State v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 04 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. SC 94503,SC 94503 |
| Citation | 466 S.W.3d 521 |
| Parties | State of Missouri, Respondent, v. Demetrick Taylor, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Taylor was represented by Amy E. Love of the public defender's office in St. Louis, (314) 340–7662.
State was represented by Shaun J. Mackelprang of the attorney general's office in Jefferson City, (573) 751–3321.
Demetrick Taylor appeals from a judgment convicting him of one count of possession of a controlled substance, under section 195.202,1 and imposing a sentence of 16 years in prison, as a prior and persistent drug offender. On appeal, Mr. Taylor claims the trial court abused its discretion by excluding testimony from a witness to Mr. Taylor's arrest and violated his due process right to allocution during his sentencing hearing by announcing the sentence the trial court intended to impose before Mr. Taylor had an opportunity to present mitigating evidence. Because the witness's testimony was not relevant as a direct observation of the crime or surrounding circumstances, did not contradict the officers' testimony, and was not proper evidence to impeach the officers' credibility, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the witness's testimony. When Mr. Taylor was heard on his motion for a new trial, the trial court received mitigating evidence, and Mr. Taylor does not show that the court did not consider such evidence in determining Mr. Taylor's sentence. Accordingly, the trial court did not plainly err in deciding Mr. Taylor's sentence before providing him an opportunity to present mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing. The trial court's judgment is affirmed.
On January 25, 2012, at 1:19 a.m., Officer Kristopher Clark and Officer Daniel Chamblin were riding in a marked patrol car when they saw a man walking down a sidewalk looking into parked vehicles. The officers believed the man was checking the vehicles for valuables to steal. The officers saw no one else on the street. When Officer Clark turned the patrol car's mounted spotlight on the man, the man stopped walking and turned his head toward the patrol car. Due to previous encounters, both officers recognized the man as Demetrick Taylor and believed he had active warrants for his arrest.
Officer Clark parked the car, and both officers walked toward Mr. Taylor. When the officers got within five to ten feet of him, Mr. Taylor ran away. The officers chased Mr. Taylor on foot through a vacant lot. Both officers had their flashlights aimed toward Mr. Taylor's hands to see if he possessed a weapon or contraband. Officer Clark was shouting “Stop, police.” Officer Chamblin saw Mr. Taylor reach toward his waistband while running through the lot and make a throwing motion, but Officer Chamblin did not see anything drop. After an approximate 30–second chase, Mr. Taylor came to a tall chain-link fence at the back of the lot. Mr. Taylor attempted to climb the fence, and as he was doing so, both officers saw Mr. Taylor take an object from his waistband and throw it over the fence. Officer Chamblin grabbed Mr. Taylor as he was throwing the object, which the officer saw was a plastic bag. Officer Clark, who had been trailing shortly behind Officer Chamblin, then reached the fence and illuminated Mr. Taylor with his flashlight. The officers were then able to take Mr. Taylor to the ground and handcuff him.
Immediately after handcuffing Mr. Taylor, Officer Chamblin climbed over the fence into the adjacent residential yard to retrieve the thrown object. Officer Chamblin did so immediately because he was afraid that dogs in the yard might destroy the evidence. He retrieved a large clear plastic bag that contained nine smaller individual bags of what appeared to be crack cocaine. Subsequent testing confirmed that the bags contained a total of 1.78 grams of crack cocaine.
Both officers escorted Mr. Taylor to their patrol car and placed him in the rear of the car. Officer Chamblin then obtained consent from the owner of the yard where the bag was thrown to further search the yard. He did not find any other drugs. At the same time, Officer Clark investigated the parked vehicles to see if any had been vandalized. None of the vehicles appeared to be broken into, but one vehicle had its door open. That vehicle's owner, George Ford, exited a nearby house and approached the vehicle and Officer Clark. Officer Clark asked Mr. Ford if he could search the vehicle to see if anything had been stolen. No items appeared to be missing from the vehicle. At 1:34 a.m., Officer Clark checked whether Mr. Ford had any outstanding warrants, as was usual police protocol. Officer Chamblin did not recall speaking to Mr. Ford or checking to see if he had any warrants. Both officers left the neighborhood at approximately 1:39 a.m.
Mr. Taylor was charged, as a prior and persistent drug offender, with one count of possession of a controlled substance, pursuant to section 195.202. During his trial, held on May 22 and 23, 2013, Mr. Taylor's counsel told the court that he intended to call Nautica Little as his sole witness. Addressing the court in anticipation of the state's objection to Ms. Little's testimony, Mr. Taylor's counsel did not call Nautica Little to the stand but, rather, made a narrative statement as an offer of proof:
The state objected based on the relevancy of Ms. Little's testimony “to the point of whether the defendant possessed cocaine or not” and because many of the statements were hearsay. The court sustained the state's objection and excluded Ms. Little's testimony. Twice during the trial, Mr. Taylor attempted to ask the officers about their interactions with Ms. Little. Mr. Taylor asked Officer Clark if he “encounter[ed] anybody else on the street” and asked Officer Chamblin if “there [was] another female that was outside at any point?” The state objected to these questions based on relevancy. The court sustained the objections. Mr. Taylor did not request to make an offer of proof of either officer's testimony. On May 23, 2013, after three and a half hours of deliberation, the jury found Mr. Taylor guilty.
Following the verdict, Mr. Taylor moved for judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, for a new trial, arguing error in the exclusion of Ms. Little's testimony. Mr. Taylor argued it was error to exclude her testimony because it was relevant in that she would have testified that Mr. Ford was outside with Mr. Taylor in contradiction to the police officers' testimony that they saw Mr. Taylor alone looking into vehicles and that, when she came out after Mr. Taylor was on the ground, she attempted to record what was happening and the police officers took away her cell phone. The court overruled the motion and proceeded to sentence Mr. Taylor. In response to the trial court's inquiry whether there was any legal reason why judgment, order, and sentence should not be entered, Mr. Taylor's counsel indicated there was not. Mr. Taylor's counsel then requested that the court sentence Mr. Taylor to 13 years in prison and noted that Mr. Taylor was currently incarcerated in the department of corrections on an unrelated matter. The state requested that Mr. Taylor receive a prison sentence of 17 years due to his three prior convictions for distribution, possession, and trafficking of controlled substances. Before speaking to Mr. Taylor, the court acknowledged it had received a letter on Mr. Taylor's behalf from Reverend E.G. Shields, a person that the court respected.
In addressing Mr. Taylor, the trial court stated, without objection from Mr. Taylor's counsel, that he was “sure [Mr. Taylor's counsel] explained to [him] kind of how [the court] operate[s]” such that Mr. Taylor “already kn[e]w what sentence [he] [was] going to get before [the court] pronounce[s] it.” Mr. Taylor stated he did not know this. The court explained: Mr. Taylor answered: The court answered:
All right. So he already told you what I was going to do and so that's—so it's not a surprise when I sentence you. I just, you know, most people that come in here, they think that the defendant is surprised about the sentence, but the defendants are never surprised because I always tell you beforehand.
The court then asked Mr. Taylor if he had anything he wanted to say. Mr. Taylor stated he did not. The court sentenced Mr. Taylor to 16 years in...
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