Commonwealth v. Oliver

Opinion of the Court by

Justice ABRAMSON.

This Court has never expressly addressed whether a criminal defendant is entitled to have the jury instructed on a lesser-included misdemeanor offense which is supported by the evidence but which was time-barred by KRS 500.050(2) at the time of indictment. We now hold that a defendant is entitled to the lesser-included offense instruction and, that by requesting jury consideration of an “expired” misdemeanor, the defendant waives his statute of limitations defense to any resulting conviction. Recognizing that this rule was unavailable at the time of…