Triplett v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 17 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2019-SC-0331-MR,2019-SC-0333-MR |
| Parties | RONALD TRIPLETT 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IMPORTANT NOTICE NOT TO BE PUBLISHED OPINION
THIS OPINION IS DESIGNATED "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED." PURSUANT TO THE RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE PROMULGATED BY THE SUPREME COURT, CR 76.28(4)(C), THIS OPINION IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AND SHALL NOT BE CITED OR USED AS BINDING PRECEDENT IN ANY OTHER CASE IN ANY COURT OF THIS STATE; HOWEVER, UNPUBLISHED KENTUCKY APPELLATE DECISIONS, RENDERED AFTER JANUARY 1, 2003, MAY BE CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT IF THERE IS NO PUBLISHED OPINION THAT WOULD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 OPINIONS CITED FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COURT SHALL BE SET OUT AS AN UNPUBLISHED DECISION IN THE FILED DOCUMENT AND A COPY OF THE ENTIRE DECISION SHALL BE TENDERED ALONG WITH THE DOCUMENT TO THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES TO THE ACTION.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED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 MONTGOMERY CIRCUIT COURT
NOS. 16-CR-00164 AND 17-CR-00116
MEMORANDUM OPINION OF THE COURTRonald Triplett entered a conditional guilty plea to five indicted charges: two counts of first-degree rape and one count each of first-degree sodomy, kidnapping, and first-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument. A jury, empaneled to recommend his sentence, recommended Triplett serve eighty-five (85) years in prison. The circuit court ultimately sentenced Triplett to serve seventy (70) years in accordance with Kentucky law.1
Triplett raises four issues on appeal. He claims the circuit court erred by: 1) denying his motion to suppress; 2) denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea; 3) allowing the jury to hear unduly prejudicial details about hisprior offenses; and 4) failing to instruct the jury that his sentences may run partially consecutively and partially concurrently. Upon review, we affirm the Montgomery Circuit Court's amended judgment.
In January 2019, Triplett entered a conditional guilty plea in Montgomery Circuit Court to all charges contained in 16-CR-00164 () and 17-CR-00116 (), reserving the right to appeal the circuit court's pretrial denial of his motion to suppress evidence. The Commonwealth and Triplett requested jury sentencing. The jury heard the following evidence.
In late July 2016, J.B. was walking along a Mount Sterling, Kentucky street. A man, later identified as Ronald Triplett, driving a black Cadillac Escalade, pulled up beside her and asked if she needed a ride. Triplett told J.B. he would pay her to get inside his vehicle. J.B. declined. Triplett drove away, and J.B. continued to walk. Triplett later walked up behind her, put a hand over her mouth, and forcibly took her through a wooded area back to the Escalade.
Triplett drove J.B. to a building and forced her up a flight of stairs to a door that had multiple locks on both the inside and outside. The apartment inside contained a bed and J.B. saw a gun in the apartment. Triplett raped J.B. vaginally and anally. He forced her to perform oral sex on him and he also performed oral sex on her. Afterward, Triplett dropped J.B. off in the area where she had been walking. J.B. called 911 and was able to give a partiallicense plate number, described her assailant, and when an officer arrived, showed him the building in which Triplett raped and sodomized her. The officer transported J.B. to the local hospital and the medical staff examined her for sexual assault.
The police determined Triplett was associated with the building and discovered he owned a black Escalade. The partial license plate number given by J.B. matched the first four numbers of Triplett's vehicle. When the police executed a search warrant for the building, they found an apartment inside and, as described by J.B., the door had multiple latches and locks on both sides. The police discovered surveillance equipment inside. The police also found a fake but realistic looking handgun, a hidden camera, handcuffs, ankle shackles, a strap-on dildo, 15 counterfeit $100 bills, and latex gloves. The police contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and requested its electronic crime branch examine the electronic equipment found in the building. The police sought an arrest warrant for Triplett and an officer was dispatched to Triplett's home.
Mrs. Triplett told the police that her husband had been gone for about three days and she had not seen him. She said Triplett told her he needed to come up with some money for an attorney because after picking up a girl and having sex with her, the girl said she would tell authorities he raped her if he did not give her money. The police tracked Triplett to a hotel room in Livonia, Michigan. Livonia police officers arrested Triplett in the hotel parking lot. The officers also took possession of the electronic equipment, computers, jumpdrives, videos, and discs in Triplett's hotel room.2 Kentucky authorities obtained a search warrant and retrieved the items from the Michigan authorities upon extraditing Triplett back to Kentucky.
One of the items seized from the hotel room was a video of the sexual assault of J.B. Portions of that video were later shown to the jury.
After Triplett was returned to Kentucky, the police interviewed him. Triplett admitted he had engaged in sexual acts with J.B. but maintained the acts were consensual; he declined to elaborate. Triplett also disclosed details about his prior criminal history. The audio-taped interview was played for the jury.
Besides the video of J.B.'s sexual assault, the ATF officers discovered another video that had been made in the same building. The video showed Triplett having sex with an unconscious woman with a distinctive tattoo. The police were eventually able to identify the woman as S.E. When S.E. was shown the video, she confirmed she was the woman in the video, but she had no recollection of what had occurred when Triplett raped her. Discussing that time period, S.E. said she woke up the next morning behind a grocery store and had pain and blood in her groin area but did not know what had happened. A portion of the video depicting S.E.'s sexual assault was played for the jury.
J.B. and S.E. read victim impact statements to the jury. Triplett testified in his own defense, and his wife also testified on his behalf.
The jury recommended Triplett serve twenty years for the rape of S.E.; twenty years for the rape of J.B.; twenty years for the sodomy of J.B.; twenty years for the kidnapping of J.B.; and five years for the criminal possession of a forged instrument. The jury further recommended that all sentences run consecutively to each other for a total prison sentence of eighty-five years.
After the sentencing recommendation but prior to final sentencing, Triplett moved to withdraw his guilty plea. The circuit court conducted an evidentiary hearing and then denied the motion. The circuit court imposed the jury's recommended sentence of eighty-five years, but subsequently amended Triplett's sentence to seventy years in prison.
Additional facts are presented below as necessary.
Triplett moved the circuit court to suppress all evidence found in the Livonia, Michigan hotel room. Det. Holznagle, a detective with the Livonia Police Department, testified at the suppression hearing. He recounted receiving a communication from the Montgomery County, Kentucky Sheriff's Office that Triplett was wanted on charges of rape, sodomy, and kidnapping, and that Triplett was believed to be in Livonia, Michigan and driving a black Escalade for which the license plate number was provided. After 11:30 p.m. on August 3, 2016, a Livonia officer located the Escalade in the parking lot of a hotel; other officers soon arrived. Officers spoke with the front desk clerk and learned Triplett's room number. At some point, Det. Holznagle contacted the hotel to verify Triplett had rented a room there for the evening; the clerkinformed him that Triplett checked in on August 3 and was due to check out on August 4.
While the officers were standing in the parking lot, about ten feet away from Triplett's room, Triplett approached the officers. The officers confirmed Triplett's identity and arrested him around midnight. Det. Holznagle testified that while being arrested, Triplett expressed with a sense of urgency that he had belongings in the hotel room, knowing he was going to be arrested and sent back to Kentucky. Det. Holznagle was under the impression, given his experience with others and given his own attitude for protecting personal property, that Triplett did not want the belongings left unattended; Holznagle knew the local jail would not allow Triplett to take his personal belongings to be booked with him.
Additionally, once the hotel clerk learned the reason Triplett was being placed under arrest, the clerk informed an officer that the hotel wanted Triplett evicted. The officers entered the room soon thereafter.
Det. Holznagle testified that the Livonia Police Department has a good relationship with the hotel, arrests at the hotel are not uncommon, and it is a common procedure for the hotel to request the Livonia Police Department to evict an individual. The officers followed usual hotel guest eviction procedure, gaining access to the room through the clerk's assistance, although he could not recall if the clerk let the officers in Triplett's room or provided a key to the officers.
The officers took possession of Triplett's belongings and inventoried them. As customary and in accordance with office policy, the inventoried itemswere photographed, a step taken to counter an evicted guest's future claims of property damage due to securing the property....
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