Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Missouri Supreme Court
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After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of second degree murder, second degree assault, and endangering the welfare of a child. The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding (1) the trial court did not err in overruling Defendant’s motions for judgment of acquittal on each offense for which she was convicted, as there was sufficient evidence from which a reasonable juror could find Defendant guilty of each offense; and (2) because the State presented evidence that sufficiently established the corpus delecti of the murder offense, Defendant failed to establish facially substantial grounds for believing that the trial court committed clear error in admitting into evidence statements Defendant made to the police as evidence of guilt of murder in the second degree. View "State v. Jones" on Justia Law

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In 2004, a jury found Appellant guilty of first-degree sodomy. Appellant was sentenced to twelve years in prison. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction. In 2009, more than four years after the deadline to file a Mo. R. Crim. P. 29.15(b) motion for post-conviction relief had passed, Appellant filed a Rule 29.15 motion. In his motion, Appellant claimed that his failure to comply with the filing deadline should be excused because the counsel he retained to draft and file his Rule 29.15 motion for him had misunderstood the deadlines. The motion court granted Appellant’s motion for leave to file his Rule 29.15 motion out of time, concluding that Appellant’s failure to comply with the filing deadline rested entirely with Appellant’s counsel. After an evidentiary hearing on Appellant’s substantive claims, the motion court granted relief and vacated Appellant’s conviction. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed Appellant’s motion with prejudice, holding that the motion court erred by proceeding on Appellant’s untimely motion because Appellant waived all claims for relief when he failed to timely file his Rule 29.15(b) motion, and none of the exceptions to the deadline requirement applied in this case. View "Price v. State" on Justia Law

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Defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of failure to register as a sex offender pursuant to a plea agreement. After judgment was entered, Defendant filed a timely amended post-conviction motion seeking to vacate the judgment against him, contending that his plea counsel was ineffective and that the plea and sentencing court erred. Defendant’s post-conviction counsel subsequently withdrew from the case, and a second appointed lawyer filed a late second amended post-conviction motion. The circuit court overruled Defendant’s second amended motion without an evidentiary hearing, concluding that the record refuted Defendant’s claims. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the arguments raised in the late-filed second amended motion were time-barred; and (2) the motion court did not err in finding that Defendant was not entitled to a hearing on the claims raised in his first amended motion because the claims were refuted by the record. View "Stanley v. State" on Justia Law

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In two separate underlying criminal cases, Defendants each received a suspended imposition of sentence and were placed on probation. When Defendants violated the conditions of their probation, the trial court suspended probation and scheduled revocation hearings. The court, however, did not issue a ruling at the hearings but continued to conduct case reviews until after each Defendant’s probation term ended. Defendants each sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the trial court from holding probation revocation hearings after their probation terms ended. The cases were consolidated for opinion. The Supreme Court made its preliminary writs permanent, holding that, in each case, the trial court did not have the authority to hold revocation hearings after Defendants’ probation terms ended because it did not make every reasonable effort to hold the hearings during the probation terms pursuant to Mo. Rev. Stat. 559.036.8. View "State ex rel. Strauser, Relator v. Judge Martinez" on Justia Law

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In this consolidated appeal, three defendants challenged their charges under Mo. Rev. Stat. 566.150, which prohibits any individual who has been found guilty of various sex offenses from being present in five hundred feet of real property comprising any public park with playground equipment or a public swimming pool. Specifically, the defendants contended that Mo. Const. art. I, 13, which prohibits the passage of retrospective laws, applies to criminal laws, and therefore, their charges under section 566.150 were unconstitutional as applied. The circuit court (1) dismissed the charges against two defendants, Jason Peterson and Edwin Carey, on the grounds that section 566.150 was unconstitutional as applied to them, and (2) overruled defendant Michael Wade's motion to dismiss. The Supreme Court reversed the judgments with respect to Peterson and Carey and affirmed the judgment with respect to Wade, holding (1) as recently reaffirmed in State v. Honeycutt, the prohibition of laws retrospective in their operation does not apply to criminal laws; and (2) section 566.150 is a criminal law. View "State v. Wade" on Justia Law

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After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of forcible rape and sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. Appellant appealed, arguing, among other things, that the trial court erred in excluding his mother and grandmother as testifying as surrebuttal witnesses. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the trial court erred in excluding Appellant's grandmother and mother from testifying in surrebuttal, and because the excluded testimony, if believed by the jury, would have bolstered Appellant's defense of consent and corroborated his testimony and would have contradicted the State's evidence of a necessary element of the crime, the error was prejudicial; (2) the trial court abused its discretion in prohibiting Appellant from asking venire panel members whether they could consider the possibility that two teenagers had consensual sexual intercourse. Remanded for a new trial. View "State v. Ousley" on Justia Law

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Appellant, an inmate of the Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC), brought a declaratory judgment action claiming he was entitled to additional jail time credit against his sentence for (1) time he spent in custody in Kansas awaiting disposition of Kansas charges and (2) time he spent serving the Kansas sentence. The circuit court granted MDOC's motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Appellant was not entitled to jail time credit for time spent in custody in Kansas awaiting disposition of Kansas charges because Missouri did not exclusively compel that time; and (2) Appellant was not entitled to credit for time spent serving his Kansas sentence because that time was not related to the offense Appellant committed in Missouri. View "Farish v. Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law

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After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance to a minor and attempted statutory sodomy in the second degree. The trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of nine years' imprisonment and placed Defendant in the sex offender assessment unit program pursuant to Mo. Rev. Stat. 559.115. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) gaps in the trial transcript did not deny Defendant of meaningful appellate review; (2) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding defense witnesses due to a discovery violation; (3) the trial court did not err in failing to suppress the evidence of marijuana seized from Defendant's home without a warrant because Defendant freely consented to the search of his home; and (4) Defendant's argument that section 559.115 was unconstitutional as applied was without merit. View "State v. Hillman" on Justia Law

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After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first-degree assault and armed criminal action. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, holding (1) Defendant did not meet his burden of demonstrating that three of the prosecutor's peremptory strikes violated his equal protection rights and right to a fair trial pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky, and thus the trial court did not err in overruling Defendant's Batson challenges to the peremptory strikes; and (2) the trial court did not err in failing to admonish the prosecutor sua sponte or declare a mistrial for alleged prejudicial statements the prosecutor made during closing arguments. View "State v. Carter" on Justia Law

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After a trial, Defendant was convicted of one count of attempted use of a child in a sexual performance in violation of Mo. Rev. Stat. 568.080. Defendant appealed, arguing, among other things, that his constitutional right to protected speech was violated because his e-mail exchange with an officer posing as the sixteen-year-old victim did not contemplate or solicit a criminal act. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment and sentence, holding (1) because Defendant attempted to induce the victim to engage in a sexual performance, Defendant was not punished for fantasy speech, and thus, section 568.080 was not unconstitutional as applied to Defendant; and (2) the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction. View " State v. Blankenship" on Justia Law