Maras v. Commonwealth

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

CHIEF JUSTICE MINTON

As recently as three years ago, this Court reaffirmed our commitment to the historic rule prohibiting the use of post-trial juror statements to impeach a facially valid verdict — a rule, as we said in Commonwealth v. Abnee, that is “firmly rooted in the early years of Kentucky jurisprudence.” 1

Relying upon post-trial comments attributed to jurors implying that the jury had not agreed unanimously on all of the statutory elements of the crime of first-degree stalking — one of the crimes of which he had just been convicted — Theodore Maras moved the…