State v. Eckert

• Decision Date: 15 March 2016
• Docket Number: WD 78163
• Citation: 491 S.W.3d 228
• Parties: State of Missouri, Respondent, v. Scott William Eckert, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

491 S.W.3d 228

State of Missouri, Respondent,

v.Scott William Eckert, Appellant.

WD 78163

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

OPINION FILED: March 15, 2016

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied May 3, 2016

Application for Transfer Denied June 28, 2016

Samuel Buffaloe, Columbia, MO, Counsel for Appellant.

Karen Kramer, Jefferson City, MO, Counsel for Respondent.

Before Division Three: James Edward Welsh, P.J., Thomas H. Newton, J., and Joseph M. Ellis, Sr. J.¹

Thomas H. Newton, Judge

Mr. Scott W. Eckert appeals his convictions under section 575.270² for three class C felony victim-tampering counts, for each of which he was sentenced to seven consecutive years of imprisonment. We affirm.

While Mr. Eckert's direct appeal of his forcible rape conviction was pending in 2010 and 2011, he wrote three letters to his teenage niece, asking or reminding her to talk with the victim at family events and convince her to recant and to tell her mother that she was pressured by her grandmother and a therapist into blaming Mr. Eckert for her injuries.³ At the time of the rape, which occurred in 2007, the victim, who is a “step-cousin” of Mr. Eckert's niece and the child of his girlfriend, was seven years old; a vaginal wall tear nearly resulted in her death from bleeding and led to a hysterectomy. Mr. Eckert's letters urged his niece to get the victim to say that her injuries were caused by jumping on a bed and that she was afraid to tell this version of the event to anyone because she should not have been in the room jumping on the bed. He reminded his niece of all the fun times they had together in the past and said that if the victim changed her story, it would help to get him home. He also repeatedly cautioned his niece to tell the victim that “she cannot tell anyone that you and her talked about anything at all.” Mr. Eckert's niece did not have that conversation with the victim, and, after her mother discovered one of the letters, all three were brought to the attention of the police.

The State charged Mr. Eckert with three counts of the class C felony of victim tampering under section 575.270. According to the first amended information, as to each count, based on each letter sent to Mr. Eckert's niece, “the Defendant purposely attempted to dissuade BM, a victim of the crime of Forcible Rape, that was charged as a felony on or about June 13, 2008, from supporting her statements against the defendant.” During the jury trial that followed, Livingston County Sheriff Steve Cox read the letters to the jury and testified that, in his experience, a person would care about what a victim said after a conviction while an appeal was pending, as it was here, because “if the victim would recant her statement he could have a new trial and be released.” The jury instructions stated that Mr. Eckert could be found guilty of victim tampering, if the evidence showed beyond a reasonable doubt that, among other matters, “the defendant purposely prevented or dissuaded [the victim] from supporting her statements against the defendant and assisting the prosecution of Scott Eckert for the crime of Forcible Rape.” The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict after deliberating for less than one hour.

Mr. Eckert timely filed a motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the evidence, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions for tampering with a victim. He preserved his challenge to the trial court's failure to dismiss the charges on the ground that the information did not state an offense by timely filing motions to dismiss, for the trial court to reconsider its denial of his motion to dismiss, for judgment of acquittal at the end of State's evidence, for judgment of acquittal at the close of all the evidence, and for judgment of acquittal, or in the alternative a motion for a new trial.

In the first point on appeal, Mr. Eckert claims that his due process rights were violated by the trial court's overruling of his motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the evidence because, when he wrote the letters, he had already been tried and convicted for the offenses committed against the victim, thus prosecution of the case had ceased.

When we review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we accept “as true all of the evidence favorable to the state, including all reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence.” State v. Grim, 854 S.W.2d 403, 405 (Mo. banc 1993). We reject “all contrary evidence and inferences.” State v. Botts, 151 S.W.3d 372, 375 (Mo.App.W.D.2004). We are limited to determining “whether there is sufficient evidence from which a reasonable juror might have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Grim, 854 S.W.2d at 405 ; State v. Silvey, 894 S.W.2d 662, 673 (Mo. banc 1995), abrogated on other grounds by State v. Porter, 439 S.W.3d 208 (Mo. banc 2014). “The same standard of review applies when reviewing a motion for judgment of acquittal.” Botts, 151 S.W.3d at 375. We assess whether any rational fact-finder “could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Nash, 339 S.W.3d 500, 509 (Mo. banc 2011) ; see also Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (enunciating the same standard on sufficiency review). We do not “act as a ‘super juror’ with veto powers, but give[ ] great deference to the trier of fact.” Nash, 339 S.W.3d at 509. Nor do we “weigh the evidence anew since the fact-finder may believe all, some, or none of the testimony of a witness when considered with the facts, circumstances and other testimony in the case.” Id. Statutory interpretation raises a question of law that we review de novo. Id. at 507.

Legal Analysis

The statute under which Mr. Eckert was convicted states in relevant part:

2. A person commits the crime of “victim tampering” if, with purpose to do so, he prevents or dissuades or attempts to prevent or dissuade any person who has been a victim of any crime or a person who is acting on behalf of any such victim from:

(1) Making any report of such victimization to any peace officer, or state, local or federal law enforcement officer or prosecuting agency or to any judge;

(2) Causing a complaint, indictment or information to be sought and prosecuted or assisting in the prosecution thereof;

(3) Arresting or causing or seeking the arrest of any person in connection with such victimization.

§ 575.270.2. Mr. Eckert argues that he cannot be guilty of victim tampering “if he does not commit any act until after he has already been convicted of the underlying crime.” Stated another way, he urges this Court to find that the evidence was insufficient because, under his interpretation of the statute, the prosecution had ceased before he attempted to dissuade the victim from supporting her statements against him. Accordingly, we must determine whether the “prosecution” of an information under section 575.270.2(2) ceases upon conviction. This is a matter of first impression in Missouri.

When we read the victim-tampering statute as a whole, it would appear that the Legislature intended to proscribe conduct that, for the most part, occurs at the earliest stages of a criminal prosecution, that is, interfering with a victimization report, the filing of a complaint or indictment, and arrest. Still, subsection (2) includes dissuading or attempting to dissuade a victim from “causing a complaint, indictment or information to be sought and prosecuted, ” or “assisting in the prosecution thereof.” § 575.270.2(2) (emphasis added). This suggests a longer timeframe than the initial stages of criminal proceedings.

The statute does not define “prosecution,” so Mr. Eckert quotes definitions appearing in Black's Law Dictionary ,⁴ the Oxford English Dictionary ,⁵ Webster's Third New International Dictionary ,⁶ and Ex parte Bedard, 106 Mo. 616, 17 S.W. 693 (1891) (focusing on early stage of proceeding and considering whether a magistrate was disqualified from requiring that relator answer any indictment that might be preferred against him when a request for change of venue had been filed). The court in Bedard discussed what constitutes a “prosecution” by quoting the Louisiana Supreme Court, which stated,

Under our system of criminal law a prosecution has several phases or steps of proceeding; the first being usually an affidavit or charge; next, a warrant of arrest; and so on through the hands of the committing magistrate, whose committal transfers the prosecution to the proper criminal court, where it undergoes the other phases of presentment, arraignment, trial, and conviction or acquittal.

Id. at 694 (quoting State v. Williams, 34 La.Ann. 1198, 1199 (1882) ).⁷ According to Mr. Eckert, these definitions “show that a ‘prosecution’ is over once the trial is over and judgment has been entered.” Because Webster's defines the term as a process of exhibiting formal charges that are pursued to final judgment and because our rules specifically allow post-trial proceedings that can result in a judgment being set aside and the charges re-tried, we are inclined to disagree.⁸

In State v. Terry, 304 S.W.3d 105, 112 (Mo. banc 2010), on direct appeal from a conviction for first-degree statutory rape, our supreme court remanded the case to the circuit court for the defendant to file a motion for new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence, which was apparently discovered after the time for filing a motion for new trial had passed. The defendant's motion for remand, based on DNA evidence purportedly showing that the child he allegedly fathered could not be his, was filed while the case was on direct appeal to the court of appeals, which affirmed. Id. at 108. The supreme court granted transfer and took jurisdiction of the motion to remand as well. Id. Because the victim, who was pregnant during the trial, testified that the defendant was the only person with whom she had had sex, the supreme court was...