KY Bar Criminal Law and Procedure 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A defendant, enraged upon finding his spouse in bed with another person, immediately kills the other person. In Kentucky, this evidence of extreme emotional disturbance (EED) most likely:
- Provides a complete defense to homicide
- Is irrelevant because intent to kill was present
- Reduces murder to first-degree manslaughter under KRS 507.030 (Correct answer)
- Reduces murder to reckless homicide
Correct answer: Reduces murder to first-degree manslaughter under KRS 507.030
In Kentucky, an intentional killing committed under extreme emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable explanation is first-degree manslaughter rather than murder.
Question 2: Police obtain a facially valid warrant based on an affidavit later found to lack probable cause, and they execute it in objective good faith. Under United States v. Leon, the seized evidence is:
- Admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule (Correct answer)
- Admissible only in the prosecution's rebuttal case
- Inadmissible because the warrant was defective
- Inadmissible unless the magistrate testifies at trial
Correct answer: Admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule
Leon holds that evidence obtained in objectively reasonable reliance on a facially valid warrant is not subject to exclusion even if the warrant is later invalidated.
Question 3: A getaway driver waits outside while his accomplice robs a store and unexpectedly shoots the clerk dead. Under the majority felony murder approach tested on the bar, the driver is:
- Guilty only of robbery, because he was not inside the store
- Guilty of involuntary manslaughter at most
- Guilty of murder, because the killing occurred during and in furtherance of an inherently dangerous felony (Correct answer)
- Not guilty of murder, because he never intended anyone to die
Correct answer: Guilty of murder, because the killing occurred during and in furtherance of an inherently dangerous felony
Under felony murder, all participants in an inherently dangerous felony are liable for killings committed in furtherance of the felony, regardless of individual intent to kill.
Question 4: A grand jury indicts a defendant based partly on hearsay evidence. The defendant moves to dismiss the indictment. The motion should be:
- Granted, because grand juries must apply trial evidence rules
- Granted, because hearsay violates the Confrontation Clause
- Denied only if the hearsay was corroborated
- Denied, because an indictment may rest on evidence that would be inadmissible at trial (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Denied, because an indictment may rest on evidence that would be inadmissible at trial
Under Costello v. United States, a facially valid indictment may be based on hearsay or other evidence inadmissible at trial.
Question 5: In Kentucky, a person commits first-degree robbery under KRS 515.020 when, in the course of committing theft, he:
- Commits any theft from the person of another
- Takes property from any building at night
- Takes property worth more than $10,000
- Uses or threatens physical force while armed with a deadly weapon, causes physical injury, or uses a dangerous instrument (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Uses or threatens physical force while armed with a deadly weapon, causes physical injury, or uses a dangerous instrument
First-degree robbery requires theft accomplished by force plus an aggravator: a deadly weapon, a dangerous instrument, or physical injury to a non-participant.
Question 6: A defendant on trial for battery claims he was so intoxicated he did not know what he was doing. Battery is a general intent crime. His voluntary intoxication defense will:
- Fail only if he had been drinking illegally
- Succeed if the jury believes he was severely intoxicated
- Fail, because voluntary intoxication is no defense to general intent crimes (Correct answer)
- Succeed because intoxication negates all mens rea
Correct answer: Fail, because voluntary intoxication is no defense to general intent crimes
Voluntary intoxication may negate the specific intent element of specific intent crimes but is not a defense to general intent crimes like battery.
Question 7: After a mistrial is declared because the jury cannot reach a verdict despite lengthy deliberations, the prosecution seeks to retry the defendant. Retrial is:
- Permitted only with the defendant's consent
- Barred unless new evidence has emerged
- Barred by double jeopardy, because jeopardy attached when the jury was sworn
- Permitted, because a hung jury is a manifest necessity that does not bar retrial (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Permitted, because a hung jury is a manifest necessity that does not bar retrial
A genuinely deadlocked jury constitutes manifest necessity, so a mistrial on that ground does not bar retrial under the Double Jeopardy Clause.
KY Bar Criminal Law and Procedure 3
A defendant, enraged upon finding his spouse in bed with another person, immediately kills the other person.
In Kentucky, this evidence of extreme emotional disturbance (EED) most likely: