Brumley v. Com.

• Decision Date: 31 January 1964
• Citation: Brumley v. Com., 375 S.W.2d 270 (Ky. 1964)
• Court: Supreme Court of Kentucky
• Parties: Minnie BRUMLEY, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

Page 270

375 S.W.2d 270

Minnie BRUMLEY, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Jan. 31, 1964.

Lester L. Parrott, Manchester, for appellant.

John B. Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., Robert L. Montague, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

MILLIKEN, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction for voluntary manslaughter resulting in a sentence of two years in the penitentiary. The judgment must be reversed because this Court changed the standard instruction covering the defense of insanity in Terry v. Commonwealth, Ky., 371 S.W.2d 862, decided in May, 1963, after the appellant's conviction in January of 1963, but while it was pending on appeal.

The appellant shot and killed Reuben Smith, an 83-year old man, on September 1, 1962, after a heated argument over a small debt when Smith struck her with his cane and abused her verbally. Subsequently, the appellant was adjudged a person of unsound mind and sent to the State Hospital at Danville for observation. She was released sometime later, but the court was not officially informed as to her mental status or condition at the time of her dismissal from the State Hospital.

Whether it was proper to force her to trial in the circumstances was a matter of discretion for the trial court as we decided (October, 1963) in Hopper v. Commonwealth, Ky., 371 S.W.2d 646. See, also, RCr 8.06.

In Terry v. Commonwealth, supra, in order to permit wider scope to psychiatric testimony, we deserted the established M'Naghten Rule (knowledge of right or wrong) covering the defense of insanity. This was done with the full knowledge that there might be and probably were some cases on appeal in which the M'Naghten instruction had been given the jury. The present case is one of them and it is our view that this appellant should be tried by...