Alfie Compton v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 2021 CA 000208

Alfie Compton was convicted by a Kenton Circuit Court jury of multiple sexual offenses against his daughter (Ariana) and a relative (Bethany); jury recommended 30 years total.
On direct appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court found Instructions for Counts 1 and 2 (incest and sodomy) lacked specificity and reversed those convictions; Counts 3–5 were affirmed. Counts 1–2 were later dismissed without prejudice on remand.
Compton filed an RCr 11.42 motion arguing trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to Instructions No. 7 (Count 3, first-degree sexual abuse) and No. 8 (Count 4, first-degree sodomy), which he said failed to identify a single event and thus violated the unanimous-verdict requirement; he also asserted appellate counsel was ineffective for not raising the unanimity issue for Counts 3–4 on direct appeal.
The circuit court denied relief after a hearing (no proof taken), finding Instructions 7 and 8 provided sufficient specificity (distinguishing facts such as location and the victim’s statement) to permit a unanimous verdict, relying in part on precedent allowing reasonable distinguishing details in instructions.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding the instructions were not erroneous and therefore neither trial nor appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to object or raise the issue.

Issue	Compton's Argument	Commonwealth's Argument	Held
Whether Instructions No. 7 and No. 8 lacked sufficient specificity so jurors might convict based on different incidents, violating Section 7 unanimity	Instructions lump multiple incidents across a broad time frame and lack a unique identifying fact, so unanimity is not assured	Instructions contained adequate distinguishing facts (location, victim’s statement, the single Ludlow event) from which jurors could identify the same incident	Instructions were sufficiently specific; no unanimity violation
Whether counsel was ineffective for failing to object or to raise the unanimity argument on direct appeal	Trial counsel unreasonably failed to object to defective instructions; appellate counsel unreasonably omitted the issue on direct appeal, prejudicing the outcome	Because instructions were not erroneous, failure to object or to appeal cannot constitute ineffective assistance under Strickland	No ineffective assistance — counsel not deficient because instructions were proper

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (establishes the two-prong ineffective assistance of counsel standard)
Parrish v. Commonwealth, 272 S.W.3d 161 (no ineffective-assistance claim where instruction is not erroneous)
Elam v. Commonwealth, 500 S.W.3d 818 (Kentucky unanimity requirement under Section 7 explained)
Sanborn v. Commonwealth, 975 S.W.2d 905 (RCr 11.42 limited to issues not and could not be raised on direct appeal)
Teague v. Commonwealth, 428 S.W.3d 630 (applies Strickland standard in Kentucky context)