State v. Shafer

• Decision Date: 15 December 1980
• Docket Number: No. 61816,61816
• Citation: 609 S.W.2d 153
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Charles Dale SHAFER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 153

609 S.W.2d 153

STATE of Missouri, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Charles Dale SHAFER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 61816.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

Dec. 15, 1980.

C. R. Rhoades, Robert W. Evenson, Pineville, for defendant-appellant.

John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Paul Robert Otto, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for plaintiff-respondent.

RENDLEN, Judge.

Charged with capital murder, defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Following affirmance in the Court of Appeals, Southern District, the cause was transferred that we might examine whether the decision in State v. Euell, 583 S.W.2d 173 (Mo. banc 1979) should be given retrospective application to this case, tried and concluded prior to the date of Euell. Affirming, we utilize portions of the Court of Appeals' opinion without quotation marks.

The essential facts are these: On May 14, 1977, defendant drove from Chicago to the home of his mother-in-law, Iola Thompson, in Jasper County to visit his son and estranged wife, Rita. Rita, who was dating Jerry Sidenstrecker, had gone with him and several others to a fishing camp on a nearby creek where defendant joined them. That evening, in a three-way conversation among Dean Simpson, Rita and defendant, Simpson referred to Rita as Jerry's wife. According to Rita's testimony, defendant in apparent anger replied, "She's not his God damn wife, she's my God damn wife until the day she divorces me, she's my wife." Rita further testified that "Dean apologized and Dale turned to me and said, 'Someone is going to get killed,' and I said, 'Dale, why,' I said, 'Are you going to kill me?' And he said 'No,' I said, 'After all we have been through and hashed that out, are you going to kill me?' and he said, 'No, not you, but someone is going to die.' " During the evening no intimacies were exchanged between Rita and Jerry but that night she and Jerry slept on the same cot with one of the children. Defendant slept in his car.

Leaving camp the next day, defendant appeared at Iola Thompson's house late in the afternoon looking for a gun. Told there was none in the house, he searched a nearby building for a weapon, then returned to the house and when told again by Mrs. Thompson there was no gun, he stated, "That's all right, I can get a gun." As defendant left, he added, "I'm going to kill someone." Mrs. Thompson sent her granddaughter, Michele Felkner, to the camp to tell Rita and Jerry of this development. Hearing of these things Jerry, Rita and Michele left camp in the van, driving along a narrow road to Mrs. Thompson's house. En route they were stopped by an automobile driven by defendant, who was pointing a gun at them and fired a round through his own windshield toward the van. Jerry Sidenstrecker got out and told defendant that Michele was in the van. He pleaded with defendant to spare Michele and Rita. Defendant got out of his car and confronted Sidenstrecker between the vehicles. After a brief verbal exchange, defendant shot and mortally wounded Sidenstrecker, then ordered Rita to get out of the car but not to go for help. At first he threatened her but then without explanation unloaded the gun handing it to her.

Defendant appeared again at Iola Thompson's at about 7:00 p. m. and told her he had killed Jerry Sidenstrecker, then waited for the sheriff. Shortly the officers arrived and he told them he had shot Jerry and wanted to go to jail. An autopsy confirmed the cause of Sidenstrecker's death as the bullet wound.

For his defense, defendant maintained he did not have the required intent at the time of the killing to commit murder in the second degree. Additionally he sought to prohibit his wife from testifying by objecting to her endorsement as a witness on October 3, 1977, claiming his "privilege under the law." The court overruled that objection and permitted her name to remain endorsed as a State's witness and defendant's motion in limine filed October 12 seeking to prohibit her from testifying, was also denied. Immediately before the trial, on October 17, 1977, a hearing was conducted on defendant's motion to prohibit Rita Shafer from testifying as a State's witness. The trial judge overruled the motion relying on State v. Frazier, 550 S.W.2d 590 (Mo.App.1977).

On appeal defendant first contends the conversation with his wife was subject to exclusion as a confidential communication. The facts belie this claim of error. The conversation was not confidential; instead, a third person, Dean Simpson, was present at the time of the discussion. Hence, in the absence of confidentiality the assertion fails. Allen v. Allen, 60 S.W.2d 709, 711 (Mo.App.1933).

Next defendant contends the trial court's admission of his wife's testimony quoting defendant's threat that "someone is going to get killed" was violative of his privilege to have her disqualified as a witness under § 546.260, RSMo 1969, resulting in manifest injustice or miscarriage of justice which requires reversal. Stated otherwise, defendant, who did not object to her testimony at the time of trial, claims it was plain error to permit Rita Shafer to testify for any purpose in the criminal proceeding against him. At common law a husband or wife could not testify for or against the other in any legal proceeding where the spouse was a party except in the prosecution of one for criminal injury to the other, as for assault and battery. State v. Dunbar, 360 Mo. 788, 230 S.W.2d 845, 846 (1950). This disqualification stemmed from (a) the policy of promoting and preserving domestic harmony; ¹ (b) antipathy toward convicting a person by the testimony of one "sharing the secrets of his domestic life" and (c) a perceived temptation to commit perjury. State v. Kollenborn, 304 S.W.2d 855, 859-860 (Mo. banc 1957).

Section 546.260, RSMo 1969, ² whose roots reached into a hundred years of our history, (§ 1918, RSMo 1879), qualifiedly removed the common law disability of a spouse to testify for or against the other in a criminal cause. This statute had been interpreted by a line of cases prior to the trial court's action of which appellant complains. Among these is State v. Dunbar, 230 S.W.2d 845, 360 Mo. 788, decided by this Court in 1950. There it was held the injured spouse could not be compelled to testify against her husband in an assault proceeding stemming from his violence done to her. The Court construing § 4081, RSMo 1939 (identical to § 546.260, RSMo 1969), interpreted the statute as meaning a spouse "may, at his or her own option, testify as a witness for the State." (Emphasis added.) Id. at 847. This interpretation cloaked the witness-spouse with the privilege of testifying voluntarily in a criminal proceeding against the other spouse regardless of whether the witness was the victim. Later, this Court in State v. Kollenborn, 304 S.W.2d 855, 862 (Mo. banc 1957), a criminal proceeding for mistreatment by a defendant of his child in which his spouse testified, again construed the statute (§ 546.260, RSMo 1949, same as 1969), and, permitting defendant's spouse to testify, added this to the construction previously announced in Dunbar : "The modern tendency is to relax the old rules of incompetency of witnesses, (and) generally ... to the extent indicated in this opinion, the broad statements in certain cases to the effect that in no event may a wife testify against her husband in a criminal case, or testify without his consent, should no longer be followed." Id. at 864. More recently in State v. Damico, 513 S.W.2d 351, 361 (Mo.1974), this Court considered the question in a case involving testimony of a witness, divorced from the defendant at time of trial and made these pronouncements construing the language of the statute at bar. "While at common law a wife was incompetent to testify against her husband that complete legal disqualification was removed by the enactment of the statute, now § 546.260, RSMo 1969 ..." Id. at 361. These cases provided a broad base for the decision of the Kansas City Court of Appeals in State v. Frazier, 550 S.W.2d 590 (Mo.App.1977), which, cited to the circuit judge during trial, supplied the foundation for his determination in the case sub judice. In Frazier the testimony of the defendant's former spouse was permitted over objection that she was incompetent as a witness under the statute. Following a lengthy review of the Missouri cases construing the questioned section, the Court of Appeals understandably concluded that the statute had been construed to provide the following rule. "A spouse is now a competent witness against a defendant spouse in any criminal proceeding if the witness spouse willingly testifies; the option of doing so belongs to the witness spouse ..." Id. at 596. Hence, given the history of Missouri cases construing § 546.260 and its predecessors as granting the witness an option of asserting the privilege, it is clear we may not fault the trial court for following the then law as announced by this Court and the Court of Appeals.

In June, 1979, some 20 months after Shafer's trial was concluded, this Court overruled State v. Frazier, stating its holding "is incorrect and should no longer be followed." (Emphasis added.) State v. Euell, 583 S.W.2d 173, 177 (Mo. banc 1979). However, we cannot impose upon the trial judge the omniscience of foretelling this Court's reversal of a line of authority on an evidentiary rule nearly two years after his reliance on the decisional law then in vogue. Instead, Euell is prospective in effect except as to the defendant there. The reasons for prospective application of Euell are quite simple. First, it is clear from the quoted language, Euell was not intended to have retrospective application, for as noted, the Court announced that Frazier "should no longer be followed," (emphasis supplied) and this could only refer to cases tried after June 29, 1979. Second, in Euell the matter was one of statutory interpretation involving...