The Kentucky Supreme Court Thursday reversed a Cerulean woman’s conviction on arson and attempted murder charges from a 2019 case in Christian County.
A Christian County Circuit Court jury convicted Karen Brafman of first and second-degree arson and six counts of attempted murder in 2019. The Supreme Court reversed that decision Thursday on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct by Commonwealth Attorney Rick Boling, with the decision saying it was blatant enough to depict her trial as “fundamentally unfair.”
Brafman argued she was deprived of her right to present a full defense when the trial court declined to instruct the jury on her central defense of voluntary intoxication beyond her own testimony, which the jury found to be insufficient to support her defense.
In her testimony, she claimed to have been awake for five days straight while consuming substantial amounts of whiskey, meth, and ecstasy. She alleged this caused her to be unable to recall her actions between her visit to Craig Calloway’s trailer at 2:30 a.m. and the approximate time of her arrest around 5:30 a.m., and therefore could not form the criminal intent necessary to commit the crime.
The Supreme Court ruled a criminal defendant has a basic constitutional due process right to present a defense, which entitles the jury to be instructed to a defendant’s theory of the case.
The Supreme Court went on to say that the charge of attempted murder is an intent-specific crime where the defendant’s mental state is a central issue, which Brafman tried to negate by claiming intoxication.
In its 31-page ruling, the Supreme Court concluded that the degree of prosecutorial misconduct was flagrant enough that the trial was fundamentally unfair, and thus led the jury to conclude facts contrary to the known facts of the case, and that Brafman was deprived of an ability to present her defense to the jury.
The reversal means the case is remanded back to Christian County Circuit Court for further proceedings.
Brafman was sentenced to life in prison in July 2019. The charges stem from a state police investigation into a fire that occurred May 11, 2018, at a mobile home located in the 8800 block of Princeton Road in Christian County. The home was occupied by Craig Calloway, Ashley Webster, and their four children at the time of the fire. They were not injured.
