Watkins v. Com.
| Decision Date | 02 May 1978 |
| Parties | John Gregory WATKINS, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
John B. Southard, Jr., Asst. Public Defender, Terrence R. Fitzgerald, Deputy Public Defender, Louisville, for appellant.
Robert F. Stephens, Atty. Gen., Victor Fox, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
The appellant, John Gregory Watkins, was convicted of robbery in the first degree and first-degree assault and was sentenced to 20 years on each charge.
On January 11, 1975, an attempted robbery occurred at Thoroughbred Liquor Store in Louisville, Kentucky. Walter Smith and Donald L. Goeing, Sr., were working in the store when at approximately 11:30 p. m., three or four black males entered the store. Smith testified that one of them walked up to the counter and asked for a pack of cigarettes. When Smith turned around, the man said, "This is a holdup." Goeing was refilling the soda machine at this time and when the assailant saw some movement in that direction, he stated, "I said, don't reach for anything," and fired two shots at Goeing. One shot hit Goeing in the arm and the other went through the right ventricle of his heart. Goeing was hospitalized for 12 days and recovered after a 31/2-month convalescence.
The evidence against the appellant was based on identifications made by Smith and Goeing. Defense counsel submitted a written pretrial motion for a suppression hearing on the identification testimony. Before any evidence was heard, this motion was reasserted in court, out of the presence of the jury, and was denied. Prior to testimony and identification by Smith and Goeing, defense counsel objected to not being allowed an in-camera hearing, since it forced him to explore the circumstances of the identification testimony in the presence of the jury, but was overruled. The defense repeatedly moved for a mistrial on this point and again was denied. The appellant was then taken to the hospital in the custody of two police officers and was identified by Goeing from his hospital bed.
Appellant's first assignment of error is that the refusal of the trial court to conduct a suppression hearing to review the procedures by which the appellant was identified and the failure to suppress such identification testimony deprived him of a fair trial. This court stated in Ray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 550 S.W.2d 482, 483 (1977): "Although we are of the opinion that the holding of such a hearing prior to the introduction of this testimony would have been the preferred course to follow, we are not persuaded the failure to have done so requires reversal of appellant's conviction." We are persuaded that the identification evidence fails to raise any impermissible suggestiveness and the appellant was in no way...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Watkins v. Sowders Summitt v. Sowders
...course to follow, we are not persuaded the failure to have done so requires reversal of appellant's conviction.' " Watkins v. Commonwealth, 565 S.W.2d 630, 631 (1978). The court found that the identification procedures "fail[ed] to raise any impermissible suggestiveness" and that Watkins "w......
-
Perdue v. Com.
... ... It is the burden of defense counsel to insure that any hearings on suppression go forward so that the relief allegedly sought may be granted at trial. Suppression claims which first arise in appellate courts come too late. In Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 101 S.Ct. 654, 66 L.Ed.2d 549 (1981), upholding decisions of this Court, the United States Supreme Court ... Page 160 ... determined that a hearing on the reliability of a pretrial identification lineup was not constitutionally required. Sowders, 449 U.S. at 349, 101 ... ...
-
Veach v. Com.
...United States' courts have approved the correction of the name appearing in the descriptive part of the indictment. Watkins v. Commonwealth, Ky., 565 S.W.2d 630 (1978); Grigsby v. Commonwealth, Ky., 299 Ky. 32, 184 S.W.2d 77 (1945); Amburgy v. Commonwealth, 300 Ky. 261, 188 S.W.2d 437 (1945......
-
Bradley v. Commonwealth, No. 2008-CA-000488-MR (Ky. App. 9/18/2009)
...does not prejudice the defendant, even if the indictment is amended during trial, at the close of the evidence. See Watkins v. Commonwealth, 565 S.W.2d 630, 631 (Ky. 1978). Therefore, in the present case, it was not error for the circuit court to permit the Commonwealth to amend the indictm......