State v. Griffin, 70398

• Decision Date: 16 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 70398,70398
• Citation: 818 S.W.2d 278
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Reginald GRIFFIN, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 278

818 S.W.2d 278

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Reginald GRIFFIN, Appellant.

No. 70398.

Supreme Court of Missouri En Banc.

Oct. 16, 1991.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Nov. 19, 1991.

Craig A. Johnston, Columbia, for appellant.

William L. Webster, Atty. Gen., Elizabeth L. Ziegler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

BENTON, Judge.

This case comes before this Court after a long and muddled history in this state's justice system. On July 12, 1983, Reginald Griffin, appellant, and his codefendant Doyle Franks ¹ brutally murdered James Bausley while all four men were inmates at the Moberly Training Center for Men. The investigation into this murder was completed by September 13, 1983; but no complaint was filed until January 28, 1987. The trial commenced on January 25, 1988. Mr. Griffin was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death. Notice of appeal was filed with this Court on April 11, 1988, less than two weeks after the entry of judgment against Mr. Griffin. This appeal was suspended while Mr. Griffin pursued a motion under Rule 29.15 to vacate his conviction. After several hearings, this motion was overruled on November 3, 1990. Notice of appeal of this motion was filed with this Court on January 22, 1991. Both appeals have been consolidated into the current action.

Appellant's argument to this Court seeks the overturning of his conviction on essentially six grounds. First, appellant claims that the delay between the conclusion of the investigation and the start of his trial violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Second, appellant objects to the refusal of the circuit court to grant him a continuance shortly before the trial date. Third, appellant claims that the jury instructions in both phases of the trial were fatally flawed. Fourth, appellant claims that he has suffered from ineffective assistance of counsel at all stages of this action. Fifth, appellant claims that the circuit court erred in admitting several pieces of evidence against him in both phases of the trial. Sixth, appellant objects to the acceptance by the judge hearing the motion to vacate conviction of the state's proposed findings of facts and conclusions of law without amendment.

I. Pretrial Delay

The appellant claims that his due process rights were infringed by the delay between the end of the state's investigation and the filing of charges with this violation being compounded by his confinement in administrative segregation during part of the period of delay. ² While the reasons for the delay are understandable and one can feel compassion for the hardships faced by the local prosecutor, the state has the responsibility to the victim, to society, and to the defendants not to allow such delays to happen. Justice is not served by a delay of this type, and such delays should not be tolerated by those responsible for assuring the swift prosecution of criminals in our society.

The question before this Court, however, is not whether this delay should have happened but rather whether this delay justifies the dismissal of charges against the appellant under the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. As both appellant and respondent argued, the test for determining whether pre-indictment delay requires the dismissal of charges is whether 1) the defendant was prejudiced by a pre-indictment delay which 2) was intended by the prosecution to gain a tactical advantage over the defendant. State v. Scott, 621 S.W.2d 915, 917 (Mo.1981). Neither prong was met in this case.

While the appellant claims that some of his key witnesses died during the period between the murder and the trial, the evidence that would have been offered would either have merely been cumulative or was flatly contradicted by the physical evidence. Likewise, both sides attacked the memory of the other side's witnesses due to the long time between the event and the trial. As such, it cannot be said that the appellant was prejudiced by the delay.

Likewise, the reason for the delay cannot be said to be an "intent to gain a tactical advantage." According to the record, when the crime occurred, the prosecuting attorney was the only attorney in the local office. This attorney made the decision to try his capital cases in the order that they arose and to try the cases arising from this incident by himself. Most of the additional delay was caused by personal problems--an accident involving his infant daughter and subsequent serious complications arising from that injury--which finally forced him to turn the case over to the attorney general's office. None of these reasons can be classified as an attempt to gain a tactical advantage. ³ The delay was unfortunate, but it was not malicious. As such, there is no justification for dismissing the charges against the appellant.

This holding is not affected by the actions of the Department of Corrections. It is a well-established principle of law that the rights of prisoners are subject to the need of a prison to maintain order and security. See, e.g., O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 348-53, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 2404-07, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987); Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84-91, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2259-63, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 524-28, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3199-3201, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984); Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822-23, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 2804-05, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974); Howard v. Pettus, 745 S.W.2d 821, 822 (Mo.App.1988); State ex rel. Division of Adult Institutions v. Brackman, 737 S.W.2d 516, 519 (Mo.App.1987). As such, a prison is entitled to enforce its rules, even when those rules may deal with matters which might also be criminal offenses, without waiting for the filing of charges in court by the local prosecutor. The taking of disciplinary action by the prison does not make the defendant an accused for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment. Cf. United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 189-90 & n. 6, 104 S.Ct. 2292, 2298-99 & n. 6, 81 L.Ed.2d 146 (1984) (Sixth Amendment right to counsel not implicated by administrative segregation, no decision on right to speedy trial). If there were any evidence that administrative segregation had been imposed to hinder the appellant's ability to assist in the preparation of his own defense, there might be a violation of the appellant's rights; but that question does not arise here.

Likewise, nothing else in the record suggests that the appellant had become an accused for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment speedy trial clause during the lengthy period between the offense and the indictment. As such, there are not any Sixth Amendment grounds for dismissing the charges against the appellant. The delay in this case only implicates the due process rights of the appellant; and, as noted above, appellant has failed to show that his due process rights were violated.

II. Denial of Continuance

In most circumstances, the decision to grant a continuance rests in the sound discretion of the trial court. See State v. Schaal, 806 S.W.2d 659, 666 (Mo. banc 1991). In this case, the slightly more than eight months given counsel to prepare was adequate. The appellant did not request a continuance until about two weeks before the original trial date, with the written motion for a continuance coming only three days before the second trial date.

With both of these requests occurring six weeks after the time when the trial date was set, the judge was well within his discretion in finding no reason to delay the guilt phase of the trial. In addition, the first request was based in part on a defense preference for a trial date originally set for a codefendant who had since pleaded guilty and in part on a desire to file unspecified new motions after the motion deadline had already passed. The reasons given by appellant for wanting a continuance--both in the original oral motion and in the written motion (and its oral argument)--did not compel the judge to grant a continuance.

Instead, the picture presented by the motions for continuance is a counsel who after eight months is ready for trial but wants more time in the hope that the defense team will find something that will improve their case. The law of this state gives the trial judge the discretion to decide whether or not to grant that time. As such, there was no error in the trial judge's denial of the motion for continuance.

III. Jury Instructions

Appellant claims that it was error by the trial court to give jury instruction number 4 defining "reasonable doubt," jury instruction number 5 defining the charge of capital murder, jury instruction number 19 addressing general duties of the jury in the sentencing phase, jury instruction number 21 defining nonstatutory aggravating circumstances, and jury instruction number 22 defining mitigating circumstances and for the trial court not to give proposed instruction F, which included the definition of "reasonable doubt," in place of instruction number 19.

On the reasonable doubt instruction (number 4), the appellant requests that this Court reconsider its holding in State v. Antwine, 743 S.W.2d 51, 62-63 (Mo. banc 1987), in light of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 112 L.Ed.2d 339 (1990). The charge given in instruction number 4 conforms to the requirements of Antwine and MAI-CR2d. Considering the charge as a whole, and comparing it to the Louisiana charge struck down in Cage, this Court finds that the charge given in this case clearly requires that the jury find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and merely explains that term to the jury, unlike the charge in Cage, which equated proof beyond a reasonable doubt with a lower standard. Therefore, the instruction given in this case meets the constitutional requirement that the jury must be instructed that the defendant must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. As such, this...