Roy v. Commonwealth

STEINFELD, Justice.

Appellants Larry H. Roy and Donald Eugene Ault were found guilty of escaping from a state penitentiary, a crime denounced by KRS 432.390. Their punishment was fixed at three years’ imprisonment. They appeal. We affirm.

While incarcerated Roy and Ault had been assigned as “nurses” in the prison hospital. Their defense for escaping was “coercion and necessity,” sometimes called “duress.” They testified that as prison “nurses” they had access to narcotics and that they had been threatened with bodily harm by other inmates unless they stole drugs and supplied them to the…