Crane v. Commonwealth

SPAIN, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from a judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court sentencing the appellant, Major Crane, to thirty years’ imprisonment following his conviction by a jury for wanton murder. A liquor store clerk was shot in the head and killed, apparently during an attempted robbery.

A forty-year sentence imposed on appellant following an earlier trial was set aside by the federal courts on constitutional procedural grounds.1 There is no contention that those original errors were repeated at the second trial.

The first two of the five claims of error raised in this appeal…