State v. Dexter

• Decision Date: 21 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. 74398,74398
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Clarence R. DEXTER, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 332

954 S.W.2d 332

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Clarence R. DEXTER, Appellant.

No. 74398.

Supreme Court of Missouri,

En Banc.

Oct. 21, 1997.

Janet M. Thompson, Asst. Public Defender, Columbia, for Appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Becky Owenson Kilpatrick, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for Respondent.

COVINGTON, Judge.

Appellant, Clarence Richard Dexter, appeals the judgment from his conviction for first degree murder. Appellant was found guilty after a jury trial and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Carol Dexter. Appellant appeals his conviction, his sentence, and the overruling of his Rule 29.15 post-conviction motion. Because the state violated appellant's rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by commenting on his silence after arrest and Miranda warnings, Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 619, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2245, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), this Court reverses the judgment and conviction and remands for a new trial. Because of this ruling, appellant's appeal of the overruling of his Rule 29.15 motion is dismissed as moot.

Appellant, Clarence Richard Dexter, was charged by indictment with the class A felony of murder in the first degree, in violation of section 565.020, RSMo 1986, and the felony of armed criminal action, in violation of section 571.015, RSMo 1986. The cause went to trial before a jury on July 8, 1991, but a mistrial was declared when the jury could not reach a verdict. The cause again went to trial before a jury on October 7, 1991, and appellant was found guilty of murder in the first degree.

The sufficiency of the evidence is at issue. For the purpose of stating the facts in this case, however, the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict. State v. Storey, 901 S.W.2d 886, 891 (Mo. banc 1995). On November 18, 1990, appellant and his wife of twenty-two years, Carol Dexter, began their day by making pumpkin bread and then having a meal. At about 3:00 p.m., the retirement home where Ms. Dexter was engaged in part-time work telephoned to ask her to come in for an unscheduled shift. She left for work at about 3:45 p.m. Ms. Dexter's son, Michael Benedetti, left the house to join a friend for dinner at about 5:45 p.m. Benedetti had declined an invitation to dinner with his mother and appellant because appellant and Ms. Dexter had been arguing that morning, and Benedetti wanted to avoid the tension. Upon leaving the house, Benedetti observed that appellant was watching television in the living room.

At 8:33 p.m., appellant called to report that his wife had been shot. The first two police officers on the scene reported that upon entering the garage of the house where appellant and Ms. Dexter resided, they observed Ms. Dexter lying next to the car in a "flood" of blood. Ms. Dexter had multiple gunshot wounds and a three inch hole caused by a blunt trauma to her head. In a bucket on the floor next to the victim, the officers found a blood-stained hammer. The officers also discovered a .32 caliber semi-automatic pistol, registered to appellant, in a grass catcher on top of a lawnmower near the "people door" located in the garage.

One of the officers had appellant, who appeared upset, sit down in the garage. Soon thereafter, appellant pointed out that the "people door" was ajar. The officer noted that the door was ajar about three inches and that a pane of plexiglass and the inside pane molding near the door knob were missing.

During their search of the residence, the officers found a note under the mattress in the master bedroom, in the victim's handwriting, listing things missing from her marriage. The officers also observed an empty handgun case on the bed and a sack of groceries in the dining room containing items that appellant said he had purchased at Food Barn that evening.

On the floor in front of the stairs leading into the house from the garage, officers recovered a spent bullet and shell casing. On the second step, they recovered another spent bullet, and, further up, another spent shell casing. On the seventh step a portion of a tooth was found. At the top of the stairs, inside the house, they found another spent shell casing.

In connection with searching the car in the garage, officers found drops of blood on the driver's side front bumper. Inside the car, blood was smeared in various areas of the driver's seat, door, dashboard, and window. Items in the passenger seat had blood on them. The blood in the car, however, was not a fatal quantity.

The evidence indicates that Ms. Dexter was first shot on the steps, then bludgeoned to death. As noted above, in addition to the bullet wounds sustained by the victim, she had a large, open skull fracture on the back of her head with multiple marks indicating where large pieces of the skull were depressed with brain matter protruding. It appears that the blunt trauma to the skull caused the victim's death.

The state introduced blood analysis and hair analysis evidence, that will be explained in greater detail below.

Appellant testified at trial that he did not kill his wife and that he left the house for the grocery store at approximately 7:30 to 7:35 p.m. He returned to find her body at about 8:30 p.m. Detail with respect to appellant's evidence and theory of defense will also be set forth below.

At the close of all the evidence, instructions, and argument, the jury returned a guilty verdict for murder in the first degree. After deliberation subsequent to the penalty phase evidence, the jury found that they were incapable of agreeing on the appropriate punishment. The trial court found that the state had proven beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating circumstance that the murder involved depravity of mind and sentenced appellant to death.

II.

Appellant alleges that the trial court plainly erred in failing sua sponte to declare a mistrial after the prosecutor admitted evidence and made closing arguments that referred to appellant's post-arrest, post-Miranda warnings silence. Appellant claims that the state's references to his post-Miranda silence violated his rights against self-incrimination and his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, § 19 of the Missouri Constitution.

Specifically, appellant complains of the emphasized portion of the following testimony by Detective Mansell:

A. Yes, sir, I asked him several times--told him several times that because of the evidence found at the scene and also the gun found at the scene, which was hidden in the basement and we believed was used against his wife, I asked him--told him because of these facts, an item was taken out of his truck which appeared to have blood on it, and that I didn't feel he was being truthful. At that time I placed him under arrest in regards to this homicide and at that time he stated he would not answer any further questions without his attorney." (emphasis added).

Q. Okay. Did you ask Mr. Dexter if he had returned to his truck after arriving home?

A. Yes, I did, and he stated he had not.

Q. All right. Did you talk with Mr. Dexter any further?

A. I talked to him for approximately an hour and twenty minutes, until the time he requested an attorney, and at that time the questioning ended." (emphasis added).

Appellant also complains of the portion of the prosecutor's cross-examination and re-cross examination of him in which the trial court sustained the defense counsel's objection to the following line of questioning:

Q. [Prosecutor] Do you remember talking to Detective Mansell and telling him your story of what happened?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And do you remember later on he came in and said hey, this doesn't jive, remember that?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. He said I find a lot of things here that just don't fit your story, right?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. He said we found blood all over your blue jeans here, blood all over your shoes, blood in your coat, found some bloody T-shirts, one in the trunk, one under your car--truck seat, blood on the pedals of the truck that you say you never got back into. What other explanation did you offer?

Then again during his recross examination of appellant, the prosecutor questioned appellant as follows:

Q. Now you talked to Detective Mansell twice, didn't you, at least twice? The first interview was what happened, then he came back later and said [sic] found a bunch of stuff that just doesn't jive?

A. Yes.

Q. And that second time he told you that there was blood on the pedals of the truck, found the T-shirt with your wife's blood under the seat, and the T-shirt with the blood in the trunk, and the glove, and the gun that fell in the corner, and all that. Did you then at that point, after they said hey, your story doesn't match, did you then deny you killed your wife?

A. Yeah.

Q. And you're sure of that?

A. I denied killing my wife at any time that I was asked that question. I denied it.

Q. But after you were confronted with all of this evidence that said did not jive with your story, did you then at that point deny killing with [sic] your wife?

Defense counsel immediately objected to these questions on both cross examination and recross examination, asserting that the response would be that appellant stated that he wanted to talk to an attorney. The trial court sustained the objections and told the jury to disregard the questions. Additionally, during a conference at the bench during the recross examination after appellant's objection, the trial judge instructed the prosecutor to tell Detective Mansell, if he was called as a rebuttal witness on recross examination regarding this issue, "to stay away from anything that has to do with the point where appellant refused to talk with [sic] an attorney."

Appellant also points to the prosecutor's remarks during guilt-phase closing argument in which he referred the jury to Detective Mansell's report (admitted into evidence...