State v. Taylor, WD

• Decision Date: 18 February 1997
• Docket Number: No. WD,WD
• Citation: 943 S.W.2d 675
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. William TAYLOR, Appellant. 51906.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 675

943 S.W.2d 675

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. William TAYLOR, Appellant.

No. WD 51906.

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.

Feb. 18, 1997.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to

Supreme Court Denied April 1, 1997.

Application to Transfer Denied

May 27, 1997.

Willard B. Bunch, Kansas City, for appellant.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Cheryl A. Caponegro, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

SPINDEN, Judge.

A jury convicted William Taylor of first degree murder in his wife's death on November 10, 1994. Part of the evidence used to convict him was his admission that he caused his wife's death by running over her with a combine on the couple's farm in Nodaway County. On appeal, he charges the circuit court with four errors: (1) not suppressing inadmissible evidence; (2) allowing inadmissible testimony by the county coroner; (3) wrongly limiting defense counsel's cross-examination; and (4) inadequately responding to a jury question. We do not find reversible error, and we affirm the judgment of conviction.

Taylor does not dispute the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction. A jury convicted him of killing his wife, Debra Taylor. The evidence supported a theory that Taylor killed his wife by using the family's cat to lure his wife underneath a combine and causing the combine to roll over her, but the jury also heard evidence suggesting that Taylor killed his wife before he put her body under the combine.

Taylor admitted to his brother that he had killed the cat with a hammer and threw it under the combine to lure his wife under the machine. He told his brother that he used twine to pull a lever on the combine to cause it to roll over his wife when she tried to retrieve the cat. He told his brother that he had moved the combine back from his wife's body and hid the twine.

Taylor's brother reported this to the sheriff who interviewed Taylor. Taylor admitted causing his wife's death because he was depressed and believed that his wife wanted a divorce. He explained that he had intended to use twine to pull back on the combine's hydrastat lever, but that he panicked when he saw his wife crawl under the combine. He said that he did not attempt to pull the lever to stop the combine, but that he tried to grab his wife before being run over himself. He said that he had killed the cat before putting it under the combine.

The next day, law enforcement officers returned to Taylor's farm and took photographs and measurements, including measurements of the combine. They found a piece of twine near where Debra Taylor had been lying the previous evening. They seized the cat's corpse.

The coroner examined the cat and found bruising on its neck. The cat's skin was unbroken and had no other apparent sign of injury. The coroner concluded that the cat's death resulted from being hit with a rounded object. He disposed of the corpse after examining it.

A pathologist did an autopsy on Debra Taylor the day after she died. His examination determined that a blunt force had caused lacerations to her forehead and had bruised her left eye. She had contusions on her chest, fractured ribs on the left side and a crushed pelvis. The pathologist concluded that her facial injuries were not consistent with her being run over by a combine. He opined that a blow to her face was inflicted by something other than the combine and that the blow caused her death.

In July 1995, authorities obtained a search warrant and returned to Taylor's farm to remeasure the combine. They found the combine in a shed on property belonging to Taylor's father, Charles Taylor, and less than a mile from William Taylor's house. After seeing the combine in the shed, officers went to Charles Taylor's home, gave him a copy of the warrant, and asked him to unlock the shed. Charles Taylor complied. Officers moved the combine to a nearby John Deere facility to measure it and to photograph it. They videotaped this procedure.

The state charged William Taylor with first degree murder. He presented evidence at trial but did not testify. His defense was that he suffered a delusional disorder which made him unable to appreciate the nature and wrongfulness of his actions. The jury found him guilty as charged, and the circuit court sentenced him to life in prison without probation or parole.

In his first point on appeal, Taylor complains that the circuit court did not suppress evidence obtained pursuant to the July 1995 search warrant. He does not mention in his point relied on what evidence he believes should have been suppressed. In his argument, he referred to his second motion in which he asked the court to suppress a "John Deere combine, and a videotaped demonstration, experiment, or reenactment conducted with the use of said combine[.]" He attacks the search warrant on the ground that the judge who issued it had previously disqualified himself from the case. He also claims the affidavit supporting the search warrant was defective and that the seized evidence constituted "fruit of the poisonous tree." The state responds in part that Taylor has no standing to assert that officers conducted an unreasonable search and seizure because officers seized it from the barn on the farm of Taylor's father, not from a barn on Taylor's property.

We need not resolve the matter because we do not discern any prejudice to Taylor. Assuming for the sake of our consideration that the warrant was defective, the state may use evidence obtained in violation of a defendant's constitutionally-protected privacy interest if it proves that the evidence would have inevitably been discovered by lawful means. Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984); State v. Butler, 676 S.W.2d 809, 812 (Mo. banc 1984). Moreover, an error in the admission of evidence does not necessarily mandate a reversal of a conviction. "Only prejudicial error is reversible error." State v. Tettamble, 720 S.W.2d 741, 742 (Mo.App.1986). If the state presented other evidence establishing essentially the same facts as the improperly admitted evidence, Taylor has suffered no prejudice and no reversible error. State v. Shaw, 915 S.W.2d 775, 783 (Mo.App.1996); State v. Garrette, 699 S.W.2d 468, 503 (Mo.App.1985).

Taylor first says that he was prejudiced because the evidence constituted "fruit of the poisonous tree" from an earlier warrantless search declared illegal by the circuit court. The circuit court granted Taylor's motion to suppress filed on June 2, 1995, and ordered the suppression of any evidence, including photographs, seized from Taylor's property on November 11 and 12, 1994 (the two days immediately after the mishap), and the officers' attempt to use twine to activate the combine.

In making his "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument, Taylor claims that the July 1995 search warrant depended on information obtained by officers during their warrantless search in November. We disagree. Before the officers' investigation on November 11 and 12, they were aware of the combine and its involvement in Debra Taylor's death because of the original "accident" investigation and because of Taylor's confession. Taylor's confession would have led the officers' to the combine regardless of the information obtained during the warrantless search.

Moreover, even if the search warrant was invalid because it was issued by a judge who had disqualified himself from the case, the information officers obtained from the combine would have been discovered inevitably by a legitimate search warrant. Taylor told them that he had used twine to cause the combine to roll over his wife. That independent, untainted source would have inevitably led them to the information obtained in the July 1995 search. Hence, the inevitable discovery rule of Nix made the evidence available to the state for use against Taylor. Taylor suffered no prejudice because officers would have obtained information about the combine inevitably.

Taylor next argues that he was prejudiced because the state did not attempt to obtain the combine pursuant to discovery rules 25.06 ¹ and 26.02. ² He suggests that use of these discovery procedures would have avoided any surprise. Taylor cites no authority to support the proposition that the discovery rules were the exclusive means by which to discover the combine. Moreover, Taylor can hardly claim surprise that the state would want to examine the combine after he admitted using it to kill his wife.

Taylor then complains that the search and seizure of the combine rendered his mental disease and defect defense less effective. He asserts that the officers' measurements and videotape taken of the combine disputed any notion that Debra Taylor's facial...