Com. v. Prather, 84-SC-527-DG
| Decision Date | 23 May 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-SC-527-DG,84-SC-527-DG |
| Citation | 690 S.W.2d 396 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Movant, v. Robert Andrew PRATHER, Respondent. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
David L. Armstrong, Atty. Gen., Joseph R. Johnson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for movant.
Mark A. Posnansky, Appellate Public Advocate, Frankfort, for respondent.
On January 11, 1983, in Louisville, Kentucky, a paid police informant contacted a member of the Louisville Police Department and advised an officer that he had been approached by Robert Andrew Prather and solicited to assist Prather in an armed robbery at the Executive Inn in Owensboro, Kentucky. Respondent Prather had obtained information concerning the hotel and certain plans thereof from his uncle, a former security guard at the facility. In essence, the plan called for the informant to drive, for Prather to enter the van on its way to the bank with a deposit, to force the occupants to drive out of town where the robbery would be completed, an to "dispose" of the occupants. This plan was known to the police from the informant and from clandestine tape recordings of the conversations between the informant and Prather.
On January 14, the informant advised the Louisville police that they were leaving for Owensboro in order to "case" the job and the Kentucky State Police in the Owensboro area were immediately notified. The latter replaced the regular couriers of the Executive Inn with two officers in plain clothes, and at 2:00 p.m. that date Prather and the informant were observed at the Executive Inn. Carrying out their assumed roles, the two officers took the deposit and drove in the company van to the depository bank. The car containing Prather and the informant followed the van to the bank and the two men were observed in that vehicle.
Upon his return to Louisville, the informant apprised the police that the robbery was scheduled for the following Monday, January 17. Prather had obtained a sawed-off shotgun for use in the crime, which the informant brought to the police in order that they could file down the firing pin, rendering it incapable of discharge. The gun was then returned to Prather, and on Monday the two men returned to Owensboro.
They continued to discuss the robbery on arrival and waited in the parking lot at the Executive Inn for the "couriers" to depart for the bank. Again, the plain clothes officers had been substituted. Prather was given the unloaded weapon and had gone to the company van and tested the door handles to ascertain that they would open. The officers entered the van, with the deposit bags, and drove several hundred feet from the front door of the Executive Inn to the street on which the property abuts. Prather and the informant followed closely and when the van was forced to stop at a stop light, they pulled in behind it. It was at this point that the arrest was made.
Prather was indicted, tried and convicted of criminal attempt to commit first degree robbery, and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment as a first degree persistent felony offender. The Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, reversed the Daviess Circuit Court and we granted discretionary review.
The statute involved herein is KRS 506.010, which reads:
(1) A person is guilty of criminal attempt to commit a crime when, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime, he:
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(b) Intentionally does or omits to do anything which, under the circumstances as he believes them to be, is a substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in his commission of the crime.
(2) Conduct shall not be held to constitute a substantial step under subsection (1)(b) unless it is an act or omission which leaves no reasonable doubt as to the defendant's intention to commit the crime which he is charged with attempting.
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At the conclusion of the evidence of the Commonwealth, Prather moved for a directed verdict on the ground that there was no proof of a substantial step which left no reasonable doubt of intent, as required by KRS 506.010(2), which motion was denied. The Court of Appeals found this to be error, but we disagree...
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