State v. Davidson

• Citation: 242 S.W.3d 409
• Decision Date: 23 October 2007
• Docket Number: No. ED 88555.,ED 88555.
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Diallo C. DAVIDSON, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Missouri (US)

242 S.W.3d 409

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Diallo C. DAVIDSON, Defendant/Appellant.

No. ED 88555.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division Two.

October 23, 2007.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied December 11, 2007.

Application for Transfer to Denied January 22, 2008.

S. Kristina Starke, St. Louis, MO, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Lisa M. Kennedy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, MO, for respondent.

LAWRENCE E. MOONEY, Judge.

The defendant, Diallo Davidson, appeals the judgment entered by the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis following his conviction by a jury of one count of murder in the first degree, in violation of section 565.020 RSMo. (2000),¹ two counts of assault in the first degree, in violation of section 565.050, and three counts of armed criminal action, in violation of section 571.015.²

We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing a witness to testify to the content and her interpretation of letters she received from the defendant. We also hold that the admission of a medical examiner's testimony and the autopsy report constituted harmless error. Therefore, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

On January 5, 2004, the defendant purchased what he believed to be China white heroin. When the defendant discovered that the purchased substance was not China white heroin, he pursued the seller and his two cohorts in a high-speed car chase through the City of St. Louis. Having cornered the three men on a dead-end street, the defendant fired repeatedly into the men's car. Two of the men were shot, one fatally. The third man, apparently uninjured, fled the scene. The defendant's girlfriend, Hollie Pruitt, and their baby were in the car with the defendant during the drug purchase, pursuit, and shooting.

The State charged the defendant with one count of murder in the first degree, two counts of assault in the first degree, and three counts of armed criminal action for the shootings. At trial and over the defendant's objection, the State introduced portions of letters the defendant sent to Pruitt after the shootings and adduced testimony from Pruitt as to her interpretation of the letters. Also over the defendant's objection, the State introduced the report of the murder victim's autopsy and adduced testimony from a medical examiner. The medical examiner who testified did not perform the victim's autopsy or prepare the autopsy report. The medical examiner who actually conducted the autopsy and prepared the report did not testify because she was "out-of-town on vacation or something." Following a jury trial, the defendant was convicted on all counts.

The Letters and Related Testimony

In his first point on appeal, the defendant claims the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the testimony of eyewitness Pruitt regarding two letters that the defendant sent to her after the shooting and in admitting portions of those letters into evidence. He makes several more particular complaints. The defendant argues that Pruitt's testimony as to the letters' meaning consisted of pure speculation and improper opinion by a lay witness. He contends that the letters were irrelevant and that the letters and related testimony improperly suggested he committed the crime of witness tampering. Similarly, the defendant claims that the State used the letters to imply that the defendant belongs to a gang. Finally, he argues that the portions of the letters read to the jury were taken out of context. We shall address each of the defendant's complaints in turn.

Pruitt read portions of the first letter into evidence as follows.

All I desire is to be free from all this shit. Hollie, I really want you to know I ain't going to do nothing to you. I'll kick your ass, if anything. I wouldn't hit you in your face. I'll really kick your ass `cause these games got to stop. I'm so tired of this bullshit.

* * *

I'll move away from this place, if that would make you comfortable, safe and secure. I promise you, ain't no hard feelings. All I'm asking is for another chance now more than ever. Like I wrote before, please showa playa love urgently.

* * *

Damn, Hollie, I'm really serious and I hope you really truly answer my request. I'm fed up and ready to change. The hell with getting high and a lot of other shit.

* * *

Hollie, baby girl, I know a lot of things, but should I expose those things? I'm a `G' deep down inside and I'll never change that. I got a son and daughter to raise and things I sincerely desire to do, so let me gone head and bounce back. Straight up.

Pruitt testified that she took these statements to mean that the defendant was "just basically trying to talk, to encourage me not to come to Court, or whatever." Pruitt also read from the defendant's second letter.

I'm really asking, is there any possibility of me gaining freedom again. I understand you saying this and that, but my truest thoughts are to get there and provide for my kids straight up. Nevertheless, Ms. Pruitt, I'm serious and somehow I hope you FIND it in your heart and soul to forgive and forget everything.

Pruitt then testified how she interpreted the statements in the second letter.

Q. What did you take that to mean?

A. As far as what had happened and the stuff that I have to go through as far as, you know, coming here and being a witness and so forth and so on, being a witness to what happened.

We will reverse the trial court's ruling on the admission of evidence only where the court has abused its discretion. State v. Winston, 959 S.W.2d 874, 877 (Mo.App. E.D.1997). A trial court abuses its discretion when a ruling is clearly against the logic of the circumstances and is so, unreasonable that it indicates a lack of careful consideration. State v. Zink, 181 S.W.3d 66, 73 (Mo. banc 2005).

We first address the defendant's claim that Pruitt's interpretation of the letters constituted mere speculation and improper opinion evidence by a lay witness. The trial court has broad discretion to admit testimony of a lay witness into evidence. Winston, 959 S.W.2d at 877. Pruitt testified that she took the defendant's statements to mean that he was urging her not to appear in court. Generally, a witness must state facts from which the jury forms an opinion. State v. Gray, 731 S.W.2d 275, 284 (Mo.App. W.D.1987). An exception to the general rule prohibiting lay opinion testimony allows a witness to testify to his or her opinion if the lay witness possesses knowledge that the jury does not and that would help the jury to determine a disputed issue. Winston, 959 S.W.2d at 877. The test of the opinion rule is a flexible one. 7 John Henry Wigmore, Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 1926, 35 (James H. Chadbourn ed., 1978). The dilemma that confronts us whenever a party challenges testimony on the basis that it constitutes a "lay opinion" is: "Can the jury be fully equipped, by the mere recital of the data, to draw inferences?—in other words, Can all the data be exactly reproduced by mere testimonial words and gestures?" 7 id. at 35-36. Thus, opinion evidence from a lay witness may be admissible when the witness forms an opinion from facts personally observed and "where it is impossible or impracticable to place the facts before the jury in such a way that the jury may draw its own conclusion from the facts." Shockley v. State, 147 S.W.3d 189, 194 (Mo.App. S.D. 2004) (quoting. State v. Brown, 683 S.W.2d 316, 317-18 (Mo.App. S.D.1984)).

More specifically, a witness who personally observed events may testify to "his `matter of fact' comprehension of what he has seen in a descriptive manner which is actually a conclusion, opinion or inference, if the inference is common and accords with the ordinary experiences of everyday life." Gray, 731 S.W.2d at 285 (quoting State v. Morrow, 541 S.W.2d 738, 742 (Mo.App.1976)). In Gray, for example, the Court held the evidence admissible where a witness testified that, when he and the defendant saw a television news report of the attack on the victim, he knew what had happened by the look on the defendant's face. Id. at 284-85. The witness initially told police that the defendant approached him about obtaining a ride so that the defendant could commit a robbery, but the witness changed his story at trial. Id. at 281. The Court held that the witness's testimony about the look on the defendant's face was properly admitted as a "short-hand rendition" of the entire transaction between the defendant and the witness. Id. at 285. Such a practice, the Court explained, is justified by convenience, as a "short-hand rendition" of a composite situation, and even by necessity to avoid losing evidence where it would be extremely difficult or impossible for a witness to convey an accurate sense of his or her observations if limited to a statement of facts in the traditional sense.³ Id.

Here, Pruitt's testimony about her interpretation of the defendant's letters was admissible. As in Gray, Pruitt's testimony was a "short-hand rendition" of the entire transaction between the defendant and Pruitt as set forth in the defendant's communications to her. In addition, her testimony was necessary to avoid losing evidence. The defendant denied responsibility for the shooting, but his statements in the letters tended to show consciousness of his guilt, which we discuss more fully below. To avoid losing this "consciousness-of-guilt" evidence, the State properly had Pruitt testify to her perception of the meaning of the defendant's statements. In sum, "The opinion rule cannot avail to eliminate irony and innuendo from human language. Common experience forbids us to assume that mere words are always a complete index of the meaning which the hearer knew to accompany them." 7 Wiginore, § 1969, at 148.

We next address the defendant's arguments that the letters were irrelevant and that the letters, along with Pruitt's testimony, improperly associated the...