State v. Reasonover

• Decision Date: 17 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 48453,48453
• Citation: 714 S.W.2d 706
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ellen M. REASONOVER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 706

714 S.W.2d 706

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Ellen M. REASONOVER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 48453.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Eastern District,

Division Two.

June 17, 1986.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied

July 16, 1986.

Application to Transfer Denied Sept. 16, 1986.

Mac Arthur Moten, St. Louis, George Hairston, Brooklyn, N.Y., for defendant-appellant.

William L. Webster, Atty. Gen., Gary L. Gardner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.

PER CURIAM:

Defendant Ellen Maria Reasonover was found guilty of capital murder, Section 565.001 RSMo 1978 (repealed effective October 1, 1984), and was sentenced to life imprisonment without probation or parole for fifty years. Defendant appeals. We affirm.

On January 2, 1983, at approximately 2:00 a.m., the body of James Buckley, a gas station attendant, was discovered in the storage room of a Vickers station on West Florissant Avenue, Dellwood, Missouri. He had been shot to death. The crime was publicized, and persons who had information about the crime were asked by the police to come forward. On January 3rd a woman who identified herself as Sheila Hill called the Dellwood police department, claiming she had been at the Vickers station and had seen three persons. Officer Pike, with whom she spoke, asked her to call again to speak with Captain Chapman. She called again on January 4th, and came down to the police station at 11:30 that evening. When asked for identification, Sheila Hill identified herself as Ellen Reasonover, the defendant herein.

Defendant said she had been doing laundry and went to the Vickers station to get change. She was not sure of the time, but thought she was at the station at about 1:30 a.m. the night of the murder. Defendant, who was considered a witness at this time, was taken to the Vickers station to reenact what she had seen. She stated that as she drove up, she saw a cream-colored station wagon leave the station. She also saw a black man in the cashier's cage, whom she assumed was an attendant. As she approached the cashier's cage, the black man took off his cap and left the cage to enter the main part of the station. Defendant knocked loudly on the window of the cage, but the black man did not return. She also saw a car parked on the right side of the building, which she described as a dark blue or black Oldsmobile or Buick with silver or gray trim and a spare tire container protruding from the top of the trunk. She described a second black man that she saw at the station, who was taller than the first and wore a green Army jacket. A third person was in the back of the car. As defendant was pulling out of the station she saw the man from the cashier's cage enter the car. She then proceeded to a nearby 7-Eleven store, where she again saw the two men as she was coming out of the store. Defendant then returned to the laundromat.

In the early morning hours of January 5th, defendant picked out two photographs from 250 photographs shown to her by the police. The photographs were of Isaac Scott and Herman Staples. In subsequent lineups, she failed to pick out Isaac Scott but did identify Herman Staples as one of the two men she had seen. Upon investigation, the police discovered that the two men defendant picked out had both been incarcerated at the time of the crime. At about this time, it also came to the attention of the police that defendant had complained to the police about an ex-boyfriend who had broken out the windows of her car. The man was Stanley White, and he was seen by the defendant driving away in a car remarkably similar in description to the car she had described to the police as being at the Vickers station. The incident took place only a few days before the murder.

Upon being told by the police that the men she had picked out were in custody at the time of the murder, defendant stated she would try to get the name of the man with the cap from her sister or her sister's friend, as she believed she had seen this man at various parties. She gave the police the name of Willie Love, and identified him from a photographic array. On January 6, defendant identified Willie Love in a lineup. Also on January 6, the police began to question defendant about the incident concerning her car windows.

On January 7 defendant was asked to take a stress test, also referred to as a "modified polygraph" test. She consented to the test and was taken to the Bridgeton police station where the test was administered. After being transported back to the Dellwood police station, defendant was questioned about her activities from December 31, 1982 to January 3, 1983 in order to establish her whereabouts on the night of the murder. She repeated a sequence of events six times, and only once did she mention that she had been at the Vickers station on January 2. At this point the police were informed of the results of the stress test, which defendant failed. Defendant was then arrested and given her Miranda warnings.

Later, on the evening of that same day, defendant was transported from the Dellwood jail to the Jennings jail, where she was placed in a cell with Rose Jolliff and Marquita Butler. Defendant was released the following morning, January 8. Rose Jolliff later talked with the police who were investigating the murder. In essence, Jolliff stated that the defendant admitted committing the crime with Stanley White and Robert McIntosh. Defendant told Jolliff that she shot the victim seven times with a rifle because something had gone wrong and she feared the victim could identify her.

On February 9, 1983, the defendant was in custody on a separate unrelated charge, and was placed in a holdover cell of the St. Louis County jail with Carol Coates, Rose Winston, Elaine Carpenter, and Mary Ellen Lyner. Lyner subsequently made a deal with the prosecution in exchange for her testimony regarding admissions made by the defendant to her while both were confined in the holdover cell. The admissions in question are: "Those mother-fuckers picked me out of a lineup. I told them we should have blew their brains out too," and "Girl, we robbed a gas station and killed a man, you know, that Vickers station. I stay right down the street from there."

Subsequent to the admissions to Lyner, defendant had several conversations with various police officers, during which she threatened the officers and accused them of "putting a case on her," and stated that she would not "come in" or "roll over" on anyone. Stanley White was identified as being at the Vickers station on the night of the murder by a witness, Kenneth Main, who identified White on January 7, after his memory had been refreshed through hypnosis. On March 4, 1983, Robert McIntosh was identified as being at the Vickers station on the night of the murder by another witness, Anthony Longo. Further facts will be set out as they apply to specific points on appeal.

Defendant raises fourteen points on appeal, most as plain error. In brief, they are as follows: (1) there was insufficient evidence to convict defendant of capital murder; (2) the State failed to disclose exculpatory evidence in its possession; (3) the State failed to disclose the full extent of promises made to two informant witnesses in exchange for their testimony; (4) the State knowingly presented false and misleading testimony; (5) the alleged admission to Mary Ellen Lyner on February 9 should not have been permitted in evidence as it denied defendant her right to be tried fairly on the offense charged; (6) testimony derived from a police report should not have been permitted in evidence, on the basis of relevancy, improper foundation, and hearsay; (7) statements made by defendant regarding her activities from December 31, 1982 to January 3, 1983 should not have been permitted in evidence, as they were obtained in violation of defendant's Miranda rights; (8) the alleged admissions to Rose Jolliff were the fruit of an illegal arrest; (9) statements made by defendant to the police on February 25, 1983 should not have been permitted in evidence, as they were obtained in violation of defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel; (10) the prosecutor repeatedly testified regarding his involvement in the investigation of the crime charged, in violation of defendant's right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses against her; (11) the identifications of both of defendant's alleged co-actors were the result of a process that was impermissibly suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification; (12) defendant's trial counsel should not have been forced to begin voir dire at 7 P.M. on the first day of trial; (13) instruction No. 10 should not have been given, as it erroneously allowed MAI-CR 15.12 to modify MAI-CR 2.12, thus confusing the jury; (14) a circumstantial evidence instruction, MAI-CR 3.42, was erroneously denied.

In her first point on appeal, defendant claims the trial court erred in overruling her motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of all the evidence because there was insufficient evidence to convict defendant of capital murder. In reviewing a claim involving the sufficiency of the evidence, evidence supportive of the conviction is considered true, and favorable inferences from this evidence are to be indulged. State v. Gordon, 649 S.W.2d 903, 905-906 (Mo.App.1983).

Defendant in her brief asserts that the majority of the evidence in this case is circumstantial and capable of an innocent construction. Much of defendant's argument interweaves the allegations contained in her other points on appeal and depends upon assumptions based on these allegations. Defendant also alludes to the testimony of Rose Jolliff and Mary Ellen Lyner, characterizing it as unworthy of belief. Such arguments ignore the requirement that we review the evidence favorably to the verdict, as noted above.

It is sufficient to note defendant admitted to the police...