Daniel Lee Moss v. Commonwealth of Kentucky

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

JUSTICE VENTERS

Appellant, Daniel Lee Moss, appeals from a decision of the Court of Appeals which affirmed the judgment of the Simpson Circuit Court convicting him of manslaughter in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence. 1 We granted discretionary review to address Appellant’s claims that the trial court erred by: 1) allowing the prosecutor to use his silence as an adoptive admission of guilt, and to expressly portray it as such in the Commonwealth’s opening statement and closing argument; and 2) allowing his pre-arrest silence to be used as substantive…