Floyd Wright v. Commonwealth, 2011-CA-000759-MR To Be Published
Opinion by Vanmeter, Caperton and Lambert Concur
Wright was convicted of complicity to first degree trafficking in a controlled
substance. Wright was at another man’s house and a CI came over to buy
drugs from the other man. Wright and the other man went into the kitchen
and the other man came back with the drugs. The CI asked why the drugs
were cold and claimed Wright said “we had put them in the freezer.”
After trial, the jury wanted to
listen to the audio recording again. The judge allowed them to take the
prosecutor’s laptop into the deliberation room with them to listen to it.
Giving jurors unrestricted and unmonitored access to a party’s laptop, outside
the defendant’s presence, is highly improper and the likelihood of prejudice is
very high. This was an abuse of discretion and violated RCr 9.74.
It was also error for a detective
to interpret the audio recording of the undercover CI drug buy for the jury and
to vouch for the credibility of the CI.
Contributed by Steven Buck
