COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY APPELLANT v. APPELLEE (2026)

OPINION OF THE COURT BY CHIEF JUSTICE LAMBERT AFFIRMING

H.M. was deemed incompetent to stand trial for the murder of his caretaker and was thereafter involuntarily committed to the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center (KCPC)¹ pursuant to the procedures provided for under Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) Chapter 202C. During the evidentiary hearing under KRS 202C.030, H.M. conceded that he killed the victim but asserted he was insane during the commission of the offense. His sole argument before this Court is that the Scott Circuit Court erred by failing to find that he was insane at the time of the murder. After review, we affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 2, 2018, H.M. was arrested for the murder of his live-in caretaker, Denise Hamilton. Less than two weeks later, the Scott County Circuit Court ordered that H.M. be sent to KCPC to be evaluated for both his competency to stand trial and his criminal responsibility for the offense. H.M. was initially admitted to KCPC from September 24, 2018, to December 21, 2018. In a January 2019 report Dr. Amy Trivette—a psychiatrist who was the medical director of KCPC at that time—opined that H.M. had been restored to competency to stand trial, but he was legally insane when he killed Denise.

As his competency had been restored, H.M. was transferred back to the Scott County Jail. Dr. Trivette evaluated him there in July 2019 and found him to be actively psychotic and unable to stand trial due to the deterioration of his mental state. He was therefore readmitted to KCPC in October 2019 with the goal of restoring his competency. In a March 2020 report, Dr. Trivette stated that H.M. had again regained competency despite continued auditory hallucinations and delusional statements. She recommended that he not be returned to the Scott County Jail in order to avoid another decline in his mental state; he remained at KCPC from that point forward. In a June 2020 report, Dr. Trivette again opined that H.M. was competent although he continued to demonstrate symptoms of psychosis.

H.M. was next evaluated in March 2021 and August 2021 by Dr. Martine Turns, a KCPC psychologist. After both evaluations, one of which she acknowledged was a “close call,” she concluded he was competent to stand trial. However, by December 2021, H.M.’s mental state had again decompensated significantly. In a February 2022 report, Dr. Turns opined that based on the fluctuating and unpredictable course of H.M.’s mental condition, and the deterioration of his baseline level of functioning over time despite adequate medication, H.M. was not competent to stand trial and was not restorable within the foreseeable future.

Following competency hearings in March 2022 and July 2022, the circuit court found H.M. to be incompetent to stand trial and unlikely to regain competency in the foreseeable future. The Commonwealth accordingly filed a petition for H.M.’s involuntary commitment under KRS Chapter 202C. See KRS 504.110(2)(a). Commitment proceedings under Chapter 202C occur in two stages. First, unless the respondent waives it, the circuit court must hold an evidentiary hearing to determine “whether sufficient evidence exists to support a finding that the respondent is guilty of the crime charged against him․ by a preponderance of the evidence.” KRS 202C.030(3). If the court makes that finding, it must hold a subsequent commitment hearing to determine “whether the respondent meets the criteria for involuntary commitment under KRS 202C.050[ ]” beyond a reasonable doubt. KRS 202C.040(3), (4).

At the time H.M. was committed,² the criteria for involuntary commitment under KRS 202C.050 were that the respondent presented a danger to himself or others as a result of his mental condition; that the respondent needed care, training, or treatment to mitigate or prevent substantial physical harm to himself or others; that the respondent had a demonstrated history of criminal behavior that has endangered or caused injury to others or had a substantial history of involuntary hospitalizations under KRS Chapter 202A or 202B prior to the commission of the charged crime; and that a less restrictive alternative mode of treatment would endanger the respondent or others. KRS 202C.050(1) (eff. April 1, 2021, to July 14, 2024).

The sole focus of H.M.’s appeal now before this Court is the circuit court's findings following his KRS 202C.030 evidentiary hearing. Both the parties and the court understood from the outset of that hearing that the primary issue was whether H.M. was insane when he killed Denise, i.e., whether “as a result of mental illness or intellectual disability, he [lacked] substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.” KRS 504.020(1). The evidence presented during that hearing was as follows.

H.M. was born in Lexington, Kentucky, but when he was about five years old his parents moved to Alabama with him and his maternal half-sister Jane.³ So far as his mental health was concerned, H.M. reportedly had a normal childhood; in high school he received average grades and played baseball. By his early twenties he had obtained an associate degree in psychology and was pursuing a bachelor's degree when, in 2005, his schizophrenia began to manifest, marked by paranoid delusions and a preoccupation with, inter alia, Christianity. He also has a longstanding, severe addiction to alcohol.

H.M. has had numerous hospitalizations for his mental health, including a five-day admission in October 2005 to an unknown facility; six admissions between 2012 and 2017 at Tennessee Valley Life Center where records indicated he presented with “paranoia/hyper-religious/drinks 20 beers per day/loosening of association”; and a five-day admission in December 2017 due to “increasingly delusional auditory and visual hallucinations” and bizarre behavior.

H.M.’s mental illness was so debilitating that his parents were his caretakers until his mother's death in May 2010 followed by his father's death in September 2017. Following their deaths, his sister Jane became his legal guardian and conservator. However, she lived in Texas and was unable to move H.M. into her home. She would therefore fly to Alabama to see him every few weeks, but she quickly recognized that it was not a sustainable situation. She was in fact told by law enforcement that she needed to arrange a different living situation for H.M., as he was “terrorizing” his neighbors: he threatened to kill his neighbor's dog, set his neighbor's lawn on fire, and shot an arrow at either his neighbor or the neighbor's home. That was how Denise, the victim in this case, came to be H.M.’s caretaker.

Jane met Denise, who had been friends with both H.M. and his father, at H.M.’s father's funeral. Denise's workplace was close to H.M.’s home in Alabama, and Jane had arranged to have Denise check on H.M. regularly. Upon Denise's agreement to be H.M.’s live-in caretaker, Jane sold the home where H.M. was living in Alabama and purchased a home in Georgetown, Kentucky. The home was two stories; Denise's living space was in the finished basement area and H.M.’s living space was on the first floor. The two floors were connected by an internal staircase. Their separate living spaces were a point of contention for H.M. On April 3, 2018, Captain Donald Mather with the Georgetown Police Department responded to a 911 call at the home. While there, H.M. told Capt. Mather that Denise had gone into the basement and locked the door. This had infuriated H.M., and he tried to “hack” through the door with a golf club. Per Capt. Mather, that incident was resolved peacefully.

Four months later, on August 2, 2018, Troye Shannon, a neighbor, went to the home to tend to the flower beds. She knocked on the basement door seeking gardening supplies and noticed it was open. She stuck her head inside and saw Denise just inside the door on the floor in a puddle of blood. Denise had been beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat. Ms. Shannon called 911 at about 4:15 p.m. and several officers from the Georgetown Police Department responded. They first cleared the basement of the house, and while they were standing at the foot of the stairs in the basement preparing to clear the first floor H.M. appeared at the top of the stairs. H.M. complied with the officers’ orders to come down the stairs and about where to place his hands as he did so. He was handcuffed without incident and taken outside on the front porch while the officers continued to clear the house. The officers found numerous beer cans and liquor bottles strewn about H.M.’s living space. They also found the baseball bat he had used to kill Denise in the floor of his living room and a black t-shirt shoved into a toilet bowl in one of the bathrooms.

After H.M. was taken outside onto the front porch, Capt. Mather arrived on the scene and approached him. Presumably because H.M. remembered Capt. Mather from the incident in April of that year, H.M. immediately began speaking to him as he approached the front porch. Because some of the statements H.M. made were incriminating, Capt. Mather mirandized him and then began asking him questions, which was captured on another officer's body camera. Throughout the questioning, H.M. stood calmly and stared at the ground; he was dressed in jeans and a brown hat and did not have a shirt on.

When Capt. Mather asked him what happened he responded, “It's been like the Devil or something” in “all the ways.” He claimed that he had seen “a big shadow” that was “in the sky with wings” the night before, and that Denise “looked like the Devil” and “there was a baby inside her” that was “moving around in her stomach.” Because of that, he went downstairs and “beat her up with a baseball bat.” He said that he did not remember how many times he struck her, “maybe seven or eight” and that she asked him “Why are you doing this to me?” He acknowledged that the bat was his and stated that he “didn't clean it.” He said that after he killed her, he went upstairs and “was just sittin’ there” and “[he] was scared.” Capt. Mather asked him why he was scared and he replied, “I was afraid I had killed somebody.” The officer asked him if there were consequences for killing someone and he answered, “Yes, sir. I asked the, I was talking to them and told them that there was the Devil, and they'll pardon me.” Capt. Mather asked, “But nobody else in the house, nobody else made you do this, nobody else said to do it, it's just you and you have this thing and you thought she had the Devil I guess is what you're telling me, so you hit her seven or eight times, and then you came upstairs and sat with the bat.” And H.M. responded, “Yes, sir.”

H.M. was taken from the scene to the Georgetown Police Station. He was recorded in an interview room from 5:35 p.m. until 8:50 p.m. The officers did not start the formal interview until 7:25 p.m., and H.M. was alone in the interview room for almost the entirety of the two hours that preceded the questioning. During that time, he talked to himself almost incessantly and made bizarre statements that were consistent with his religious psychosis, such as: “God told me to do it, that should be good enough for innocent. I'm psychic, I'm the closest thing to God, I've got the key to Hell and death, I'll be out in no time. I'm the alpha and the omega.” He also said to himself: “Well, Denise, looks like you're gonna get it. I went crazy. God told me how to, God told me, she's the eternity writer. She kept locking her door. It's my house. She kept telling me to leave and I went crazy. That's what it was all about.”

The investigating officers came into the room three times during the two-hour period that H.M. was alone: at 6:04 p.m. they came in and gave him a t-shirt to wear; at 6:27 p.m. they took pictures of him for evidentiary purposes; and at 7:06 p.m. they took his shoes because they appeared to have blood on them. Each time, H.M. fully cooperated with the officers. He also cooperated with the officers’ questioning for approximately thirty minutes. During that questioning H.M. told the officers that the incident in April 2018 occurred because he was more comfortable in the basement and liked sleeping on the couch down there, but Denise kept locking the door and did not want him there. He further stated that he believed he struck Denise about six times with the bat and that God told him to do it. When the officers asked him if he had argued with Denise before he killed her, he replied, “No, God told me to do that.” He then stated that Denise “took [his] bike and sold it to some guy․ last thing I remember.” When the officers asked him if he wanted to kill Denise he responded:

No. I didn't want to kill Denise. Whatever happened was very real, I just went with what God had said. I feel deeply sorry for beating somebody. I plead the Fifth. I'm gonna plead insanity and the Fifth. I don't know why I did it. I am pleading the Fifth. I was told. Insanity and the Fifth is what I'm pleading.

The officers ended the interview at that time. Additionally, it was undisputed that H.M. had stopped taking his medication for at least ten days prior to the offense and that he was drinking extremely heavily during that time.

During the evidentiary hearing, both sides presented expert testimony regarding H.M.’s claim of insanity at the time of the offense. The Commonwealth presented testimony from Dr. George Parker, and H.M. presented testimony from Dr. Trivette and Dr. Eric Drogin.

Dr. Parker is the director of forensic psychiatry and professor of clinical psychiatry at Indiana University's medical school. He is also an adjunct professor of law at Indiana's law school. His entire private practice involved conducting competency and criminal responsibility evaluations for both prosecution and defense. His opinion was that although H.M. suffered from a mental illness at the time of the offense, he both appreciated the wrongfulness of his actions and had the capacity to conform his behavior to the requirements of the law. Dr. Parker reviewed numerous KCPC documents regarding H.M., police reports, the probable cause affidavit related to the offense, the body camera video with Capt. Mather at the scene, the entirety of the footage of H.M. at the police station, and he interviewed H.M. for about an hour and fifteen minutes in May 2022.

It was Dr. Parker's opinion that the best information about H.M.’s mental state at the time of the offense came from the police reports, the body camera footage with Capt. Mather, and the police station footage because those sources were the closest in time to the offense. Dr. Parker found it significant that H.M. fully cooperated with the officers at the scene; that he told Capt. Mather that he was scared he had killed someone and agreed that there would be consequences for it; and that he agreed with Capt. Mather's statement that no one made him do it.

As for the footage from the police station, Dr. Parker opined that H.M.’s statement to himself that God told him to kill Denise and that “that should be enough for innocent” demonstrated that H.M. was aware of guilt versus innocence and that he should be considered innocent if God instructed him to do it. Additionally, H.M.’s statement to himself that “She kept locking the door. It's my house. She kept telling me to leave and I went crazy. That's what it was all about[,]” was a much different narrative than receiving a directive from God to kill her. This narrative was then reinforced during his police interview when H.M. expressed his frustration about Denise wanting to keep her living space separate. Finally, H.M. expressing that he was deeply sorry for “beating somebody” immediately before invoking his Fifth Amendment right to silence and asserting he was insane indicated to Dr. Parker that he understood that he was about to be charged with a serious offense.

Dr. Parker also discussed his May 2022 interview with H.M. and clarified that although H.M. has schizophrenia “he's not stupid” and his condition does not prevent him from learning. He highlighted this because during their interview, when Dr. Parker asked H.M. what he did in response to the voice that he heard before he assaulted Denise, he responded, “I'm gonna plead the Fifth. I didn't have any reaction. I didn't have any thought. I did not know what I was doing, what was wrong.” When Dr. Parker asked why he did not know what he was doing was wrong H.M. responded, “I was completely unaware of what was wrong and what was right.” When asked why he thought that way H.M. said, “mental disorder.” It was Dr. Parker's opinion that H.M. had learned over time, likely during his numerous KCPC evaluations, what the definition of legal insanity was and had fit his narrative of the crime within it.

Dr. Parker also noted a clear pattern across the materials he reviewed that whenever H.M. is asked a specific, direct question about what he did or why he did it he either would not answer or would answer with something involving the Fifth Amendment or an insanity defense. He concluded this was a logical response to those questions despite the seemingly delusional statements that accompanied them. Moreover, at no point in any of the materials he reviewed did H.M. claim that he was not able to control himself; he claimed several times that God made him do it, but he never stated he was unable to stop himself.

Finally, Dr. Parker was asked to give his opinion about Dr. Trivette's and Dr. Drogin's respective reports concerning H.M.’s criminal responsibility. He testified that Dr. Drogin's three-page report did not rise to the level of competency that is expected for their profession. It does not recount any of the materials he relied upon and the bulk of it was a recitation of his attempts to interview H.M. via Zoom on three occasions in May and September 2021. Dr. Drogin's report also states that he agreed with Dr. Trivette's January 2019 opinion that H.M. was insane at the time of the offense, but he offered no reasoning for his agreement. And, while Dr. Trivette's sixteen-page report was more thorough, it too suffered a flaw. Namely, although she reviewed police reports from the offense, she watched neither the body camera footage from the scene nor the footage from the police station.

Dr. Drogin testified that he is a clinical forensic psychologist and an attorney that has performed over 3,000 mental health evaluations and has testified for both the prosecution and defense. He testified that his opinion that H.M. was not criminally responsible for the murder was based on the three interviews he conducted with H.M., Dr. Trivette's January 2019 report, the recording of the police questioning H.M. at the police station, and his guardianship. Although we again note that his review of those materials was not discussed in his report.

Dr. Trivette is currently the regional psychiatric director for a company that contracts with Kentucky's Department of Corrections to provide mental and physical healthcare for its facilities. Prior to that, she worked at KCPC for thirteen years: first as a staff psychiatrist, then as an assistant director, and finally as its medical director. The bulk of her work during her time at KCPC was to conduct competency and criminal responsibility evaluations and she estimated she had conducted around 4,000 to 5,000 of them. She testified that for her January 2019 report, in which she concluded H.M. was insane at the time of the offense, she relied on information gathered during H.M.’s treatment at KCPC. This included her observations as his treating psychiatrist, testing performed by a psychologist, and a biopsychosocial history compiled by a social worker. She also reviewed records regarding H.M.’s history of psychiatric hospitalizations and police reports concerning the crime. Under the section of her report titled “Opinion on Criminal Responsibility Issues” she stated:

[H.M.] does have a history of severe, persistent mental illness, and available information indicates he was noncompliant with psychiatric medication at the time of the incident. His intellectual functioning is sufficient to appreciate the difference between right and wrong. He does acknowledge voluntary use of alcohol, although available descriptions do not indicate obvious intoxication around the time of the alleged incident. However, there is no blood alcohol level to provide objective information regarding his level of intoxication at the time of the incident. There is no known non-psychotic motive for the alleged criminal behavior, and [H.M.] describes delusional beliefs and auditory hallucinations from God as the primary motivation for the alleged criminal behavior. Thus, with the available information, it is this evaluation's opinion that [H.M.] did not have the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law at the time of the alleged crime due to psychiatric symptomatology associated with untreated mental illness.

She testified that nothing that has occurred since January 2019, including her review of Dr. Parker's report, changed her opinion on H.M.’s lack of criminal responsibility.

During cross-examination, Dr. Trivette agreed with Dr. Parker's conclusion that H.M. is an intelligent person and explained that his lack of competency to stand trial had more to do with his inability to participate rationally in his own defense than with his inability to understand the proceedings against him. In fact, it had consistently been her opinion (apart from periods when H.M. was floridly psychotic) that he understood the charge against him and that he would face serious punishment for it if convicted. She further acknowledged that she did not believe she had reviewed any of the video footage of H.M. from the day of his arrest, and that she did not know if reviewing that footage would have changed her mind about his criminal responsibility. She conceded his invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights could be an indication that he appreciated the criminality of his conduct but noted that he also could have simply been parroting legal jargon that he did not actually understand.

H.M.’s counsel also presented the testimony of H.M.’s neighbor, Patrick Williams. On an unspecified date prior to the murder, Patrick saw H.M. smashing some of his belongings on the curb outside. He had posted a tweet that said: “the guy who lives across the way just smashed his acoustic guitar in the street and his skateboarding helmet, too, left the shards lying in the middle of the road.” H.M. believed that God told him to break everything he owned that was made in China because China was “the Beast.” Then, at around 1:30 a.m. on the night of the murder, Patrick went outside to smoke a cigarette and saw H.M. in the middle of the street on his knees shaking some kind of long staff at the sky. He sent a text to someone that said, “schizophrenic guy is out in middle of street at 1:30 a.m. with a stick, kneeling like an Old Testament prayer and gesturing at the heavens[.]” Patrick testified that when he woke up the next day, the police were “all over” H.M.’s home.

A recorded phone call between one of the investigating officers and a woman named Janet Poland was also played into the record, but she was not called to testify. Janet worked near H.M.’s neighborhood, and she claimed that she saw him walking down the middle of the street at 8 a.m. on the day he was arrested. She did not think anything of it at the time because the area has a halfway house and “a lot of weird people” were around. On the same day, a little after 1 p.m. she again saw H.M. in the middle of the street, and he was yelling, pointing his finger, and talking about “hellfire damnation kind of stuff.” She claimed that she recognized H.M. when she saw his picture on the news but because she did not testify, she did not positively identify him under oath.

Based on the foregoing evidence, the circuit court found that H.M. was guilty but mentally ill of Denise's murder and that he did not satisfy his burden of proving his insanity defense by a preponderance of the evidence. It explained:

The Court reaches this conclusion in reliance of [H.M.’s] own behavior and statements in the body cam footage after the murder; the interview at the Georgetown Police Department wherein [H.M.] affirmatively asserts his Fifth Amendment Right not to incriminate himself, a clear acknowledgement that he had committed a wrongful act and there would be consequences; the observations and testimony of Captain Mather; testimony of Dr. George F. Parker, the only expert who testified that he actually reviewed both the body cam interview footage and the interview conducted at the police station, which were both must closer in time to the criminal conduct of [H.M.] than the subsequent interviews each of the three experts conducted with [H.M.] in the intervening years.

The Court certainly appreciates the testimony of Dr. Amy Trivette and assigns her opinions and observations a great deal of weight, but Dr. Trivette's admission under cross-examination that she did not recall seeing the body cam footage or police station interview prior to forming her opinion that [H.M.] was insane at the time of the commission of the criminal act. In addition, she states that she “did not know” if those videos would change her professional opinion of [H.M.] She did indicate that the information would be helpful in forming an opinion. This is key for the Court as Dr. Parker's opinion encompasses those videos and [H.M.’s] behavior/statements contained in those videos are the closest in time of any observation of [H.M.] to the commission of the criminal act. The fact that viewing those may have changed Dr. Trivette's opinion․ tends to lessen the impact of her opinion․

Dr. Parker also explained that it was the evidence closest in time to the act that was the best evidence at determining criminal responsibility. There does not seem to be a dispute on the weight given to the evidence available closest in time to the criminal act as opposed to evidence obtained later in time. It was Dr. Parker and not Dr. Trivette or Dr. Drogin who looked most extensively at the evidence of [H.M.’s] behavior at the time of the criminal act and it is on that basis that the Court assigns his opinion controlling weight in the matter.

The court in fact did not assign Dr. Drogin's opinion much weight at all as it “[appeared] from the record that [Dr.] Drogin's opinion is largely based upon Dr. Trivette's records and [was] largely derivative of her first hand work.” The court further found that “Dr. Drogin did little to dispel this notion on the stand as the vast majority of Dr. Drogin's testimony was about Dr. Drogin himself and not [H.M.]” As for the testimony of Mr. Williams, and Mrs. Poland's recorded statement, the court explained that “neither are medical experts or trained law enforcement officers.” Thus, while their observations “obviously support the fact that [H.M.] is mentally ill․ nothing in either's testimony [was] in any way persuasive as it [related] to the technical, legal issue of criminal responsibility[.]” Last, regarding H.M.’s ability to conform his behavior to the requirements of law, the court found

that he did have that ability as demonstrated by the fact that he did in fact conform his conduct to the law in the months leading up to the incident. [H.M.] owned and possessed a golf club and a Louisville Slugger baseball bat for some period of time prior to committing this murder. At no point did [H.M.] use either of those potentially deadly weapons to attack or harm another human being. He was able to conform his behavior to the law. [H.M.] and Denise Hamilton resided together throughout their time in Kentucky and she had previously cared for him in Alabama with no known physical harm befalling her at the hands of [H.M.]

As the court found H.M. guilty but mentally ill of the murder, it ordered H.M. to be examined by two qualified mental health professionals and scheduled a commitment hearing. KRS 202C.030(5). Following his final commitment hearing, the court found beyond a reasonable doubt that H.M. satisfied each of KRS 202C.050’s criteria for commitment. KRS 202C.040(3). H.M. does not raise any issues or arguments concerning the KRS 202C.040 commitment hearing.

H.M. thereafter appealed to the Court of Appeals, which unanimously affirmed. H.M. v. Commonwealth, No. 2022-CA-1016-MR, 2024 WL 1122572 (Ky. App. Mar. 15, 2024). Both H.M. and the Commonwealth filed appeals from the Court of Appeals’ ruling. This Court then granted the motions for discretionary review from both appeals and held oral arguments. Additional facts are discussed below as necessary.

II. ANALYSIS

H.M.’s appeal raises a single issue: he argues the circuit court erred by not finding that he was legally insane at the time of Denise's murder. As part of that argument, he asserts that the circuit court erred by considering the invocation of his Fifth Amendment right to silence as evidence of his sanity and by refusing to consider Mr. Williams’ testimony and Mrs. Poland's recorded statement as evidence of his insanity at the time of the offense. The Commonwealth's appeal challenges dicta from the Court of Appeals, which opined that KRS 202C.050(1)(c)’s former requirement that the respondent “has a demonstrated history of criminal behavior that has endangered or caused injury to others” could not be proven by evidence of the underlying offense with which the respondent was charged and for which he was deemed incompetent to stand trial. H.M., No. 2022-CA-1016-MR, 2024 WL 1122572, at *10-*11 (discussing KRS 202C.050(1)(c) (eff. April 1, 2021, to July 14, 2024)). We will discuss each argument in turn.

A. The circuit court did not err by rejecting H.M.’s insanity defense.

As a preliminary matter, the parties dispute whether H.M. properly preserved this issue for our review. At the conclusion of the Commonwealth's evidence, H.M.’s counsel moved for a directed verdict arguing that it had put forth enough evidence during its cross-examination of the Commonwealth's witnesses for the court to find that H.M. lacked criminal responsibility for the offense. The court overruled the motion, as it had only heard expert testimony from Dr. Parker at that time; however, it agreed with the parties that the sole issue before it was whether H.M. was guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity. H.M.’s counsel then renewed his motion for directed verdict at the conclusion of all of the evidence. The court noted the motion, but felt it was redundant as the issue of H.M.’s insanity was the sole issue before it. It therefore declined to rule on the motion at that time and took the case under submission.

The Commonwealth argues, and is correct, that the proper mechanism to preserve this issue was a motion for dismissal pursuant to Kentucky Rule of Civil Procedure (CR) 41.02(2) rather than a motion for directed verdict under CR 50.01. Pursuant to KRS 202C.030(4), the evidentiary hearing “shall be held before a judge without a jury.” And this Court has previously held that a directed verdict “is clearly improper in an action tried by a court without a jury.” R.S. v. Commonwealth, 423 S.W.3d 178, 184 (Ky. 2014) (quoting Brown v. Shelton, 156 S.W.3d 319, 321 (Ky. App. 2004)). Instead, “the appropriate procedural mechanism for early dismissal is found in CR 41.02(2).” Id. The rule itself plainly provides that

[i]n an action tried by the court without a jury, after the plaintiff has completed the presentation of his evidence, the defendant, without waiving his right to offer evidence in the event the motion is not granted, may move for a dismissal on the ground that upon the facts and the law the plaintiff has shown no right to relief.

CR 41.02(2).

However, under the circumstances of this case, it would be absurd for this Court to conclude that the circuit court was not given “an opportunity to (1) rule on the issue or (2) correct any alleged error.” Gasaway v. Commonwealth, 671 S.W.3d 298, 312 (Ky. 2023) (discussing the rationale behind the preservation rule). Indeed, in Gasaway we stated that “while the form of the objection does not control, the fact that an issue was made known to the trial court is paramount[.]” Id. at 313. As we have noted several times, the sole issue before the circuit court was whether H.M. was insane at the time of the offense. Thus, we cannot say that his counsel improperly preserved this issue simply because he presented the motion as a directed verdict motion as opposed to a motion to dismiss. This Court will accordingly review the circuit court's ruling for abuse of discretion. This means we are without authority to reverse the circuit court's ruling unless we conclude that its ruling was “arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles.” Commonwealth v. English, 993 S.W.2d 941, 945 (Ky.1999).

In order to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, H.M. had to prove that “as a result of a mental illness” he either “[lacked] substantial capacity․ to appreciate the criminality of his conduct” or “[lacked] substantial capacity․ to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.” KRS 504.020(1). The burden of proving his insanity was entirely on H.M., and the Commonwealth did not bear the burden of disproving it. KRS 202C.030(4).

At its core, H.M.’s appeal asks this Court to reweigh the evidence presented to the circuit court in his favor. In particular, he contends that the

circuit court should have found the testimony of Drs. Trivette and Drogin to be more persuasive on the issue of his criminal responsibility than Dr. Parker's and that it should have considered Mr. Williams’ testimony and Mrs. Poland's recorded statement when reaching its conclusion on that issue.

Overall, we cannot conclude that the circuit court's decision to favor Dr. Parker's opinion over that of Drs. Trivette and Drogin was an abuse of discretion. As the court noted, Dr. Parker was the only one of the three experts who reviewed both the body camera footage of H.M.’s statements to Capt. Mather and the entirety of the footage of H.M. while at the police station on the day of the offense. This evidence of H.M.’s behavior was the closest in time to the actual offense and therefore, as Dr. Parker concluded, it was the best evidence available of his state of mind at the time of the offense. While it is true that Dr. Trivette spent more time observing H.M. than Dr. Parker due to his confinement at KCPC, those interactions took place months to years after the actual offense and were accordingly less probative of his mental state during the commission of the crime itself. And Dr. Drogin's opinion, it seems, was nothing more than an agreement with Dr. Trivette's conclusion with no supportive reasoning other than three brief, largely unproductive interviews Dr. Drogin had with H.M. via Zoom roughly three years after the offense occurred.

The circuit court also did not abuse its discretion in refusing to consider the testimony of Mr. Williams and Mrs. Poland in making its sanity ruling. As the court stated, neither of those individuals was an expert or a trained officer and neither were qualified to, nor did they, provide an opinion regarding whether H.M. satisfied the legal definition of insanity. Moreover, Mrs. Poland did not even testify in person and therefore never positively identified H.M. under oath nor was she subject to cross-examination.

We are also unable to conclude that the circuit court's finding that H.M. failed to prove he met either prong of the insanity defense was an abuse of discretion. To begin, despite the numerous delusional and bizarre statements H.M. made on the day of his arrest, there is ample evidence that he did not lack substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct. At the scene, he told Capt. Mather that he was scared he had killed someone and acknowledged there were consequences for doing so. At the police station he told the officers he was deeply sorry for beating Denise to death and that he was going to “plead insanity.” He also made various statements both to himself and to the officers to the effect that, because God told him to kill Denise, he should be “pardoned” or found “innocent.” As Dr. Parker discussed, his indications that he would need to claim insanity or that he could be pardoned or found innocent implies that he understood he had done something criminal in nature.

H.M. also invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence during the police's questioning of him, which is an additional indication that he understood his actions in killing Denise were criminal. H.M. argues that the court erred by considering his invocation of the Fifth Amendment as evidence of his sanity, citing Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284 (1986) (holding that a prosecutor's use of a defendant's post-arrest, post-Miranda silence as evidence of sanity violated the Due Process Clause); Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 619 (1976) (holding that a prosecutor's use of a defendant's post-Miranda silence for impeachment purposes violates the Due Process Clause); and Bartley v. Commonwealth, 445 S.W.3d 1, 9 (Ky. 2014) (holding that use of a defendant's pre-arrest, post-Miranda silence as substantive evidence of guilt violated the Due Process Clause).

The problem with H.M.’s reliance on Wainwright, Doyle, and Bartley for this argument is that they all arose from criminal convictions, whereas KRS Chapter 202C provides a process for civil commitment. H.M. asserts before this Court that while KRS 202C.040 might be a civil proceeding, KRS 202C.030 is not. However, during H.M.’s counsel's objection to the circuit court considering evidence of H.M.’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment as evidence of his guilt, his counsel acknowledged that KRS 202C.030 is a civil proceeding. H.M. cannot now feed a different can of worms to this Court by asserting that it is criminal in nature. Henson v. Commonwealth, 20 S.W.3d 466, 470 (Ky. 1999). Moreover, we addressed and rejected the contention that KRS Chapter 202C is a criminal proceeding in a companion case to the one now before us. See R.L.P. v. Commonwealth, --- S.W.3d --- (Ky. 2026). And, even assuming arguendo that the circuit court did err, the error was harmless because, as discussed above, there was sufficient evidence beyond H.M.’s invocation of his right to remain silent to conclude he understood the criminality of his conduct.

Finally, regarding whether H.M. lacked substantial capacity to conform his behavior to the requirements of law, we agree with H.M. that the circuit court's basis for this finding was problematic. In essence, the circuit court found that H.M. had the ability to conform his behavior to what the law requires because he had not previously attacked or killed Denise. However, “[e]ven if a lower court reaches its judgment for the wrong reason, we may affirm a correct result upon any ground supported by the record.” Wells v. Commonwealth, 512 S.W.3d 720, 721–22 (Ky. 2017). Here, there was a litany of evidence from the day of the offense that supported the circuit court's conclusion that H.M. had the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law at the time of the offense.

When the police responded to the home, H.M. complied with their commands, was taken into custody without incident, and calmly participated in questioning by Capt. Mather. He was then taken to the police station where he complied with the officers when they took photographs of him and took his shoes for evidentiary purposes. He also participated in an interview with the officers for about thirty minutes before claiming that he was insane and invoking his right to silence. During that interview, and during the time that he was alone in the interview room and speaking to himself, he made statements suggesting that he attacked Denise, not because God told him to, but because he lost his temper at the fact that she wanted to keep her living space in the home separate from his. Further support for this motive exists via the April 2018 incident in which he attempted to beat down the door that divided their living spaces with a golf club because Denise had locked it.

In sum, we cannot conclude that the circuit court's finding that H.M. had the substantial capacity to both understand the criminality of his conduct and conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was “arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles.” English, 993 S.W.2d at 945.

As we hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in declining to find that H.M. was insane at the time of the offense, it is unnecessary for us to address the Commonwealth's argument that the insanity defense should not be available to a respondent during a KRS 202C.030 evidentiary hearing. However, we are compelled to bring this issue to the attention of our General Assembly. As it is currently written, KRS 202C.030 provides that a respondent “may present evidence of affirmative defenses that could be raised at a criminal trial on the charged crime[,]” and that “[i]f the court determines that insufficient evidence has been presented to support a finding that the respondent is guilty of the charged crime against him or her, the court shall order the immediate release of the respondent.” KRS 202C.030(4), (6). Insanity is of course an affirmative defense that may be raised against a criminal charge, and if a defendant is found to be insane at the time of an offense he is considered “not guilty” by reason of insanity of that offense.

Thus, it appears that the statutory scheme would currently require the immediate release of an individual deemed incompetent to stand trial in the criminal proceedings against him and thereafter deemed not guilty by reason of insanity during KRS Chapter 202C proceedings against him. We strongly suspect, without explicitly holding, that the General Assembly could not have intended such an absurd result. See also, H.M., No. 2022-CA-1016-MR, 2024 WL 1122572, at *9 (raising similar concerns regarding KRS 202C.030).

B. We decline to address the meaning of the prior version of KRS 202C.050(c) as it relates to the underlying offense.

Before the Court of Appeals, H.M. asserted that the circuit court erred by finding that he satisfied each of KRS 202C.050’s criteria for commitment.⁴ Of relevance, H.M. argued that he did not satisfy KRS 202C.050(c) which, at the time of his commitment, required that “[t]he respondent has a demonstrated history of criminal behavior that has endangered or caused injury to others or has a substantial history of involuntary hospitalizations under KRS Chapter 202A or 202B prior to the commission of the charged crime.” KRS 202C.050(c) (eff. April 1, 2021, to July 14, 2024). As H.M.’s previous hospitalizations were in Alabama hospitals, he did not have a history of hospitalizations under KRS Chapters 202A or 202B. Thus, the Court of Appeals focused on whether he had a demonstrated history of criminal behavior that had endangered or caused injury to others. H.M., No. 2022-CA-1016-MR, 2024 WL 1122572, at *10.

The Court of Appeals held that “criminal behavior” did not mean a criminal conviction and instead interpreted the statutory requirement to mean that the Commonwealth must prove that the respondent “has a demonstrated history of engaging in․ conduct which causes social harm and is punishable by law.” Id. at *11. The court held that the undisputed incidents of H.M. setting his neighbor's lawn on fire and firing an arrow at his neighbor while living in Alabama satisfied this criteria. Id. Nevertheless, in dicta, it rejected the Commonwealth's argument that the underlying offense for which a KRS 202C respondent is deemed incompetent to stand trial can, in and of itself, satisfy the history of criminal behavior prong of KRS 202C.050(c). Id. at *10.

The Commonwealth's appeal asks this Court to not address this issue or, in the alternative, to hold that the Court of Appeals decided it incorrectly. We opt for the former, as we agree with the Court of Appeals that H.M. had a sufficient history of criminal behavior that endangered or caused injury to others apart from the underlying offense to satisfy this criterion.

III. CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, we affirm.

I agree with the well-written majority opinion's statutory analysis. However, the majority opinion acknowledges that the trial court's basis for finding that H.M. could conform his actions to the requirements of law was “problematic.” Nevertheless, the majority opinion upholds the factual finding of non-insanity by finding evidence in the record which apparently supports the finding while likewise ignoring evidence that would support a finding of insanity. In doing so, the majority effectively substitutes its own assessment of the weight and credibility of the evidence for that of the fact-finder. I disagree that an erroneous factual finding by the trial court opens the door for an appellate court to substitute its own assessment of the evidence in the record. Therefore, I respectfully dissent in part.

For a trial court to find that H.M. was not insane, it must find that he could conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. KRS 504.020(1). Here, the trial court so found based on the flawed rationale that because H.M. for months had possessed the means and opportunity to murder his caretaker, the fact that he restrained himself during that time was proof that he could conform his actions to the law on the day of the murder. Neither party disputes that the trial court's logical fallacy was an inadequate basis for meeting the second prong of the insanity defense. Where I diverge from the majority opinion is in how to proceed from this point.

To begin, the majority misstates the standard of review vis-à-vis the trial court's finding of insanity. While the majority claims the standard of review is an abuse of discretion, an abuse of discretion standard “applies in other situations where, for example, a ‘court is empowered to make a decision—of its choosing—that falls within a range of permissible decisions.’ ” Miller v. Eldridge, 146 S.W.3d 909, 916 (Ky. 2004). Clear error, on the other hand, “applies to a review of a trial court's findings of fact.” Id. Insanity is a factual finding typically reserved for the jury. Brown v. Commonwealth, 934 S.W.2d 242, 248 (Ky. 1996). Here, the trial court was tasked with stepping into the role of fact-finder and determining insanity. When this happens, we review for clear error. Biyad v. Commonwealth, 392 S.W.3d 380, 383 (Ky. 2013).

Therefore, the standard by which we must evaluate this case is clear. Regardless of the evidence presented that was indicative of [Defendant] being insane at the time of the murders, if there was any evidence presented that pointed towards him not being insane during the murders, there was an issue of fact for the trial court's determination. And, so long as the trial court's determination was not clearly erroneous, we must affirm. A finding of fact is clearly erroneous if it is not supported by substantial evidence; that is, evidence sufficient to induce conviction in the mind of a reasonable person.

Rogers v. Commonwealth, No. 2018-SC-000118-MR, 2019 WL 1236163, at *2 (Ky. Mar. 14, 2019) (citing Moore v. Asente, 110 S.W.3d 336, 354 (Ky. 2003)).

The majority first erred in not reviewing the trial court's finding that H.M. was not insane for clear error, reflecting a misunderstanding of our role as an appellate court in reviewing factual findings of a lower court. This led to the next error: instead of remanding back to the trial court for further fact-finding, the majority instead substitutes its own fact-finding to substantiate the trial court's ultimate judgment. The majority opinion holds that “there was a litany of evidence from the day of the offense that supported the circuit court's conclusion that H.M. had the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law at the time of the offense.” In so doing, the majority fails to consider the evidence which supports the opposite conclusion that H.M. was insane — that he was acting under religious delusions, was off his psychiatric medication and drinking heavily, and that he believed he was commanded by God to commit the murder. This sort of weighing, balancing, and credibility assessment has been reserved for the finders of fact.

The majority asserts that “[e]ven if a lower court reaches its judgment for the wrong reason, we may affirm a correct result upon any ground supported by the record.” Although that principle is accurate in the proper context, the majority misapplies it here. We invoke that rule to uphold a trial court's discretionary decisions or legal conclusions when the ultimate result is correct despite flawed reasoning. The authority the majority relies on illustrates this distinction. See Wells v. Commonwealth, 512 S.W.3d 720, 721–22 (Ky. 2017) (upholding the denial of a motion to suppress based on the legal justification that Miranda applied) (citing Commonwealth v. Fields, 194 S.W.3d 255, 257 (Ky. 2006) (analyzing the legal justification for suppression of evidence, with the outcome hinging on which of two cases is controlling law) and Jarvis v. Commonwealth, 960 S.W.2d 446, 469 (Ky. 1998) (analyzing which legal justification supported the trial court's evidentiary rulings)). Our precedent has upheld the trial court's ultimate rulings based upon different legal reasoning than that utilized by the trial court, but our precedent does not support the majority's proposition that we should substitute our own factual findings for that of the trial court.

“As an appellate court, we review judgments; we do not make them.” Klein v. Flanery, 439 S.W.3d 107, 122 (Ky. 2014). “In this Commonwealth, it is axiomatic that appellate courts are not fact-finders.” Id. “Appellate courts must be careful to avoid the sort of unfettered review of the record and of the trial court's rulings that indicates a de novo review.” Miller, 146 S.W.3d at 917. We made this directive clear perhaps most recently in Commonwealth v. Moore, 709 S.W.3d 241, 247 (Ky. 2025), when we criticized the Court of Appeals for “substitut[ing] its own factual findings for the trial court's missing factual findings to reach the result it concludes is justified by the evidence. This is not the role of reviewing courts even when engaging in the de novo review of a mixed question of fact and law.”

After correcting the trial court's illogical reasoning, we are unable to predict how the trial court would have ruled on the issue of H.M.’s ability to conform his actions to the requirements of the law. We can only be sure that the trial court, after hearing from the witnesses and viewing all exhibits, found the fact that H.M. had possessed the golf club and baseball bat for months without killing anyone to be more compelling than any other piece of evidence offered by the majority opinion. Perhaps this meant that the trial court deemed these other pieces of evidence incredible, or perhaps the trial court held its flawed reasoning in such relative high regard but that the other pieces of evidence would still stand as sufficient to support a finding of non-insanity. Either way, it must be the trial court that reconsiders the evidence. As a fundamental principle of appellate court review, it cannot be this Court that reevaluates evidence after clear error, nor has it been in the past. When faced with unsatisfactory factual findings from the trial court, in the past we have remanded to the trial court for additional proceedings. See Moore, 709 S.W.3d 241; Turley v. Commonwealth, 399 S.W.3d 412 (Ky. 2013); Ford v. Perkins, 382 S.W.3d 821 (Ky. 2012); Terwilliger v. Terwilliger, 64 S.W.3d 816 (Ky. 2002); Wilson v. Ishmael, No. 2017-SC-000080-MR, 2017 WL 5029064 (Ky. Nov. 2, 2017). I see no reason to depart from this tradition in favor of encroaching on the trial court's fact-finding authority. For these reasons, I would remand back to the trial court for further fact-finding proceedings consistent with the majority's opinion.

FOOTNOTES

1.   KCPC “is a licensed psychiatric hospital that conducts forensic competency evaluations, competency restoration, and criminal responsibility evaluations for pretrial patients. The facility also provides inpatient treatment for individuals who have been adjudicated incompetent to stand trial and are held on a civil commitment order. All patients at KCPC are court-ordered under KRS 504.080, KRS 504.110, or KRS 202C. KCPC serves all 120 counties and is located in a secure facility on the grounds of Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Lagrange, Kentucky.” https://dbhdid.ky.gov/facilities (last accessed January 22, 2026).

2.   We note that when H.M. was committed, KRS 202C.050 required the Commonwealth to prove all four criteria for involuntary commitment. Approximately two years later, KRS 202C.050 was amended to only require a showing of one of the four commitment factors, but H.M. has not asserted an argument against this statutory change before this Court.

3.   As these are confidential proceedings, we will identify H.M.’s sister via pseudonym.

4.   He did not renew this argument in his appeal to this Court.

Lambert, C.J.; Bisig, Conley, Keller, Nickell and Thompson, JJ., sitting. Bisig, Conley, Nickell and Thompson, JJ., concur. Keller, J., concurs in part and dissents in part by separate opinion. Goodwine, J., not sitting.