State v. Rutter

• Decision Date: 25 April 2002
• Docket Number: SD23851
• Parties: State of Missouri, Respondent v. Charles Lee Rutter, Appellant SD23851 Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District 0
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

State of Missouri, Respondent v Charles Lee Rutter, Appellant

SD23851

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District

04/25/2002

Appeal From: Circuit Court of Iron County, Hon. J. Max Price, Circuit Judge

Counsel for Appellant: Terry J. Flanagan

Counsel for Respondent: Breck K. Burgess

Opinion Summary: None

Shrum, P.J. and Montgomery, J. concur

Robert S. Barney, Chief Judge

AFFIRMED.

INTRODUCTION.

Charles Lee Rutter ("Defendant") appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Iron County following a jury conviction of murder in the first degree, section 565.020, and armed criminal action, section 571.015.¹ Following his conviction, Defendant was sentenced by the trial court to concurrent terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of probation or parole for murder in the first degree and life imprisonment for armed criminal action, to be served in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Defendant raises six points on appeal, discussed below. We affirm.

FACTS.

Defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence. Viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, State v. Crawford, 32 S.W.3d 201, 204 (Mo.App. 2000), the evidence reveals that Defendant was at his residence watching television during the early morning hours of April 4, 1999, when he received a visitor, Michael Hinkle ("Hinkle").² Defendant and Hinkle had known each other approximately six years and Hinkle was a frequent visitor at Defendant's residence. According to Defendant, Hinkle asked Defendant if he had any marijuana to smoke and Defendant told Hinkle that he did not. Hinkle then asked Defendant to go with him and get some marijuana. Defendant declined and Hinkle became agitated. At that point, according to Defendant, Hinkle began trashing Defendant's home by destroying lights and windows with a club and slashing Defendant's waterbed. Defendant sat in a chair during much of Hinkle's tirade, although Defendant claims that on at least one occasion Hinkle physically assaulted him by punching him in the eye and kicking him in the kidneys.

Eventually, Hinkle completed the trashing of Defendant's residence. Then, according to Defendant, Hinkle told Defendant, "I'm going to finish the job and I'm going to kill you," and starting walking towards a closet that Defendant said contained two .22 caliber rifles and a loaded .12 gauge shotgun. Defendant, who was seated in his chair, pulled out a .9 millimeter Ruger pistol, got up, walked over to Hinkle, and shot him in the back of the head from a range of approximately six inches.

Afterwards, Defendant dragged Hinkle from the living room to the bathroom and placed him in the bathtub. Defendant also used numerous rags in an attempt to clean up blood in the living room and bathroom. Defendant placed these rags in a burn barrel behind his house. While Defendant was in his yard, Arvil Harley ("Harley") pulled into the driveway and asked Defendant about Hinkle, to which Defendant replied that "[Hinkle] was gone." However, Defendant did not tell Harley that Hinkle had been shot, nor did he ask Harley to call the police. Defendant then walked to his mother's house, which was located a quarter-mile away from his residence.³ Defendant went inside and told his step-father, Billy Luten ("Luten"), that he had shot Hinkle. Luten asked Defendant whether he had called the police or an ambulance and Defendant responded that he had not. Luten told Defendant to call them, but Defendant never did. Luten then went to the First Assembly of God Church to tell Defendant's mother what had happened.

At the church, Pastor Donald Dement ("Dement") was asked by Defendant's aunt to go to Defendant's residence because there had been a shooting. Upon arriving at Defendant's house, Dement found the door to be locked and he was unable to gain entry into the house. Eventually, Defendant appeared at the residence and unlocked the door. By that time, several other people had arrived at Defendant's home. When Dement and others entered the house, they found Hinkle dead in the bathtub.

Law enforcement officials were eventually notified and Deputy Chuck Helton ("Dep. Helton") arrived at Defendant's home about two hours after the shooting, between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m. Dep. Helton was the first law enforcement official to arrive at Defendant's home. Dep. Helton entered the home, spoke with Larry Warren, a paramedic, and went to the bathroom and observed Hinkle lying in the bathtub. Dep. Helton then secured the premises by "putting up sheriff's tape and not letting anyone back inside the residence." He then made a search of the residence. He found a .9 millimeter pistol on a chair in the living room and a shell casing at the doorway of a closet in the vicinity of the living room. About midway through his search Dep. Helton noticed that the door to the closet was open and looked inside the closet with the aid of a flashlight, but did not enter into the closet.⁴ Dep. Helton testified that he did not see any firearms in the closet. Shortly thereafter, at approximately 2:06 p.m. Deputy Brian Young ("Dep. Young") entered the crime scene. By this time Dep. Helton, Deputy Don Ivy, and Tony Cole, the Iron County Coroner, were also present. Dep. Young testified that at about 2:30 p.m. he physically entered into the closet on his hands and knees. His way was illuminated through the use of a "MAG light three cell flashlight." He found no weapons in the closet. The officers then seized the shell casing and the pistol. Several hours later, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant to search Defendant's residence and collected further evidence, including carpet and blood samples.

Defendant was charged by the State with first degree murder and armed criminal action. At Defendant's trial, the above events were related. Defendant testified in his defense and claimed that he shot Hinkle in self-defense. Defendant also presented witnesses who testified that they had removed the two rifles and shotgun from the closet after the police searched the house. However, in rebuttal, the State presented testimony from Joan Hinkle, the victim's grandmother, who testified that Defendant had told her a week to ten days before the shooting that all guns except for the .9 millimeter pistol had been removed from his residence.

The jury was advised by their instructions that they could find Defendant guilty of murder in the first degree or murder in the second degree. The trial court refused Defendant's request to submit a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter. However, the trial court did instruct the jury on self-defense. The jury returned a verdict finding Defendant guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. DISCUSSION AND DECISION.

I.

In his first point on appeal, Defendant alleges, in pertinent part:

The trial court erred in allowing the trial testimony of [Dep. Helton] and [Dep. Young] concerning their observations made and the admission at trial of evidence discovered during the warrantless search of [Defendant's] home, including the examination of the interior of a closet located in said home and the officers' conclusion that no weapons were present in said closet, where said admission of testimony and evidence was allowed by the trial court over Defendant's objection . . . .

Defendant claims that the officers' search and their observations violated his constitutional rights, and that any exigent circumstances that existed upon their entering the house had terminated by the time of the search.

Defendant concedes in his brief that the original entry of Dep. Helton into Defendant's residence was in response to an emergency call and therefore falls within two exceptions to the search warrant requirement, exigent circumstances and the plain view exception. See State v. Johnson, 957 S.W.2d 734, 742-43 (Mo. banc 1997). However, Defendant claims that the more thorough search of Defendant's house by both Dep. Helton and Dep. Young occurred after the residence was secured. At that point, Defendant maintains exigent circumstances had ceased and a search warrant was necessary. We disagree.

In two recent cases, this court has discussed what a police officer may lawfully do when entering one's residence in an emergency situation:

We hold that when a law enforcement officer enters private premises in response to a call for help and thereby comes upon what reasonably appears to be the scene of a crime, and secures the crime scene from persons other than law enforcement officers by appropriate means, all property within the crime scene in plain view which the officer has probable cause to associate with criminal activity is thereby lawfully seized within the meaning of the fourth amendment [of the United States Constitution]. Officers arriving at the crime scene thereafter and while it is still secured can examine and remove property in plain view without a search warrant.

State v. Tidwell, 888 S.W.2d 736, 742 (Mo.App. 1994) (quoting State v. Jolley, 321 S.E.2d 883, 886 (1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1051, 105 S.Ct. 1751, 84 L.Ed.2d 816 (1985)); State v. Taylor, 857 S.W.2d 482, 486 (Mo.App. 1993).

Saliently, the Supreme Court of Missouri has also held that "[t]he possibility of another victim or perpetrators in a house are sufficient exigencies to permit the police to undertake a cursory search of those places in the dwelling in which a body may be found or persons may hide." Johnson, 957 S.W.2d at 744 (approving of seizure of a shotgun found in closet during the course of warrantless search made by police looking for other victims).

Applying these standards to the particular circumstances of the present case, we find that both Dep. Helton and Dep. Young were acting within their authority in responding to a call relating to a homicide. Their respective testimonies at trial, regarding what each did and did not see, were all matters that fell under the exigent circumstances and plain view exceptions recognized by case...