State v. Matson
| Decision Date | 22 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | WD 79337. |
| Citation | 526 S.W.3d 156 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Terry Lynn MATSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Daniel N. McPherson, Jefferson City, MO, Counsel for Respondent.
Margaret Mueller Johnston, Columbia, MO, Counsel for Appellant.
Before Division Three: Anthony Rex Gabbert, Presiding Judge, Victor Howard, Judge, Cynthia L. Martin, Judge
Terry L. Matson ("Appellant") appeals from two convictions of statutory sodomy (Section 566.062) and one conviction of statutory rape (Section 566.032).1 Appellant raises four points on appeal. Points I and II allege abuse of discretion in admitting non-relevant propensity evidence pursuant to Art. I, Section 18(c) of the Missouri Constitution. Point III alleges the trial court erred in denying Appellant's Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, due to insufficient evidence he committed statutory rape beyond a reasonable doubt. Point IV alleges plain error in retrospective application of Art. I, Section 18(c). We affirm.
Appellant lived in the same household with G.C., this case's child victim. G.C. was five-years-old when Appellant began touching "her private areas with his private areas and with his mouth." This conduct occurred on several occasions, though the parties dispute whether Appellant engaged G.C. in sexual intercourse.
Before trial, the State filed a notice to admit propensity evidence pursuant to Art. I, Section 18(c) of the Missouri Constitution. The State sought to admit the testimonies of M.N. and A.B., both of whom Appellant allegedly sexually assaulted as children. M.N.'s allegation dates to 1994, and A.B.'s allegations date to 2007. Because the trial court found those allegations to be legally and factually like the present case, it denied Appellant's motion in limine and admitted the propensity evidence.
Appellant's first two points allege abuse of discretion, challenging the relevancy of the admitted propensity evidence. Appellant argues the testimonies of M.N. and A.B., addressed in Points I and II, respectively, were not relevant because the alleged acts were too dissimilar and temporally removed from the present case to have probative value. We find no abuse of discretion.
The enactment of Article I, Section 18(c) effectively created a new evidentiary standard for sex crimes involving minors. The provision provides:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 and 18(a) of this article to the contrary, in prosecutions for crimes of a sexual nature involving a victim under eighteen years of age, relevant evidence of prior criminal acts, whether charged or uncharged, is admissible for the purpose of corroborating the victim's testimony or demonstrating the defendant's propensity to commit the crime with which he or she is presently charged. The court may exclude relevant evidence of prior criminal acts if the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.
As Section 18(c) states, prior evidence of misconduct can be used to demonstrate criminal propensity. Thus, in the context of sex crimes involving minors, the provision unequivocally supersedes the Supreme Court of Missouri's evidentiary rulings that once prohibited propensity evidence. See State v. Bernard , 849 S.W.2d 10 (Mo. banc 1993) (prohibiting propensity evidence of any kind); State v. Ellison , 239 S.W.3d 603 (Mo. banc 2007) (ruling Section 566.025 unconstitutional because it impermissibly allowed propensity evidence); State v. Vorhees , 248 S.W.3d 585 (Mo. banc 2008) ( that "signature modus operandi " evidence used to corroborate a victim's testimony constitutes prohibited propensity evidence). The aforesaid cases excluded propensity evidence not because it could never be relevant, but because despite its relevance, its admission into evidence would violate the Missouri Constitution. Vorhees , 248 S.W.3d at 591 () (quoting State v. Sladek , 835 S.W.2d 308, 311 (Mo. banc 1992) ).
In fact, Section 17 of Article I states, "no person shall be prosecuted criminally for felony or misdemeanor otherwise than by indictment or information[.]" And Section 18(a) states, "in criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right ... to demand the nature and cause of the accusation [.]" These constitutional provisions are intended to "guarantee a criminal defendant the right to be tried only on the offense charged." State v. Burns , 978 S.W.2d 759, 760 (Mo. banc 1998). However, the specific language of Section 18(c) directly challenges the previous jurisprudence governing evidence of prior misconduct. The section's first clause specifically provides for the amendment's application "[n]otwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 and 18(a) [.]" In sum, when Missouri voters approved Section 18(c), they overruled our Supreme Court's relevant holdings in Bernard , Burns , Ellison , Vorhees , and their progeny. The effect of Section 18(c) was to relieve propensity evidence in certain types of cases from the absolute ban on admissibility, assuming logical and legal relevance is otherwise established.
"Evidence is logically relevant if it tends to make the existence of a material fact more or less probable." Id. "This is a very low-level test that is easily met." Vorhees , 248 S.W.3d at 591 (citing State v. Sladek , 835 S.W.2d 308, 314 (Mo. banc 1992)) (J. Thomas, concurring). "Crime statistics readily demonstrate that commission of a prior crime by a defendant is logically relevant to the issue of whether the defendant committed the crime charged simply because recidivous statistics demonstrate that prior offenders commit more crimes than persons who have not previously committed a crime." Id. Here, the admitted testimonies alleging Appellant previously sexually assaulted children clearly make more probable the facts in the present case, which allege Appellant sexually assaulted G.C. Appellant's argument that the alleged prior misconduct was too remote in time to be relevant speaks to the evidence's weight and not its admissibility. State v. Peal , 393 S.W.3d 621, 628-29 (Mo. App. 2013) () (citation and quotes omitted). The "very low-level test" of logical relevance has, indeed, been "easily met." In this case, it was not an abuse of discretion to conclude that evidence of Appellant's prior conduct was logically relevant.
Ordinarily, "evidence is legally relevant if its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect." Jackson v. Mills , 142 S.W.3d 237, 240 (Mo. App. 2004). However, [t]he last sentence in Section 18(c) imposes a higher standard before logically relevant evidence can be excluded based on legal relevance. That sentence provides that: "[t]he court may exclude relevant evidence of prior criminal acts if the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice" (emphasis added). In other words, before a court can exclude logically relevant propensity evidence within the scope of section 18(c), the defendant opposing the admission must establish that the probative value of the evidence is not simply outweighed by, but is substantially outweighed by, the prejudicial effect of the evidence. Even then, as our colleagues in the Eastern District have observed, "if the evidence's probative value was ‘substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice,’ the trial court was not required to exclude the evidence." State v. Rucker , 512 S.W.3d 63, 69 (Mo. App. 2017). The trial court's admission of the evidence under these circumstances is only reversible if the trial court abused its discretion by doing so.
Appellant's argument that admission of his prior acts is unfairly prejudicial speaks to the acts' legal relevance. Appellant has not established, however, that the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect of the evidence. And even had Appellant sustained this burden (which he has not), Appellant articulates no rationale to permit us to conclude that the trial court abused the discretion it is plainly provided by Section 18(c) to elect not to exclude the evidence. Points I and II are denied.
Appellant argues the trial court erred in denying his Motion for Judgment of Acquittal, because documentary evidence used to sustain Appellant's statutory rape conviction was insufficient. "A person commits the offense of statutory rape in the first degree if he has sexual intercourse with another person who is less than fourteen years old." RSMo 566.032. Sexual intercourse is statutorily defined as "any penetration, however slight, of the female sex organ by the male sex organ[.]" Section 566.010(4). "The female sexual organs" include the "vulva and external genitals." State v. Dunn , 7 S.W.3d 427, 430 (Mo. App. 1999). Appellant asserts documentary evidence of an interview with G.C. was too ambiguous, and thus insufficient, to support a finding that he engaged G.C. in sexual intercourse. We find the evidence in question to be unambiguous, and thus sufficient, to sustain Appellant's conviction.
"Generally, this Court's review of the sufficiency of the evidence is limited to whether the State has introduced sufficient evidence for any reasonable juror to have been convinced of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Nash , 339 S.W.3d 500, 508-09 (Mo. banc 2011) (citation omitted). Evidence is insufficient if it is ambiguous. State v. Goad , 926 S.W.2d 152, 156-57 (Mo. App. 1996) (...
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