State v. Martindale

• Decision Date: 27 May 1997
• Docket Number: No. 69758,69758
• Citation: 945 S.W.2d 669
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff/Respondent, v. Stacy MARTINDALE, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 669

945 S.W.2d 669

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff/Respondent, v. Stacy MARTINDALE, Defendant/Appellant.

No. 69758.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Eastern District,

Division One.

May 27, 1997.

Raymund J. Capelovitch, Asst. Public Defender, St. Louis, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Becky Owenson Kilpatrick, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.

REINHARD, Judge.

Defendant appeals after her conviction by a jury of one count of second degree murder, § 565.021, RSMo 1986. ¹ The court sentenced her in accordance with the jury's assessment to a prison term of fifteen years. We affirm.

The record reveals that Randy Martindale and defendant married in 1988 and subsequently had two sons. Martindale and defendant both worked at the Martindale family car dealership in New Madrid, Missouri.

Defendant and Chuck Sanders began having an affair in 1990. According to Sanders, the relationship repeatedly ended and resumed between 1990 and 1994, and defendant told him that he was the biological father of her youngest son. Sanders recalled that defendant also informed him that Martindale had physically beaten her during an argument on the side of Highway 55 in February 1994. A state patrolman confirmed that Martindale had been arrested but not charged in the incident.

In early May 1994, Martindale and defendant separated, and Martindale moved to his parents' house, which was approximately one block away from the marital home. Sanders testified that beginning in 1994, defendant repeatedly asked him to kill her husband. At one point, defendant gave Sanders a check in the amount of $4,996.36 as payment for a small computer and partial payment for the planned murder, and she promised to "pay the balance of $10,000.00" after Martindale had been killed. Sanders ultimately refused to kill Martindale and returned the check to defendant. ²

On the evening of May 19, 1994, Martindale took the two boys to a baseball game, and defendant arranged to meet two friends at a restaurant in Sikeston. Before meeting her friends, defendant stopped at the Sikeston mall and visited with Sanders in the mall parking lot. ³ During their conversation, defendant again asked Sanders to kill Martindale. When he refused, defendant told him she was going to ask Sanders' friend, Richard Clay. Sanders and defendant then went into Radio Shack, where Sanders worked, and chatted with Clay and Mike Frederick, Sanders' coworker. Frederick and Clay had been planning to eat at a nearby Hardee's after Frederick closed the store, and defendant and Sanders agreed to join them. Clay did not own a car and rode to Hardee's with defendant. Frederick and Sanders left Radio Shack after defendant and Clay but arrived at Hardee's first.

Later in the evening, defendant met her friends as planned and left the restaurant around 9:45 p.m. Meanwhile, Frederick drove Clay to several locations and eventually left him at the Ramada Inn in Sikeston at approximately 9:15 p.m. The hotel was on the route between New Madrid and the Sikeston restaurant where defendant had eaten with her friends. Clay told Frederick that he would meet him later in the evening, but Frederick did not see Clay the rest of the night.

In her statements to the police, defendant asserted that she arrived home at approximately 10:30 p.m., and Martindale and the boys returned home ten or fifteen minutes later. Defendant asked Martindale to spend the night, and Martindale went to the master bedroom while defendant tucked the boys into bed. Defendant then went into the master bedroom, but she later left the room to get a glass of water from the kitchen. After returning to the bedroom, defendant retrieved a blanket from the hall closet for Martindale before she lay down on the bed. Martindale subsequently decided to spend the night at his parents' home and got up to dress. While Martindale was dressing near the bed, defendant leaned over to take a drink of water and heard three or four bangs. She immediately ran to the boys' bedroom. After seeing her red Camaro being driven away, defendant ran to her neighbor's house, screaming for help. Police subsequently discovered that Martindale had been shot and killed while sitting on a couch in the bedroom. Defendant asserted that she never saw the shooter and stated to the police, "This makes me so mad." The murder occurred at approximately 11:30 p.m.

Following the murder, police found a leather work glove on a vanity in the master bedroom and discovered the matching glove underneath some blankets in the hall closet. ⁴ Police found no evidence of forced entry into the house.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., prior to the emergency dispatch relating to the Martindale shooting, a New Madrid police officer noticed a red Camaro emitting sparks from a toy tractor dragging underneath the vehicle. Suspecting a drunk driver, the officer activated the lights and siren of his police car and attempted to pull the Camaro over. After a brief pursuit, the officer found the car stopped in the middle of the road with the doors open and the engine running. He saw no one in the vicinity of the vehicle. Other police officers determined that the Camaro belonged to defendant.

At approximately 12:30 p.m. the following day, a police officer found Richard Clay hiding in a swamp near the area of the abandoned car. Clay's shoes were similar to a footprint found near the car. Between the car and the swamp, police officers recovered a swatch of cloth matching Clay's shirt and a bullet from the same magazine as the bullets used to kill Martindale.

Sanders testified that after the murder, he disposed of a box of ammunition similar to the type used to kill the victim. Sanders also asserted that his .380 Bersa handgun was missing. The gun was similar to the type of weapon used to kill Martindale, and Sanders testified that Clay often took it without his knowledge. ⁵ The murder weapon was never recovered.

Bobby Martin, an insurance agent, testified that he rewrote a $100,000 life insurance policy for Martindale in 1993. At that time, he met with defendant and Martindale and explained the general terms of the contract. Defendant was the primary beneficiary on the policy.

Defendant was charged with first degree murder and convicted of second degree murder. On appeal, she contends the trial court "plainly erred" ⁶ in submitting the second degree murder instruction because the evidence was insufficient to support the instruction.

Defendant relies primarily upon State v. Anding, 752 S.W.2d 59 (Mo. banc 1988). In Anding, the defendant was charged with capital murder and convicted of manslaughter. The trial court had automatically submitted the manslaughter instruction to the jury as a lesser included offense of murder. Id. at 60. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the defendant's conviction and held that the automatic submission of the manslaughter instruction was erroneous because it was not supported by the evidence:

The record in this case clearly indicates that defendant was either guilty of deliberate, premeditated murder or of nothing at all. If the State's evidence is believed defendant contracted to have [the victim] murdered more than a year before the murder took place. During that year defendant allegedly planned the murder with the help of [his accomplice]. The time of the murder was purposefully set to coincide with a time when defendant was out of the state. The brutal slaying of [the victim] was carried out while the victim was being held down in his chair. There are simply no facts in this case upon which to conclude that the killing of [the victim] was provoked or was committed without deliberation, malice, and premeditation. Consequently, the trial court erred in instructing the jury on manslaughter because there was no evidence to support such an instruction. [The instructions and case law] requiring automatic submission of manslaughter should not be followed.

Id. at 62.

The state's appellate brief does not attempt to distinguish Anding. Significantly, the state does not argue that the evidence presented at trial justified the submission of the second degree murder instruction. Instead, the state contends that the ruling in Anding was erroneous and should be reexamined. Before addressing the state's argument, we initially must determine whether Anding continues to be valid precedent.

In State v. Leisure, 796 S.W.2d 875 (Mo. banc 1990), decided two years after Anding, the defendant was charged with capital murder but convicted of manslaughter. During the trial, both the state and the defendant tendered manslaughter instructions. Leisure, 796 S.W.2d at 876. On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court considered Anding but affirmed the conviction, holding that "a defendant cannot complain of an instruction given at his request." Leisure, 796 S.W.2d at 877.

The Leisure court also based its holding on § 545.030.1, which provides, in relevant part:

[No criminal] trial, judgment or other proceedings thereon [shall] be ... in any manner affected:

* * *

(16) For any error committed at the instance or in favor of the defendant; nor

(17) Because the evidence shows or tends to show him to be guilty of a higher degree of the offense than that of which he is convicted....

On its face, § 545.030.1(17) is somewhat inconsistent with the holding of Anding. ⁷ However, the Leisure court applied paragraph seventeen in conjunction with paragraph sixteen and concluded:

If the trial court erred in giving the manslaughter instruction, it was error committed at the instance of defendant, and most certainly he considered it in his "favor" [paragraph sixteen]. Hence, it should not "in any manner" affect his conviction. The conviction for manslaughter may be upheld under these circumstances even though the evidence tends to show defendant to be guilty of a higher degree of homicide [paragraph seventeen]....

Leisure, 796 S.W.2d at 878. (Citations omitted).

Although Leisure...