State v. Priest
| Citation | 660 S.W.2d 300 |
| Decision Date | 20 September 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. WD,WD |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Martin PRIEST, Defendant-Appellant. 32863. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Missouri (US) |
Willard B. Bunch, Kansas City, for defendant-appellant.
Nicholas L. Swischer, Prosecuting Atty. of Vernon County, Mo., Nevada, Kris Green, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.
Before WASSERSTROM, P.J., and NUGENT and LOWENSTEIN, JJ.
Martin Priest was charged with capital murder, § 565.001 1, and convicted of murder in the second degree § 565.004, following a jury trial. He was sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment. He appeals that conviction. We reverse defendant's conviction.
On appeal, Priest claims the trial court erred in failing to sustain his motion for acquittal when the evidence was not sufficient to establish either that the death was the result of some criminal agency (the corpus delicti) or that death resulted from a "willful" act on his part. Because we find this sufficiency issue dispositive, we do not address the other two issues raised by defendant.
On June 15, 1980, the badly decomposed body of 12 year-old Tonya Lewis was found floating in the water near the bank of a farm pond south of Nevada, Missouri. Tonya had last been seen on June 13, 1980, in Nevada, where she lived in a housing project with her mother.
Defendant Martin Priest was employed on a painting crew at the housing project, and on June 12 painted the Lewis apartment and bought a 1972 Dodge from Shirley Lewis, Tonya's mother.
On June 13 Priest was again painting the Lewis apartment when Tonya and her friend Kelly Schumacher discussed going to the municipal swimming pool. They did so that afternoon, and Priest and his stepdaughter arrived shortly thereafter. Priest had told his employer he was going to a job interview. Tonya and Priest played together in the pool, and he bought a coke for her and his stepdaughter. Before leaving, they agreed to play basketball later that day, and did so from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. Friends of Priest who saw him playing basketball with Tonya suggested a game of "Indian Ball". Tonya called her mother to tell her she was going to a movie with Kelly and then followed Priest and his friends to the ball field. During the game, Marvin Buller, who was chasing a fly ball, collided with and knocked Tonya down. She appeared to be unhurt but left the game alone sometime before it ended.
Just before 9:00 o'clock, Priest said he had to pick up his wife at work, and the game ended. In fact, he did not pick up his wife.
Apparently, after she left the ballgame, Tonya was not seen alive again. Priest was next seen after 10:30 when Shirley Lewis, concerned that Tonya was not home and remembering that she saw her playing basketball with Priest earlier, went to Priest's apartment and asked if he knew where Tonya was. He replied that the girl had gotten a splinter in her finger while playing basketball and had gone home. He said that he returned to his home at that time and stayed there all evening.
Physical evidence from the scene indicated that a car had driven through the prairie grass close to the farm pond. Investigators found oil and grease where the car was parked. Tire tracks showed that the rear tires were bald and the front tires had little tread. Beaten down grass and weeds indicated that the driver had walked from his side of the car to the passenger side. A human hair was found on the barbed wire fence. From there, a path of broken grass led to the pond through a thicket of briars. Although the briars bore no hair, bits of torn clothing, flesh or blood, witnesses who found Tonya's body testified that her shirt was rolled up around her chest and had briars in it, and that scratches were visible on her back. The grass around a barbed wire fence was heavily trodden.
Neither Tonya's sister, who identified the body, the coroner, nor forensic chemist Afton Ware, all of whom saw the clothing, mentioned any briars. Ware specifically examined the clothing, and testified that he did not find "anything of significance" other than that the clothing had been cut to remove it from the body.
When questioned later, Priest told police he had gone fishing that evening at another pond called Katy Island Pond. On the night Tonya disappeared, that pond was eighteen inches deep and covered with moss. His fishing poles were examined and found to be dusty. Police observed scratches on the back of his legs from his knees to his ankles and when questioned about them, he became angry.
When authorities sought to photograph his legs, Priest sent a letter 2 to the sheriff, apparently written by his acting counsel, stating that he did not wish to be interrogated further, that he would not consent to photographs and that he wanted an attorney appointed to represent him. When photographs were taken several days later, Priest had apparently rubbed the scabs off the leg scratches. A comparison of a sample of defendant's hair with a hair found on the barbed wire fence at the pond where Tonya's body was found led forensic chemist Ware to conclude that the questioned hair was not defendant's. Because of a difference in color, that hair could not be matched to Tonya's hair. Microscopic examination of Priest's shoes showed nothing of significance--no mud, no blood stains and no hairs.
An examination of Priest's car revealed that it leaked oil and grease. No blood or blood stains were found in the car. Hairs found in the car had microscopic characteristics similar to hairs taken from the body. Prairie grass found on the undercarriage and inside the car was similar to grass at the pond area. Red spots taken from the car as possible blood stains proved to be paint. Dirt samples found on the bumper and in the trunk area of defendant's car did not match mud samples from the vicinity of the pond.
The pond, which was not visible from the road, was located on a farm eleven miles south of Nevada which Priest's mother had once considered renting. Although the body was found in shallow water near the bank, other parts of the pond were deep enough for swimming.
The pathologist, Dr. Albert Upsher, testified that he found no fractures of any limbs or the skull, although the badly decomposed condition of the body made it impossible to determine whether she had sustained any blows that did not fracture the bone. He found no evidence of disease; no evidence of sexual assault; no sperm or enzymes related to the male; no rupture of small blood vessels in the lungs, as normally occurs in strangulation or smothering; no poisons, stimulants or depressants; and no sign of the scratches on the back which witnesses at the scene said they had observed. He hypothesized the possibility that the scratches could have resulted from the sloughing off of skin on the back which may have occurred when the body was transferred to the ambulance, or that the "scratches" may have actually been "nothing more than dirt that had been removed by the mortician in trying to clean up the body." He further testified that, although he could not determine whether Tonya was alive or dead when she entered the pond, his opinion was that she drowned. His examination showed nothing inconsistent with accidental drowning.
The prosecution adduced no evidence as to the approximate time of Tonya's death and did not ask Dr. Upsher for an estimate of the time. The accounting for defendant's time on the evening of June 13 by the state's witnesses left only one hour forty minutes unaccounted for between the 9:00 p.m. break up of the game and the time state witness Lear precisely testified that Martin Priest was home: 10:40 p.m.
The forensic chemist microscopically examined fingernail scrapings from Tonya's nails. On one fingernail he noted a very minute and unidentifiable bit of black substance appearing to be oil or grease, but the other fingernails showed nothing unusual.
In his closing argument at trial, in response to defense counsel's argument that the state had failed to show a motive, the prosecutor referred to the killings of some twenty-seven young children in Atlanta, a matter then prominent in the news. 3
The jury was instructed on capital murder, second-degree murder, and conventional manslaughter, and returned a verdict of guilty on second-degree murder.
We turn now to the applicable law. The corpus delicti in a homicide case consists of two elements: (1) the death of a human being, and (2) the criminal agency of another. The criminal act of the defendant is an additional element not part of the corpus delicti, although evidence which tends to prove the second element of corpus delicti may also tend to prove the defendant's criminality.
To establish the corpus delicti, the state must prove that the death was neither self-inflicted nor the result of natural causes or accident. State v. Morris, 564 S.W.2d 303, 309 (Mo.App.1978). Although the cause of death must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, it may be shown by circumstantial evidence. Holtkamp v. State, 588 S.W.2d 183, 188 (Mo.App.1979).
Even when circumstantial, all evidence upon the whole record tending to support the guilty verdict must be taken as true, contrary evidence must be disregarded, and every reasonable inference tending to support the verdict must be indulged. State v. Morris, supra, at 304.
Of course, the burden of proving the corpus delicti is on the state. State v. Gillman, 329 Mo. 306, 44 S.W.2d 146 (1931).
Defendant does not dispute that a death has occurred. On the corpus delicti issue we need examine the record only to determine whether the state has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the death resulted from the criminality of another by proving that it was neither self-inflicted nor the result of...
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State v. Middleton, Nos. WD
...the defendant argues that the evidence did not exclude the "possibility" of an accidental shooting or suicide, citing State v. Priest, 660 S.W.2d 300 (Mo.App.1983), and State v. Black, 611 S.W.2d 236 (Mo.App.1980). The defendant argues that the state could not make a submissible case and th......
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State v. Evans, s. 20530
...it uses in proving the corpus delicti's second element." State v. Davis, 797 S.W.2d 560, 563 (Mo.App.1990); see State v. Priest, 660 S.W.2d 300, 304 (Mo.App.1983). As a general rule "[e]xtrajudicial admissions, statements or confessions of the accused are not admissible in evidence absent i......
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State v. Bullington, WD
...the state adequately proved the corpus delicti, i.e. the death of a human being, and the criminal agency of another. State v. Priest, 660 S.W.2d 300, 304 (Mo.App.1983). While it is true the defendant's guilt was established entirely by circumstantial evidence, this is no bar to sustaining t......
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State ex rel. Wickline v. Casteel
...the pendency only of a lesser-included offense will not toll the time as to a greater, and hence different, offense, State v. Priest, 660 S.W.2d 300, 307 (Mo.App.1983), the converse is not true as a lesser offense is deemed charged by the greater. § 556.046, RSMo 1978. Further, even though ......