Taylor v. Com.
| Decision Date | 06 July 1983 |
| Citation | 652 S.W.2d 863 |
| Parties | Kevin Douglas TAYLOR, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Jack Emory Farley, Public Advocate, Linda K. West, Asst. Public Advocate, Frankfort, for appellant.
Steve L. Beshear, Atty. Gen., W. Bruce Cowden, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
Kevin Douglas Taylor was convicted of first-degree robbery, KRS 515.020, then was convicted of being a persistent felony offender in the second degree, KRS 532.080. He was sentenced to an enhanced sentence of life imprisonment. We affirm.
Taylor and a codefendant robbed a food mart at gun point. The proprietor identified Taylor as the robber who pointed the pistol at him. The proprietor informed the police of the robbery, giving them a general description of the car they were in and describing the clothes worn by Taylor together with a physical description.
A patrol car received a report of the robbery, and upon seeing a car which matched the description in the report gave chase and stopped the car. The passenger fled, but was caught and was identified by the officer as Taylor. Following Taylor's arrest, he told one of the officers that the gun and money had been left in the car.
The store proprietor identified Taylor from a driver's license shown to him by a police officer, then from a photo pack identified Taylor and his codefendant. In addition he made an in-court identification. (After a hearing, the trial court denied Taylor's motion to suppress the identification.) Then the codefendant, by counsel, informed the trial court he wished to plead guilty and testify for the Commonwealth. The plea with the commonwealth attorney's recommendation for a reduced sentence was conducted outside the presence of the jury. The codefendant then testified and corroborated the testimony of the store proprietor and the police as to Taylor's participation in the robbery. Taylor did not testify or offer any witnesses.
Taylor asserts error in not excluding the identification by the proprietor of the store. He does not point to any error on the part of the trial court or that the finding was clearly erroneous, but argues in generalities citing authorities that are not applicable here. The identification was certain, made under circumstances which indicated reliability. We find no error here.
The second assertion of error is that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to declare a mistrial when the codefendant entered a plea of guilty.
Taylor relies on that line of cases which hold that it is reversible error for the Commonwealth to show that a coindictee has already been convicted under the...
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