Long v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 29 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2019-SC-0002-MR |
| Parties | ARTHUR LONG APPELLANT v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLEE |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
IMPORTANT NOTICE NOT TO BE PUBLISHED OPINION
THIS OPINION IS DESIGNATED "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED." PURSUANT TO THE RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE PROMULGATED BY THE SUPREME COURT, CR 76.28(4)(C), THIS OPINION IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AND SHALL NOT BE CITED OR USED AS BINDING PRECEDENT IN ANY OTHER CASE IN ANY COURT OF THIS STATE; HOWEVER, UNPUBLISHED KENTUCKY APPELLATE DECISIONS, RENDERED AFTER JANUARY 1, 2003, MAY BE CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT IF THERE IS NO PUBLISHED OPINION THAT WOULD ADEQUATELY ADDRESS THE ISSUE BEFORE THE COURT. OPINIONS CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT SHALL BE SET OUT AS AN UNPUBLISHED DECISION IN THE FILED DOCUMENT AND A COPY OF THE ENTIRE DECISION SHALL BE TENDERED ALONG WITH THE DOCUMENT TO THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES TO THE ACTION.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
ON APPEAL FROM LYON CIRCUIT COURT
MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURT
Arthur Long was convicted by a Lyon Circuit Court jury of the murder of his sister and the theft by unlawful taking of her vehicle. Long received a life sentence for the murder charge and a five-year sentence for the theft charge, to run concurrently. He now appeals his convictions to this Court as a matter of right.1 After review, we affirm.
Long began living with his sister Nancy Minor sometime in 2015 after their mother died. Prior to that time Long was homeless in Chicago, Illinois, for many years, and Nancy would send him money and other means of support.Both Long and Nancy were in their sixties during the events at issue in this case.2
On Tuesday, during the week of Thanksgiving 2016, Nancy had dinner with Janie Stovall who was a church friend of hers for many years. Janie testified that she spoke with Nancy on the phone on Friday of that week. Nancy asked Janie to bring her some of the cake that was served at Janie's dinner. Janie suggested that Nancy stop by her home that day to get some, but Nancy declined because she would be busy putting up Christmas decorations. Therefore, the two agreed that Janie would bring some cake to Nancy at church that Sunday. When Nancy did not show up to church, Janie began to worry as she knew Nancy to be very dependable. Janie testified that she believed she called Nancy that Sunday and got no answer. When Janie still could not contact Nancy by the following Tuesday, she called their pastor who also had not heard from Nancy. Ultimately their pastor contacted the police and requested a welfare check for Nancy.
Chief Shane Allison and Deputy Sam Adams (Dep. Adams) conducted the welfare check on Wednesday3 of that week. All of the home's doors were locked, but Dep. Adams was able to enter the home through an unlocked window after moving several items from in front of the window inside the home.Dep. Adams discovered Nancy's body in the kitchen floor shortly after entering the home. The officers noted no signs of forced entry.
Nancy's body was found covered with a blanket as well as a significant amount of coffee grounds. Blood-soaked towels were also found around the body. Glass fragments from two different colored wine bottles were scattered about the kitchen floor and an intact wine bottle was found on the kitchen counter above Nancy's body. The intact bottle was covered in blood and hair. A kitchen mat, which was also covered in blood, was found in the kitchen sink. Officers also found a pair of men's pants, a short-sleeved white t-shirt, a long-sleeved black t-shirt, and a pair of socks in the washing machine. Subsequent lab tests determined that Nancy's blood was on the pair of pants, the white shirt, and the black shirt. After completing Nancy's autopsy, the Medical Examiner determined that her cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma to the head. Law enforcement therefore concluded that Nancy was beaten to death with the wine bottles found at the scene. The Medical Examiner also concluded that the state of Nancy's body was consistent with her dying sometime Sunday morning, though he could not pinpoint her exact time of death.
Detective Brian Hill (Det. Hill) with the Kentucky State Police (KSP) was dispatched to Nancy's home shortly after her body was discovered. During his investigation Det. Hill found that Long was captured on video surveillance cameras at an Eddyville gas station just before 2 p.m. on the previous Sunday; the day law enforcement suspected Nancy was murdered. Long put gas in Nancy's car, a grey 2007 Chevrolet Malibu, and then left the station. Nicole McVickers, Nancy's neighbor whose house faces Nancy's, testified that she sawLong that evening between 5 and 6 p.m. Nicole noticed that Nancy's garage door was open, and that Long was in the garage around Nancy's car.
Based on this information, in conjunction with the fact that both Long and Nancy's car were missing from the home, Det. Hill entered Nancy's car into a national database and flagged it as stolen. Less than a week later, on December 5, Trooper William Looper (Trp. Looper) with the Tennessee Highway Patrol was working the midnight shift. Tpr. Looper was checking a rest area and noticed a car that was parked backwards in a parking spot. This piqued his interest because in his experience people do that in order to hide their license plate and/or tags. When he approached the car, he noticed that it was parked over the line, which was indicative of someone driving while impaired. He therefore decided to make contact with the driver.
Tpr. Looper observed a single occupant sleeping in the driver's seat, who was later identified as Long, and knocked on the driver's side window. Long woke up and looked at Tpr. Looper but proceeded to ignore him and did not follow any of his commands. Long started the car and fled from the rest area onto the interstate. Tpr. Looper chased Long for approximately fourteen miles, and eventually other officers were able to use a spike strip to stop Long's vehicle. Long initially ignored commands to exit the vehicle, and only complied when the officers threatened to deploy the K-9 officer at the scene. After Tpr. Looper read Long his Miranda4 rights Long said he wanted an attorney and stopped talking. Long also refused to identify himself or cooperate with the booking process.
During the officers' subsequent search of Nancy's vehicle, they found several receipts that enabled them to track Long's movements from the Sunday that Nancy presumably was killed to the day before he was arrested. The first receipt was from the aforementioned purchase of gas from an Eddyville gas station. After that the receipts show that Long went to Paducah, Kentucky, followed by three different cities in southern Illinois. He then went back to Paducah, then to southern Illinois, then to Paducah, and then to Tennessee where he was ultimately apprehended.
Long now appeals his convictions for Nancy's murder and the subsequent theft of her car to this Court.
Additional facts are discussed below as necessary.
Long asserts a myriad of alleged errors on appeal. Namely: (1) that his Sixth Amendment right to choose his own defense was violated; (2) that the trial court erred by finding him competent to stand trial; (3) that the trial court erred by denying his motion for a second competency hearing; (4) that the trial court erred by denying his initial motion for mental health expert funds and subsequently allowing a mental health expert from KCPC5 to testify during the Commonwealth's rebuttal evidence; (5) that the trial court erred by denying his second and third motions for a continuance of trial; (6) that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on first-degree manslaughter, second-degree manslaughter, and reckless homicide; and (7) that the trial court erredby failing to grant his motion for directed verdict on the charge of theft by unlawful taking. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
In order to provide context, we note preliminarily that Long's behavior from his arraignment until the end of trial was atypical. At nearly all of his pretrial hearings he frequently interrupted, argued with, and was outright rude to the trial court. And, while the trial court was exceedingly patient with Long, Long's outbursts forced the trial court to have him removed from the court room on two separate occasions: during the Commonwealth's opening statement and during the testimony of his own expert witness. He was also hostile towards his appointed counsel, and for the most part did not cooperate with her or the defense's expert witness.
However, though his behavior was bizarre in the sense that it does not typically occur, his outbursts and insults were always directly oriented towards his case. In addition, Long demonstrated that he is an intelligent person and also had some knowledge of the criminal justice system that lay persons do not usually have. For example, he demonstrated that he knew, generally, what an ex parte hearing is, what an interlocutory appeal is, and that a trial judge may sometimes be required to recuse himself or herself from a case. With that noted, we now address Long's arguments.
Long first contends that his Sixth Amendment6 right to choose his own defense was violated because his defense counsel presented an insanitydefense against his wishes. He asserts that the United States Supreme Court's recent holding in McCoy v. Louisiana,7 as well as this Court's own holding Jacobs v. Commonwealth,8 mandate that his convictions be reversed.
Long properly preserved this issue for appeal by several pro se statements he made to the trial court. At a pretrial conference in July 2017, during which defense counsel requested that Long be evaluated for his competency to stand trial, the following exchange occurred:
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