State v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 17 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 78050,78050
• Citation: 948 S.W.2d 577
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Michael S. ROBERTS, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 577

948 S.W.2d 577

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Michael S. ROBERTS, Appellant.

No. 78050

Supreme Court of Missouri En Banc.

June 17, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 19, 1997.

Christopher E. McGraugh, St. Louis, for Appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Christine M. Blegen, Assistant Attorney General, Jefferson City, for Respondent.

ROBERTSON, Judge.

A St. Louis County jury convicted Michael S. Roberts of first-degree murder and recommended that he be sentenced to death after hearing uncontroverted evidence that he beat fifty-six-year-old Mary Taylor to death with a hammer. At trial, Roberts claimed that he suffered from a mental disease or defect such that he lacked the capacity to deliberate prior to killing Ms. Taylor. On appeal, he claims, among other things, that the trial court erred in failing to submit a cautionary instruction required by section 552.030.5 and by permitting the jury to hear evidence of unrelated prior crimes. We have jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 3. We affirm Roberts's sentence and conviction, as well as the trial court's decision overruling Roberts's Rule 29.15 motion.

I.

From Michael Roberts's videotaped confession, the jury learned that on February 16, 1994, Roberts and his friends ran out of crack cocaine and money at the same time. He promised his friends that he would remedy the situation, went to his house, obtained a hammer and walked to the home of fifty-six-year-old Mary Taylor, eight doors away. Roberts claimed Ms. Taylor as a friend and believed that her "stuff" had value as a result of his familiarity with it.

Roberts rang Ms. Taylor's doorbell between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. She let him in. They watched television together. Ms. Taylor took a phone call from her nephew. When the call ended, she and Roberts talked until Ms. Taylor said she wanted to go to sleep and asked Roberts to leave. The two walked toward the front door. Roberts suddenly turned, pushed Ms. Taylor over a table and began hitting her in the head with the hammer as she lay defenseless on the floor. Ms. Taylor pleaded with Roberts to stop. After hitting her in the head with a hammer more than fifteen times, he stopped the beating and went into the kitchen where he knew she kept her purse. Finding the purse, Roberts began rummaging through it until he heard Ms. Taylor move in the front room. Roberts returned to the living room and kicked Ms. Taylor in the head and side, telling her to stay still. Apparently not convinced that she would obey, he ripped the telephone cord from the wall, wrapped it around her neck, and pulled it as tight as he could. She continued to breathe. He ran to the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife and stabbed her repeatedly until he noticed that the knife's blade bent in that process. He tossed the steak knife aside, retrieved a butcher knife from the kitchen and began stabbing Ms. Taylor again. When that weapon did not seem "like it was penetrating her clothes," he went to the kitchen again, filled a large soup pan with water, took it to Ms. Taylor and held her face under the water. Noticing that brain matter had oozed onto his hands, Roberts felt queasy, but decided to continue. He repositioned his hand and forced her head under the water. When her body started to twitch, he "freaked out," released her head, took an answering machine and $200 and left, leaving the hammer and his Cleveland Indians baseball cap behind. He returned to Ms. Taylor's house twice--the first time to steal more valuables and her car and the second time to pretend to find her body and report the crime to the police.

II. FAILURE TO GIVE INSTRUCTION MAI-CR 3d 300.20 and 306.4

Roberts does not dispute these facts. Indeed, the evidence that he killed Ms Taylor--even if one discounts his confession totally--is overwhelming and virtually uncontroverted. Because of what the jury could see so clearly from the physical evidence, Roberts decided to defend himself on the one issue the jurors could not see--his mental state at the time of the murder. He claimed that he suffered from a dysrhythmic activity of the brain affecting the frontal and temporal lobe; that this condition produced impulsive behavior, disinhibitive behavior, mood swings and loss of judgment and reasoning ability; and that, as a result, he lacked the mental capacity to deliberate before he killed Ms. Taylor.

To support and contest this claim of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility at trial, Roberts and the state offered testimony of mental health professionals offering opinions concerning Roberts's ability to deliberate. As part of that testimony, these witnesses revealed a history of sordid and violent acts Roberts had committed during and since his youth. These acts included sexual intercourse with his five-year-old sister when he was fifteen; sodomy of his five-year-old sister; arson; assaulting his mother; sodomy of his younger brother; assaults of inmates while in jail; and robbery. Prior to this testimony, Roberts's counsel asked the trial court to caution the jury with MAI-CR 3d 300.20. The trial court refused and similarly refused to instruct the jury in accordance with MAI-CR 3d 306.04 at the close of the evidence.

A.

Section 565.020.1, RSMo 1994, defines first degree murder. "A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if he knowingly causes the death of another person after deliberation upon the matter." Section 552.015.2(8), RSMo 1994, permits the parties to present evidence relating to a defendant's mental state when a defendant claims he did not have "a state of mind which is an element of the offense," provided the defendant "files a written notice of his purpose to rely on [a defense of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility]." Section 552.030.2, RSMo 1994.

Roberts initially filed a "Notice of Intent to Rely on the Defense of Mental Disease or Defect" and a "Motion for Mental Examination." Roberts founded the latter on sections 552.020 and 552.030. The trial court ordered the mental examination "as provided for under Sections 552.020 and 552.030." Roberts filed a subsequent "Motion for Psychiatric Examination of the Accused by a Physician of Defendant's Choosing" when the initial examination did not produce results to his liking. Section 552.030.3 expressly permits such an examination. Roberts's motion expressly cited section 552.030.3. The trial court's order sustained the motion "pursuant to Section 552.020," an apparent legal nonsequitur given the sole legal foundation claimed in Roberts's second motion. ¹

Subsequently, Roberts filed a "Motion Withdrawing Intent to Rely on a Defense of Mental Disease or Defect" and filed a "Notice of Intent to Present the Defense of Mental Disease or Defect to Negate a Culpable Mental State."

B.

Section 552.030.5 provides:

No statement made by the accused in the course of any such examination and no information received by any physician or other person in the course thereof, whether such examination was made with or without the consent of the accused or upon his motion or upon that of others, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the issue of whether he committed the act charged against him in any criminal proceeding then or thereafter pending in any court, state or federal. The statement or information shall be admissible in evidence for or against him only on the issue of his mental condition, whether or not it would otherwise be deemed to be a privileged communication. If the statement or information is admitted for or against the accused on the issue of his mental condition, the court shall, both orally at the time of its admission and later by instruction, inform the jury that it must not consider such statement or information as any evidence of whether the accused committed the act charged against him.

Roberts claims on appeal that the trial court erred in refusing to caution the jury in accordance with MAI-CR 3d 300.20 and instruct the jury with MAI-CR 3d 306.04. ²

The next witness to testify is [name of doctor]. He will testify concerning the mental condition of the defendant at the time of the alleged offense. In the course of his testimony, [name of doctor] may testify to statements and information that were received by him during or in connection with his inquiry into the mental condition of the defendant.

In that connection, the Court instructs you that under no circumstances should you consider that testimony as evidence that the defendant did or did not commit the acts charged against him.

MAI-CR 3d 300.20. The state disagrees on two grounds. First, the state says that State v. Strubberg, 616 S.W.2d 809, 812-3 (Mo.1981), prohibits using a section 552.020 examination for purposes of section 552.030. Second, even if the trial court erred in failing to caution and instruct the jury, the state claims that Roberts suffered no prejudice as a result of the error.

1.

Strubberg contains these words: "[The defendant] was not entitled to and did not receive the .030 examination nor could his .020 examination be treated by the court as an .030 examination." This sentence is the fulcrum of the state's claim that the trial court did not err in refusing the profferred instructions. In context, however, Strubberg says:

Appellant did not plead not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility for the acts charged nor did he give written notice of his intent to rely on such defense. He was not entitled to and did not receive the .030 examination nor could his .020 examination be treated by the court as an .030 examination. It was not error for the court to fail to give [MAI-CR3d 300.20] in this case.

Id. at 817.

In this case, the defendant gave notice of his intent to rely on a defense of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility. Where a defendant files a timely notice of intent or a notice is accepted by the trial court as establishing good cause for a late...