Boyd v. Commonwealth

LUKOWSKY, Justice.

Wallace Oscar Boyd was indicted, tried and convicted in the Greenup Circuit Court of the intentional multiple murders of Alete Gilliam and Edward Howard. The statutes required the jury to fix his punishment at death. KRS 507.020(2)(e) and KRS 532.-030(1). He appeals.

The primary question presented for decision is the constitutionality of Kentucky’s 1974 mandatory death penalty, visa-vis, the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States. Relying on the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct.…