Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Robert Guernsey, Appellee and Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Trustin Jones

Summary

The court held that the circuit court improperly excluded the death penalty before trial in prosecutions alleging murder committed during first-degree robbery. Comparative proportionality review belongs exclusively to the Supreme Court and may occur only after a death sentence has been imposed, while any inherent proportionality determination by the trial court must await presentation of the relevant trial evidence. The Commonwealth did not forfeit its right to interlocutory review by acknowledging uncertainty about whether controlling precedent prohibited the pretrial ruling.