State v. Carpenter

• Citation: 605 S.W.3d 355
• Decision Date: 01 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. SC 98088,SC 98088
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Kane CARPENTER, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

605 S.W.3d 355

STATE of Missouri, Respondent,

v.Kane CARPENTER, Appellant.

No. SC 98088

Supreme Court of Missouri, en banc.

Opinion issued September 1, 2020

Carpenter was represented by Rosemary E.M. Percival of the public defender's office in Kansas City, (816) 889-7699.

The state was represented by Karen L. Kramer of the attorney general's office in Jefferson City, (573) 751-3321.

Paul C. Wilson, Judge

Kane Carpenter ("Carpenter") appeals his conviction after a jury trial on one count of robbery in the first degree. The case against him was largely, but not entirely, based on the identification provided by the victim at a "show up" that occurred only minutes after the crime occurred. Even though this identification was central to the state's case, the circuit court excluded expert witness testimony regarding various factors – including the suggestive nature of "show up" identifications – that can impact the reliability of eyewitness identifications. Because the circuit court erred in excluding this evidence, this Court vacates Carpenter's conviction and remands the case for a new trial.

Background

On October 23, 2016, a young white man ("Victim") was walking west on Capitol Avenue in Jefferson City, Missouri, at approximately 7:45 in the evening. Victim was listening to music on wired earbuds connected to an iPhone in his pocket. It was dark, and the nearest street light was some distance away. Victim noticed he was being followed by two young black men wearing hoodies pulled low to obscure their faces. Because the two were closing quickly on Victim, he started to cross the street to put some distance between himself and them. The two black men stopped Victim in the middle of the street, one in front of him and one behind. The man in front asked Victim if he could use his phone. Victim said he did not have a phone and was listening to an iPod instead. The man in front pulled up his t-shirt, displaying what appeared to Victim to be the woodgrain handle of a .38 pistol tucked into his waistband, and said to Victim: "Give me what you have or I'll shoot you." He then took the iPhone and wired earbuds from Victim while the man behind Victim reached around and took the e-cigarette from Victim's hand and the nicotine cartridge from his pocket. The two then ran a short ways west on Capitol and turned south onto Lafayette. The entire encounter took less than one minute.

Victim pursued the two men down Lafayette and saw them cut through a residential yard to head east through an alley a half block south. Seeing a couple at the intersection of Lafayette and High Street, Victim ran past the alley down to High Street and asked to borrow their phone to report the robbery. Again, only seconds had passed since the crime occurred.

Victim's 911 call was received at 7:49 p.m. He said he had been robbed by two young black men, one in a black hoodie and one in a red hoodie. This description went out on the police radio at 7:50 p.m. Officers Fisher and Schuler (who was training Officer Fisher) were in their vehicle outside the police station when this call went out. They were only two or three blocks away and responded to Victim's location within seconds. Sergeant Lenart responded to the scene in a separate vehicle and quickly learned that Victim had last seen the two perpetrators running east in the alley between Lafayette and Cherry. Sergeant Lenart drove east to Cherry and turned north. He saw Carpenter and another young black man walking east across Cherry at the point where the alley crossed the street. Both were wearing t-shirts, and neither was wearing a hoodie. Sergeant Lenart stopped his vehicle, hailed the two, and asked if he could talk to them. Carpenter stopped immediately and, after taking a couple of steps suggesting he may run, the other young man stopped as well. It was 7:52 p.m.

Carpenter was standing next to a bush when Sergeant Lenart approached. Though Sergeant Lenart did not see Carpenter throw anything on the ground, he soon found an iPhone connected to wired earbuds lying on the ground six or seven feet from Carpenter on the other side of the bush. Carpenter was not carrying a gun and no gun was found in his vicinity. Officer Lehman arrived, exited his vehicle to join Sergeant Lenart, and noted that Carpenter appeared to be sweating and breathing heavily as if he had been running. Sergeant Lenart radioed Officers Fisher and Schuler to report that he had detained two young men nearby and request that Victim be brought to the location to see if he could identify them as the perpetrators.

At 7:54 p.m., Officers Fisher and Schuler received Sergeant Lenart's call and drove Victim the short distance to his location. On the way, Victim was told that he would see two men who may have been involved in the robbery and would be asked if he recognized them. He was admonished that these two were found in the area and generally matched the description he had given, but not to identify them as the perpetrators unless he was certain. When they arrived, Carpenter and the other young man were handcuffed and seated on the curb. Officer Fisher shone the spotlight on them. Without leaving the vehicle, Victim identified the two men as the ones who had robbed him and Carpenter, specifically, as the man who had displayed the pistol and threatened to shoot him. Victim noted Carpenter was not wearing the red hoodie he had been wearing during the robbery. Victim identified the iPhone as his and was able to enable it with his fingerprint in lieu of a password. Carpenter and the other man were arrested and removed from the scene.

Shortly thereafter, Sergeant Lenart and Officer Greenwalt began to search back from the location where Carpenter and the other man were arrested to the point where Victim had last seen them running away. Beginning at the point of where the two entered the alley from Lafayette, the officers found Victim's e-cigarette and the vial of nicotine. Both were broken and scattered. Further along the alley, the officers found a driver's license belonging to the young man who had been arrested with Carpenter. Just off the alley near Cherry Street, the officers found two hoodies, one black and one red. Several officers looked for, but were unable to find, the pistol or anything that Victim may have mistaken for a pistol.

Prior to trial, Carpenter's counsel served notice that he would call Dr. James Lampinen to testify at trial as an expert about the factors that can impact the reliability of eyewitness identifications generally. The state filed a motion to exclude this testimony on the ground that such expert testimony should not be admitted under State v. Lawhorn , 762 S.W.2d 820 (Mo. banc 1988), State v. Whitmill , 780 S.W.2d 45 (Mo. banc 1989), and subsequent cases. The circuit court granted the state's motion. To save time at trial, both parties and the court agreed Carpenter could make a proffer of Dr. Lampinen's testimony on the Friday before the Monday when trial would begin. At trial, Victim testified he was "one hundred percent certain" Carpenter was the one who threatened and robbed him. After the state rested its case, Carpenter's counsel sought to have Dr. Lampinen testify. The state renewed its objection based on Lawhorn and Whitmill , and the court sustained that objection and excluded the expert testimony.

Following the close of all the evidence, Carpenter tendered and the circuit court gave Instruction No. 9, which lists 17 factors the jury should consider in evaluating eyewitness identification evidence.¹ The jury found Carpenter guilty of robbery in the first degree. Carpenter appeals, arguing as his sole point that the circuit court erred in excluding Dr. Lampinen's testimony. This Court has jurisdiction over Carpenter's appeal under article V, section 10 of the Missouri Constitution.

Analysis

"A trial court enjoys considerable discretion in the admission or exclusion of evidence, and, absent clear abuse of discretion, its action will not be grounds for reversal." Cox v. Kan. City Chiefs Football Club, Inc. , 473 S.W.3d 107, 114 (Mo. banc 2015) (quotation omitted). Generally, a circuit court's decision will be considered an abuse of discretion when it is "clearly against the logic of the circumstances then before the court and is so unreasonable and arbitrary that it shocks the sense of justice and indicates a lack of careful, deliberate consideration." Id. (citation omitted). However, when the parties fail to accurately inform the circuit court of the applicable law and this results in a ruling based upon an incorrect legal premise, the ruling is an abuse of discretion.

A trial court can abuse its discretion through the inaccurate resolution of factual issues or through the application of incorrect legal principles. Where the facts are at issue, appellate courts extend substantial deference to trial court decisions. However, when the issue is primarily legal, no deference is warranted and appellate courts engage in de novo review.

State v. Taylor , 298 S.W.3d 482, 492 (Mo. banc 2009).

The state argued at trial that Dr. Lampinen's testimony should be excluded under State v. Lawhorn , 762 S.W.2d 820 (Mo. banc 1988), and subsequent cases. In Lawhorn , this Court affirmed the exclusion of expert testimony regarding certain factors impacting the reliability of eyewitness identifications. It began by noting that, "[g]enerally, expert testimony is admissible if it is clear that the subject of such testimony is one upon which the jurors, for want of experience or knowledge, would otherwise be incapable of drawing a proper conclusion from the facts in evidence." Id. at 822 (emphasis added). See also State v. Taylor , 663 S.W.2d 235, 239 (Mo. banc 1984) ("The rule in Missouri is that expert opinion testimony should never be admitted unless it is clear that the jurors themselves are not capable, for want of experience or knowledge of the subject, to draw correct conclusions from the facts proved." (quotation omitted))....