight counts of incest. Appellant was given a life sentence. Because of the extensive use of inadmissible hearsay and the impermissible bolstering of the victim's testimony, this Court reverses the convictions and remands for a new trial. I. BACKGROUND This case arose when B.H., who was then twelve years old, reported that Appellant, her father, had...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant, Dominique Nathaniel Sanford, appeals from a judgment entered by the Fayette Circuit Court pursuant to an unconditional 1 guilty plea convicting him of one count of first-degree robbery and one count of seconddegree robbery, and sentencing him to a total of twenty years' imprisonment. He appeals as a matter of right. Ky. Const. 110. As grounds for relief Sanford claims that the twenty-year sentence, including twelve years of...
OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE NOBLE AFFIRMING IN PART, REVERSING IN PART, AND REMANDING This case arises from a post-conviction petition for DNA testing related to the 1979 robbery, kidnapping, and murder of Virgil Harris in Louisville, Kentucky. Appellant, Brian Keith Moore, was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death. This Court overturned the initial conviction and remanded for a new trial. See Moore v. Commonwealth, 634 S.W.2d 426 (Ky. 1982). On retrial, Appellant was again...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant Bradley Dale Day was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the death of Sheila Hargrove and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. On appeal, he alleges numerous errors, including that the trial court should have granted a mistrial because of the Commonwealth's failure to disclose a witness's inconsistent statements, which undercut his ability to prepare a defense. Because this Court finds that the Commonwealth's failure to...
MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Jeffrey Allen was convicted of wanton murder in 2006, stemming from the death of his two-year-old foster child, Dakota. This Court reversed that conviction due to the erroneous and prejudicial introduction of recorded nonemergency 911 phone calls. See Allen v. Commonwealth, No. 2006-SC-000407-MR, 2008 WL 2484952 (Ky. June 16, 2008). Allen was retried and again convicted of wanton murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. He now appeals as a matter of right....
Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice MINTON. Doctors' Associates, Inc., (DAI) owns the "Subway" trademark and franchises the right to operate Subway sandwich shops worldwide. In workers' compensation proceedings in Kentucky, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed the Uninsured Employers' Fund's (UEF) claim against DAI for benefits paid to an employee of an uninsured DAI franchisee located in Kentucky. The ALJ ruled that Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 342.610(2) does not encompass a...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT A Warren Circuit Court jury found Appellant, Randall Creek, guilty of murder, for which he received a sentence of life imprisonment. He now appeals as a matter of right, Ky. Const. 110(2)(b), alleging that the trial court erred by denying his tendered instructions, by allowing an unqualified juror to deliberate in his case, and by denying his motion for change of venue. On November 19, 2009, a Warren County grand jury indicted Appellant...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant Randall James Hickey appeals as a matter of right from a conviction of arson in the first degree. Concluding no reversible error occurred, we affirm. Appellant was an employee of Meijer, a large retail and grocery store. He and his wife were expecting their first child together. This was a difficult pregnancy and Appellant had to request off work in order to take his expectant wife to the hospital on a number of occasions....
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT Appellant Kent R. Mason appeals as a matter of right from a judgment finding him guilty of first-degree burglary, fourth-degree assault, and being a first-degree persistent felony offender (PFO I). Finding no reversible error, we affirm. Appellant and Leticia Broadnax had an on-again/off-again romantic relationship over the course of 2008 and 2009. Broadnax lived in a townhouse apartment at Black Oaks Apartments in Paducah, Kentucky. She...
Opinion of the Court by Justice NOBLE. Appellant, Lawrence Robert Stinnett, appeals as a matter of right, Ky. Const. 110, from a judgment of the Warren Circuit Court convicting him of murder and kidnapping. As a result of his convictions, he was sentenced to a single prison term of life without parole. 1 Appellant raises the following arguments: (1) that the trial court erred by failing to dismiss the kidnapping charge pursuant to KRS 509.050, the kidnapping exemption statute; (2) that the...
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT AFFIRMING Wellie Paul Grant appeals, as a matter of right, the decision of the Court of Appeals which denied his writ of prohibition, or in the alternative, a writ of mandamus, against the Honorable James Bowling, Special Judge, of the Adair Circuit Court. We conclude the Court of Appeals did not err in denying either writ and affirm. The Appellant was indicted by an Adair County Grand Jury on July 11, 2006, for murder and first-degree...
