Phillip L. Brown, Appellant v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, Appellee

Summary

The court affirmed Brown's convictions and consecutive twenty-year sentences for burglary and robbery but held that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred imposing death at his second trial after the first jury selected life imprisonment without parole for twenty-five years. The court also held that the challenged jury-selection rulings and most evidentiary rulings did not warrant relief, although it found the tattoo cross-examination erroneous and harmless as to guilt but potentially prejudicial as to sentencing. Justice Cunningham, concurring in result only, would not require a reasonable-doubt instruction on the appropriateness of death; Justice Scott, dissenting in part, would have upheld the death sentence under prior Kentucky precedent; and Justice Abramson, dissenting in part, would retain the instruction while still applying the death-penalty acquittal principle.