Templeman v. Com.
| Decision Date | 15 March 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-SC-70-MR,89-SC-70-MR |
| Citation | 785 S.W.2d 259 |
| Parties | Vernon Wayne TEMPLEMAN, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Russell J. Baldani, Summers, Fox & McGinty, Lexington, for appellant.
Frederic J. Cowan, Atty. Gen., Lana Grandon, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
This appeal is from a judgment based on a jury verdict which convicted Templeman of murder and first-degree robbery. He was sentenced to life without parole for twenty-five years for the murder and ten years for the robbery.
The questions presented are whether the prior convictions were properly admitted; whether objections to the prosecutor's questioning were properly preserved and whether comments about the victim were reversible error.
In 1988 Templeman was convicted of a 1980 robbery of a liquor store and the murder of one of its patrons. At the sentencing phase of his trial, the prosecution introduced evidence of a conviction for the offense of aggravated robbery and a conviction of two counts of first-degree robbery and second-degree escape. The jury found Templeman guilty. This appeal followed.
Templeman contends that the trial judge committed reversible error when he allowed the prosecution to present, at the sentencing phase of the trial, evidence of Templeman's convictions which occurred prior to trial and sentencing in his case, but subsequent to the commission of the offense charged in this case. Templeman was convicted of aggravated robbery in Colorado in 1984 and two counts of robbery and one count of escape in Florida in 1984. These convictions were used as evidence of prior convictions. A robbery and escape charge in 1980 from South Carolina was not used, and the murder conviction in Colorado in 1984 was not used because the case was still on appeal.
The only statutory aggravating factor which the jury was instructed that it could find was that Templeman killed a patron while engaged in robbing the liquor store and in the course of doing so with the intent to accomplish the robbery, he threatened the use of immediate physical force on another patron with a pistol. The jury was instructed that it could not consider Templeman's prior convictions as a statutory aggravating factor for imposing a sentence of death or life without parole for twenty-five years. Once the statutory aggravating factor was found to exist, Templeman's prior history was a factor which could properly be considered by the jury in the sentencing phase. Skaggs v. Commonwealth, Ky., 694 S.W.2d 672 (1985). It was appropriate for the jury to consider any of Templeman's convictions which were final at the time of sentencing as one of the circumstances bearing on whether the death penalty was appropriate. See Bevins v. Commonwealth, Ky., 712 S.W.2d 932 (1986).
Templeman's argument relative to the interpretation of prior convictions is unconvincing. We are persuaded by the rationale of the Florida Supreme Court in Ruffin v. State, Fla., 397 So.2d 277 (1981), (overruled on other grounds) which stated in part that a defendant may have committed a murder for which he is not apprehended until many years later and during the course of those years may have a significant criminal history. Consequently, the trial judge was correct in allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of prior criminal convictions which occurred subsequent to the commission of the crime. The term prior is the status of the defendant at the time of sentencing, not at the time of the commission of the charged crime.
The purpose of K.R.S. 532.025 is to allow evidence of all relevant and pertinent information so that the jury can make an informed decision concerning the appropriate sentence in a particular case. The jury should not sentence in a vacuum without knowledge of the past criminal record or other pertinent matters necessary to assess an appropriate penalty. Commonwealth v. Reneer, Ky., 734 S.W.2d 794 (1987); Francis v. Commonwealth, Ky., 752 S.W.2d 309 (1988).
There is a great deal of difference between the PFO procedure and the sentencing...
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People v. White, 91SA248
...Id. The Supreme Court of Kentucky considered what constitutes a prior conviction in Templeman v. Commonwealth, 785 S.W.2d 259 (Ky.1990), a capital case. In 1980, the defendant robbed a store and killed one of the store's patrons. In 1984, the defendant was convicted of aggravated robbery, a......
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Tamme v. Com.
...mothers of the victims to introduce life photographs of their deceased sons. Bussell v. Commonwealth, supra, at 113; Templeman v. Commonwealth, Ky., 785 S.W.2d 259 (1990). Nor are we persuaded that Appellant's right to a fair trial was impaired because the prosecutor occasionally referred t......
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St. Clair v. Com., No. 1999-SC-0029-MR.
...v. Commonwealth, Ky., 121 S.W.3d 173, 181 (2003). See Campbell v. Commonwealth, Ky., 788 S.W.2d 260, 263-4 (1990); Templeman v. Commonwealth, Ky., 785 S.W.2d 259, 261 (1990); McQueen v. Commonwealth, Ky., 669 S.W.2d 519, 523 (1984). 12. CULPABILITY PHASE CLOSING ARGUMENT (# 27) The Commonwe......
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Epperson v. Com., No. 2003-SC-0595-MR.
...the criminal convictions in Letcher County was permissible penalty phase evidence pursuant to KRS 532.025(1)(b). See Templeman v. Commonwealth, 785 S.W.2d 259 (Ky. 1990). There was no error in joining the capital sentencing phase and truth-in-sentencing phase for the other convictions. The ......