Com. v. Yeager
| Decision Date | 13 May 1980 |
| Citation | 599 S.W.2d 458 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Movant, v. Russell Franklin YEAGER, Jr., Respondent. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Robert F. Stephens, Atty. Gen., Joseph R. Johnson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for movant.
G. Stephen Manning, Maysville, for respondent.
The respondent, Russell Franklin Yeager, Jr., was convicted on two counts of robbery in the first degree. The Court of Appeals reversed because the trial court did not give an instruction on robbery in the second degree. We disagree.
The case arose when Yeager and an accomplice, Charles Riley, agreed to rob a grocery store and a restaurant. The two men decided that Yeager would drive the getaway car and Riley would commit the robbery. Yeager admits that he conspired with Riley for the commission of the robberies but contends that he did not know or approve of the gun used in the commission of the robberies. Riley supported Yeager's testimony by stating that he never informed Yeager that he had a gun or that he had used one during the robberies.
Respondent argues that an instruction on accomplice liability in the commission of second-degree robbery should have been given since he intended to aid Riley in planning and committing the offense of robbery in the second degree but not robbery in the first degree. The Court of Appeals and respondent rely upon the commentary to KRS 502.020 which states in part as follows:
Movant, the Commonwealth, contends that the trial court properly refused to give the respondent's offered instruction on the basis of Ray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 550 S.W.2d 482 (1977). In Ray, supra, the victim was struck unconscious by one of three men who committed the robbery. Ray was identified as one of the men and was convicted of first-degree robbery under a complicity liability instruction even though it was not established that he struck the victim or intended that result. KRS 502.020(1) requires that for an accomplice to be culpable he must intend to commit the offense and as stated in Ray, supra, at 484, "if a person 'steals', either personally or through a confederate, he is guilty of theft an intentional...
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Young v. Commonwealth, 1998-SC-0584-MR
...the cases cited in the dissenting opinion, ante, to be inapposite. Skinner v. Commonwealth, Ky., 864 S.W.2d 290 (1993) Commonwealth v. Yeaaer, Ky., 599 S.W.2d 458 (1980), and Ray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 550 S.W.2d 482 (1977), all were cases in which an accomplice was found guilty by complicit......
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State v. Davis
...Plakke and held that complicity to an armed robbery does not depend upon knowledge of the principal's weapon. Accord Commonwealth v. Yeager, 599 S.W.2d 458 (Ky.1980); State v. Coats, 301 N.C. 216, 270 S.E.2d 422 (1980). The court apparently found this conclusion to be compelled by this cour......
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State v. White
...1187, 1187 n. 6 (1983) (to be guilty of armed robbery, an accomplice must know of the existence of a gun). But see Commonwealth v. Yeager, 599 S.W.2d 458, 459-60 (Ky.1980) (if accomplice intended to commit robbery, his "lack of intent of an aggravating circumstance, such as the use of a gun......
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Skinner v. Com.
...but of the lesser offense of burglary in the second degree. Secondly, we find close analogy in the cases of Commonwealth v. Yeager, Ky., 599 S.W.2d 458 (1980), and Ray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 550 S.W.2d 482 (1977), both of which support the proposition that an accomplice may be held liable fo......