Com. v. Chandler, 86-SC-309-DG
| Decision Date | 22 January 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-SC-309-DG,86-SC-309-DG |
| Citation | 722 S.W.2d 899 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant, v. David Earl CHANDLER, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
David L. Armstrong, Atty. Gen., Mary-James Young, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellant.
James R. Wood, Owensboro, for appellee.
This appeal is from a decision of the Court of Appeals which reversed a judgment convicting Chandler of second-degree assault and sentencing him to five years in prison.
The principal issue is whether Chandler was entitled to instructions on criminal abuse.
The Court of Appeals determined that Chandler was entitled to an instruction not only on third-degree criminal abuse, KRS 508.120, but on first and second-degree criminal abuse as well.
Chandler was charged with stabbing his 7-year-old son in the eye. This resulted in the child's permanent blindness. On January 24, 1985, Chandler was beating his wife as the result of an argument. He took two karate knives from an adjoining room and while his wife was calling a neighbor for help he advanced on her with the knives. Chandler had beaten his wife on prior occasions and had also threatened to kill her. The 7-year-old son tried to intervene by placing himself in front of his father shielding his mother. Chandler stabbed at the child with one of the knives, striking him in the eye.
At trial, Chandler presented no evidence and no defense. His wife testified during the prosecution case that Chandler's stabbing of Jeremy was an accident. A neighbor who had arrived during the fight, answering the call of the wife, testified that Chandler was intentionally stabbing at the boy's eye in order to scare him away.
Evidence was presented that Chandler had threatened to kill his wife on other occasions, and that he had chased her with a knife and beaten her, and that she had hit him and chased him with a knife and a belt.
The jury was instructed on wanton first-degree assault, wanton second-degree assault, the presumption of innocence, definitions of wantonly, physical injury, serious physical injury, and dangerous instrument. Chandler's tendered instructions on either fourth-degree assault or third-degree criminal abuse were refused by the trial judge.
The jury convicted Chandler of second-degree assault and sentenced him to five years. The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction holding that instructions on all degrees of criminal abuse were required and that the trial judge erred in allowing the prosecution to present evidence of Chandler's previous assault and threats of violence against his wife. This appeal followed.
This Court reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstates the judgment of conviction.
Chandler was not entitled to instructions on any degree of criminal abuse because criminal abuse is not a lesser-included offense of assault. Instructions on third-degree criminal abuse and fourth degree assault were not required by the...
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