Hamilton v. Commonwealth

CULLEN, Commissioner.

In the early 1960’s Rudolph Hamilton, Hassie Cane Martin and Johnny Smith, Jr., each, on separate convictions of murder, was sentenced to death. In 1965 then Governor Breathitt commuted their sentences to life imprisonment without privilege of parol (which under Kentucky law was not an originally permissible penalty for murder). In proceedings in the courts of Kentucky and in the Federal courts, Hamilton sought to have the condition of ineligibility for parole removed from his commuted sentence on the ground that it was not a legally permissible punishment for murder. He…