Supreme Court of Kentucky Finds Defendant's Testimony That He's "Kindhearted" Opened the Door For Evidence of His Violence

Kentucky Rule of Evidence 404(a)(1) provides as follows:

(a) Character evidence generally. Evidence of a person's character or a trait of character is not admissible for the purpose of proving action in conformity therewith on a particular occasion, except:

(1) Character of accused. Evidence of a pertinent trait of character or of general moral character offered by an accused, or by the prosecution to rebut the same, or if evidence of a trait of character of the alleged victim of the crime is offered by an accused and admitted under Rule 404(a)(2), evidence of the same trait of character of the accused offered by the prosecution.

So, if a defendant testifies that he's a "kindhearted person," does that open the door for the prosecution presenting testimony that he's a violent person? That was the question addressed by the Supreme Court of Kentucky in its recent opinion in Johnson v. Commonwealth, 2023 WL 8639369 (Ky. 2023).

In Johnson, the facts were as stated above, with the prosecution presenting evidence of the defendant's violent character after he testified that he is a "kindhearted person" at his trial for assault and related crimes. The Supreme Court of Kentucky ultimately rejected the defendant's appeal of this issue, ruling as follows:

Johnson first argues that evidence of prior acts of violence in and of themselves are not proper rebuttal evidence because violence does not rebut generosity. Citing Vito Corleone from the 1972 film The Godfather, Johnson argues a violent person can also be generous. Johnson testified he was a “kindhearted person,” and did illustrate that kindheartedness with the example of freely giving drugs to fellow drug-users, so in that sense one might argue he was generous. But the specific words used at trial were “kindhearted” and generosity is a subset of kindheartedness, not equal to it. Kindhearted is defined as “having or showing a kind heart; kindly.” I The American College Encyclopedic Dictionary, Kindhearted, 672 (1952). Kindly is defined as “benevolent disposition or spirit.”...Benevolent, finally, is defined as “desiring to do good for others.”...From these definitions we see that a claim to be kindhearted is a broad one of general moral character and encompasses virtually all specific traits of good character. Therefore, to rebut a claim of kindheartedness, reputation for violence or specific acts of violence is permissible subject to the Rules of Evidence. As Professor Lawson observes, “[i]f an accused exercises this initiative [to put character in issue] with proof of general moral character, there is no obvious reason for disallowing evidence of a relevant specific trait in rebuttal, for the rebuttal evidence would narrow rather than broaden the character issue raised by the accused[.]”

-CM